I am a lecturer in the field of (legal) history and vice-dean at University College Tilburg. I have completed my PhD in 2009, examining the relation between law and rhetoric in the school controversies between the Sabiniani and Proculiani in the early Roman Principate. Currently, I am coordinating an educational project, for which I received NWO funding (Comenius Senior Grant): ‘The Resilience Project: Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better’. This project aims to enhance the resilience of our students at the University College of Tilburg, who struggle with stress and the high demands of academia, to normalize failure as an integral part of any learning process and of life itself and to critically reflect on the importance attached to individual competitiveness in education and society.