Transcript Speeches Dies Natalis - Universiteit Utrecht

Speeches
Dies Natalis
29 maart I March 2016
Openingsrede door
rector magnificus
Bert van der Zwaan
Dames en heren,
Van harte welkom bij deze
Dies viering, in het bijzonder
de commissaris van de
koning, de burgemeesters
van Utrecht en omringende
gemeenten, ambassadeurs van verschillende
landen, collega’s van kennisinstellingen, partners
op de campus, alumni en vele anderen. Welkom
aan de leden van de Raad van Bestuur van het
UMCU, en evenzeer aan de leden van het College
van Bestuur van de Technische Universiteit
Eindhoven, onze partner-instelling. And of
course: a very special welcome to our guests
from abroad, in particular our honory doctors.
Translation of the parts in Dutch of this ceremony
are provided – we hope that in this way you can
follow everything that is going on this afternoon
in the Dom Church. Tot slot en misschien wel het
meest belangrijke: welkom aan alle onderzoekers,
docenten, studenten, en de medewerkers van
de ondersteunende diensten! Ook vandaag zijn
de studenten weer aanwezig met een apart
studentencortège om hun centrale rol binnen
deze universiteit te symboliseren. En natuurlijk niet
te vergeten: welkom aan alle kijkers en luisteraars
die deze Diesviering meemaken via internet - deze
bijeenkomst wordt “live gestreamed”.
Nu bijna precies 546 jaar geleden, op Sint
Geertruidendag 1470, een zaterdag overigens,
vond een eerste overleg plaats over het stichten
van een Utrechtse universiteit. Op die 17e maart
werd kennelijk vruchtbaar gesproken, in de zin
dat partijen het gezamenlijk eens werden over
nut en noodzaak van het oprichten van een
universiteit. Toch hadden de stad en staten van
Utrecht na dit veelbelovende begin nog 164 jaar
nodig voordat ze zover waren dat de illustere
school officieel kon worden geopend, en twee
jaar daarna, nu precies 380 jaar geleden, werd
de Utrechtse universiteit officieel geïnaugureerd.
Daar was veel aan voorafgegaan: intensieve
gesprekken over regelgeving en salariëring - ook
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toen al. Het scouten van nieuw talent - ook toen
al. Hoogleraren van naam verbonden aan andere
universiteiten wilden graag naar Utrecht komen ook toen al. Maar ze wilden wel een toelage die
paste bij hun status - ook toen al.
Opmerkelijk is dat de eerste periode van de
Utrechtse universiteit zich kenmerkte door de
redding van de Leidse: vanaf 1635 trachtte
het Leidse curatorium de Utrechtse magistraat
te “vertederen” met de “ongevallen, de
Leidse academie overcommen”. Pest had de
studentenpopulatie en het hooglerarenkorps
dusdanig uitgedund dat Utrechtse versterking
nodig was. Het Leidse curatorium benadrukte dat
hun academie was “commen te declineren en
deze stadacademie (= de Utrechtse) te floreren
en toe te nemen, soo men gemeenlick sach dat
des eens ondergangh des anders opgangh was”.
Gelukkig is het met die ondergang van Leiden
nooit zover gekomen, want het is een zeer
gewaardeerde zusterinstelling - en we hebben ze
graag op de been gehouden.
Op de dag van de feestelijke opening in maart,
nu 380 jaar geleden, werd de stoet hoogleraren
naar de Domkerk voorafgegaan door de schout
en burgemeesters, en in de kerk zaten vele
vorsten en hoogwaardigheidsbekleders. Volgens
de verslagen uit die tijd beierden de klokken in
de hele stad. Hier in de Domkerk, precies op de
plaats waar ik nu sta, volgens het verslag van de
feestelijk opening rechts van de preekstoel, stond
de eerste rector Bernardus Schotanus toen hij staf
en de beide zegels van de universiteit ontving uit
handen van de secretaris van de stad, Johan van
der Nijpoort.
Niets lijkt veranderd sinds die dag, en toch is alles
anders. Hoewel het beeld in de Domkerk vandaag
in veel opzichten een aardige kopie is van 1636,
is de wereld onherkenbaar veranderd. Hoewel de
universiteit toen en nu bedoeld was om kennis
te vergaren en door te geven, is de context van
wetenschap ingrijpend gewijzigd. Het is goed ons
juist op deze dag af te vragen wat ook weer de
bedoeling was van de universiteit. Temeer omdat
daar vorig jaar in Nederland een fors debat over
heeft gewoed, een debat dat tot mijn spijt alweer
Dies Natalis 2016
bijna van de agenda is. Ik heb toen weliswaar
vanaf deze plek scherp uitgehaald naar de vage
romantische noties van “bildung” - omdat velen
dat woord leken te gebruiken zonder enig benul maar ik heb aan de andere kant groeperingen als
bijvoorbeeld de Nieuwe Universiteit en RethinkUU
begroet als nuttige bewegingen om beter te
doordenken waartoe wij als universiteit op aarde
zijn, overigens een veel belangrijker vraag dan de
vraag die vorig jaar actueel was, namelijk “van
wie is de universiteit”.
