dr. Tessa Leesen

Bio

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.

Courses

• PASS UCTilburg 1
• Rhetoric in Theory and Practice I
• The Civil and Common Law Traditions
• European History: Politics & Culture
• Minor (LAS)

Recent publications

1. Educational Utopias - Liber Amicorum for Prof.Dr. Alkeline van Lenning

   van der Laan, G., Leesen, T., Bot, M., Dreezens, E., Lakhani, V., Loos, M. J., Shekiladze, A., Spoormans, E. J. C., & Willems, T. (Eds.) (2023). Educational Utopias: Liber Amicorum for Prof.Dr. Alkeline van Lenning. Tilburg University Press.

2. Character Education and Assessment in Practice

   Leesen, T., & van Lenning, A. (Accepted/In press). Character Education and Assessment in Practice. In Core Texts on Character Routledge.

3. Study Success during the Covid-19 Pandemic: - A Multidimensional Appr…

   Leesen, T. (2021). Study Success during the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Multidimensional Approach. In A. van Lenning, & H. de Regt (Eds.), Tilburg Series in Academic Education: Online Academic Education: What to Keep and What to Drop? (Vol. 4, pp. 60-71). https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/about/education/essays

4. Introduction

   Leesen, T. (2020). Introduction. In Success and Failure in Higher Education: Building Resilience in Students (pp. 11-20). (Tilburg series in academic education; Vol. 3). Tilburg University Press.

5. Teaching Students How to Fail - The Resilience Project at University …

   Leesen, T. (2020). Teaching Students How to Fail: The Resilience Project at University College Tilburg. In T. Leesen, & A. van Lenning (Eds.), Success and Failure in Higher Education: Building Resilience in Students (pp. 69-77). (Tilburg Series in Academic Education; Vol. 3). Tilburg University Press. https://www.theresilienceproject.nl/publication