University Council

On Friday, June 25, 1971, the Hogeschool Council was installed. It was, as far as can be ascertained, the first time in the Netherlands that a body such as this became formally authorized to govern the university, in accordance with the principles of the Wet Universitair Bestuur (University Governance Act) that had been enacted in 1970. The WUB, also known in those days as the Veringa Act, named after the Minister of Education.

The establishment of Hogeschool Councils was the result of, among other things, the wave of democratization in the 1960s, in light of which the high-profile 1969 occupation of Tilburg can be called iconic. From April 28 to May 7, the then Katholieke Hogeschool was occupied by students who demanded changes in the university's administration as well as education. In other university cities, such as Amsterdam and Nijmegen, actions for democratization had taken place before, but in Tilburg, it came to an occupation because the curatorium (the executive board, responsible for finances) refused to comment on the so-called "Nota van 21.” This had been drafted by students, together with staff and a number of full professors. Presented on March 24, 1969, it advocated an elected, parity based Hogeschool Council consisting of [RB1] 12 students, 5 staff and 4 full professors.

The role of Tilburg was outlined by mr. Hans Geleijnse, on his retirement in 1988 as chair of the Council. He said the influence of events at the Katholieke Hogeschool on developments at other Dutch universities and on legislation could be summarized in three points:

In Tilburg, for the first time, the requirements were stated relatively simply and clearly and were essentially accepted by the old administrators.

The action model of occupation was soon followed, the most famous being that of the Maagdenhuis, the administration building of the UvA, then municipal university.

The consensus was unprecedented, within all levels of the institution. A possible explanation is the small scale and the fact that the trustees were considered "people from outside.” Another explanation is the archaic relations within the Catholic world in the Netherlands, of which the Hogeschool could be considered a representative. Added to this was the fact that the Catholic universities of Nijmegen and Tilburg attracted relatively large numbers of students from what were called the middle- and lower-income groups. Ton Regtien, occupier in Nijmegen, would write about this that the distance from the elite in those groups was perceived to be the greatest.

With the advent of the WUB, the birth of the "council university" was a reality. Not only a Hogeschool Council, but also councils in the faculties and departments. Already in the first year, however, the fledgling democracy proved fragile. Elections for student members in April 1972 could not take place, due to a lack of candidates. The Council appointed an evaluation committee that determined that there was a vague perception of what the Hogeschool Council did, that the issues were poorly accessible, that the Council's strength and influence were not highly regarded, and that the Council tended to be introspective. A remedy was also presented by the committee: more and new information, admitting non-Council members to the committees and the creation of a presidium and the appointment of an official secretary to the Hogeschool Council, to prevent the Council from having to deal with details.

Historian De Vries put it this way in Part II of the historiography: "All this was not compelling, dragging rather, more so than under the old system, but it possessed, unimpressively, something great in the common attempt to govern and realize democracy, to which an element of learning was inherent." De Vries is also mindful that governance in those days was by no means easy not only because of the WUB. The internal process took place in the light of a changing zeitgeist in which, for the first time, severe cutbacks in higher education were announced. At the same time, higher education was already experiencing explosive growth.

In the face of the headwinds that Council work sometimes encountered, it can be noted that the scholars who had actually participated in the structure were much more positive. And Cees Scheffer, the first Rector Magnificus to deal with the Council and thus able to compare the old and new situation properly, expressed outright praise in 1973. At his farewell, he called the interplay between Council and Board a relief from the relations of the dualistic past and praised the "constructive and committed attitude of the individual members of theCcouncil.” And historian De Vries, who is not always pleased with the administrative renewal, must also conclude in 1977 that the Council did not lack skilled student members, who "turned out to be surprisingly good parliamentarians."

And that still proves true today: the Council is a good breeding ground for administrators. Current University Secretary Hans-Georg van Liempd was on the Council, as was one of his predecessors Gabe van der Zee. And, more recently, VVD chief Klaas Dijkhoff (the list is far from complete).

The latter contributed a Rooms Rood (Roman Red) gift from group SAM (Samen aan de Macht (Together in Power)), accompanying a copy of Das Kapital by Karll Marx with a study on Mary.