Het is duidelijk dat sinds onze eerste academie
er veel veranderd is, en dat daarmee de rol van
de universiteit ingrijpend gewijzigd lijkt. Wij zijn
al lang niet meer die ivoren toren van waaruit
wetenschappelijke dagdromerij over zwarte
gaten, het binnenste van de aarde, of het brein
van de mens in vrijheid kon vloeien, overigens
tegen vaak armoedige betaling en onder vaak
barre omstandigheden. Wij zijn al lang niet
meer de professionele academie waar vooral
juristen, theologen en artsen werden opgeleid.
Wij staan inmiddels midden in de maatschappij,
worden overstroomd met studenten, en zijn
geconfronteerd met een overheid die zich - ook
financieel - terugtrekt.
en beslissende rol te spelen. De samenleving zal
de nadrukkelijke vraag stellen om een bijdrage
aan de grote maatschappelijke problemen die op
ons afkomen.
De wereld trekt, dames en heren, in grote vaart
aan ons voorbij. Ik kan daar een zorgelijke
verhandeling over houden, of de spannende
uitdagingen identificeren die we met vertrouwen
tegemoet zien. Ik kan ook vertellen waar we
eventueel tekort schieten, of uitleggen waar we al
excelleren en het uitstekend doen. Daar hebben
we het altijd over, ook in het debat met de
minister en met maatschappelijke partners: waar
excelleren we, waar profileren we ons, waarin zijn
we onderscheidend?
Maar ik wil vandaag vooral aandacht besteden
aan iets waar we in de waan van de dag te weinig
bij stilstaan: waar komt de kracht vandaan om
ons steeds weer aan te passen, nieuwe vormen
te vinden - waar precies zit de veerkracht van
de universitas magistrorum et scholarium, de
gemeenschap van docenten en studenten? Wat
is het belang van deze gemeenschap, en hoe
onderhouden we die? Kortom: wat is de essentie
van de universiteit die ons al eeuwen doet
overleven?
Sinds 1636 is de wereld ingrijpend veranderd en
zal dat ook de komende jaren in een verbluffend
hoog tempo blijven doen. Ik noem een paar van
de belangrijkste veranderingen die de positie van
de universiteit onvermijdelijk en diepgaand zullen
beïnvloeden. Wereldwijde verschuivingen in de
economische machtsbalans en technologische
ontwikkelingen zorgen voor een steeds
competitiever speelveld voor wetenschappers
en kennisinstellingen. De snelle ontwikkelingen
op het gebied van digitalisering veranderen het
mondiale onderwijslandschap voortdurend. De
groei van onze wereldbevolking en welvaart leidt
tot toenemende schaarste van voedsel, water,
energie en grondstoffen.
Want het is duidelijk: in de periode van de
afgelopen eeuwen zijn onderwijs en onderzoek
voortdurend veranderd, zijn ook de studenten en
de docenten veranderd, maar heeft de organisatie
kennelijk als een buffer al die schokken
opvangen, en de studenten en medewerkers
op een natuurlijke manier in de veranderingen
meegenomen. Vanuit dat perspectief beschouwd
is de mate waarin, en het tempo waarmee, de
organisatie zich weet aan te passen en toch de
band met medewerkers en studenten hecht
weet te houden, de essentie van het succesvolle
overleven van de universiteit tot nu toe, en dus
bepalend voor onze toekomst.
De maatschappelijke uitdagingen zijn van een
zodanige mondiale en complexe omvang,
dat dit een steeds grotere druk zet op de
kennisinstellingen om hier een onderscheidende
Maar de vraag is dan: wat bindt ons en wat vormt
onze gemeenschap? Terugkijkend op de vele
debatten die we de afgelopen maanden voerden
over onze strategie voor de komende 5-10 jaar,
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Dies Natalis 2016
stond juist die vraag vaak centraal, overigens
zonder dat die expliciet benoemd werd. Dat doe
ik nu wel en grijp daarbij vooruit naar antwoorden
die we in ons strategieplan formuleren om de
organisatie te versterken.
Centraal staat dat de Universiteit Utrecht een
universiteit wil zijn waar medewerkers en
studenten verbonden worden in hun ambitie om
via onderwijs en onderzoek te bouwen aan een
betere wereld. We willen een naar buiten gerichte
organisatie zijn - of worden waar we dat nog niet
zijn, weten wat er in de wereld speelt en wat de
maatschappij van ons vraagt.
We moeten een gemeenschap zijn of worden
met een cultuur gericht op vertrouwen, in een
wereld van “low trust”. Dat betekent: recht doen
aan professionele autonomie van medewerkers
en focus op resultaten in combinatie met heldere
verantwoordelijkheden. Minder regels en minder
controle, maar ook meer zelf verantwoordelijkheid
nemen. Leiderschap is cruciaal om deze visie uit te
dragen en vorm te geven. Daarom zullen we nog
meer dan de afgelopen jaren aandacht besteden
aan de versterking van leiderschap waar dat nodig
is.
Maar boven alles verdient werkplezier en
ontplooiing aandacht. Binnen de Universiteit
Utrecht spelen communities nu al een cruciale
rol: de gemeenschap van docenten en studenten,
van interdisciplinaire samenwerkings-verbanden
in onderzoek, van docenten binnen de Teaching
Academy, van de vele kunst-gezelschappen en
sportverenigingen die we hebben, van Studium
Generale. Onze ambitie moet zijn dat al onze
medewerkers zich via die vele gemeenschappen
diep verbonden voelen met elkaar en met de
Universiteit Utrecht.
We maken dat komende jaren nog verder
zichtbaar en voelbaar in ons onderwijs dan nu
al het geval is: kleinschalig onderwijs waar we
de afgelopen jaren al grote stappen hebben
gezet, zal nog kleinschaliger worden. De grote
investeringen van de afgelopen tijd hebben geleid
tot sterk toegenomen contact tussen studenten en
docenten. Dat leverde niet alleen een ongekende
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stijging op van het studiesucces, maar leidt ook
tot steeds meer mogelijkheden om onderzoek
vroeg in de studie, soms al het eerste jaar, in te
bouwen. We hebben de afgelopen jaren – waar
de onderwijsfabriek dreigde – de community meer
kans gegeven. En niet alleen studiesucces nam
toe, maar ook werkplezier van docenten kon zich
herstellen.
Ook de komende jaren komt met de voortzetting
van dit beleid steeds meer ruimte voor initiatieven
van studenten, waar bijvoorbeeld zelfsturende
teams van studenten prachtig onderzoek kunnen
doen zoals nu al in de honours colleges. Ook de
afgelopen jaren is gebleken dat zulk onderzoek
kan leiden tot toppublicaties. Hier willen we op
voortbouwen en nog meer ruimte bieden aan
onderzoek in de bachelorfase. De versterking van
de samenhang tussen onderwijs en onderzoek
betekent dat er stapsgewijs ook meer ruimte komt
voor interdisciplinair onderwijs, in lijn met wat er
in het onderzoek gaande is.
De investeringen van de afgelopen jaren in
interdisciplinair onderzoek hebben geleid tot
hele nieuwe communities waar baanbrekend
werk wordt gedaan. Bijvoorbeeld op het gebied
van Food, waar gedragswetenschappers samen
met biologen en biomedici werken aan “Future
Food”. Kijk naar de samenwerkingen tussen
gamma- en alfa-wetenschappers, samen met
bètawetenschappers, op het gebied van Instituties
en Duurzaamheid. Dwars door onze universiteit
heen zijn de silo’s doorbroken en is naast de
traditioneel sterk disciplinaire gemeenschappen,
een hele reeks nieuwe gemeenschappen ontstaan.
Deze interdisciplinaire verbanden worden ook
de komende jaren gestimuleerd en voorzien
van flexibele “hubs” waarin wetenschappers
samenwerken met andere partijen om grote
wetenschappelijke en maatschappelijke vragen
op te lossen. Het traditionele verband van de
discipline blijft bestaan, maar de flexibiliteit van de
onderzoeker neemt toe.
De brandstof voor een hechte gemeenschap is
vertrouwen. Ik zei eerder al dat we een organisatie
willen zijn van high trust, te midden van een
maatschappij waarin low trust domineert.
Dies Natalis 2016
Daarom wil de universiteit uitstralen dat ze ook
werkelijk vertrouwen geeft. We gaan verder met
de vorig jaar gestarte initiatieven op het gebied
van deregulering, gericht op vermindering van
regels en onnodige administratieve lasten, en
versimpeling van procedures en versnelling van
besluitvorming. Ontzorgen van wetenschappers
en studenten staat hierbij centraal, zonder daarbij
het gemeenschappelijk belang en efficiëntie uit
het oog te verliezen.
Alle medewerkers krijgen meer ruimte voor
ontwikkeling. In het bijzonder wordt de
komende jaren verder aandacht besteed aan de
onderwijscarrière. Naast de mogelijkheid van
hoogleraren met specifieke onderwijssignatuur,
waarvan we er al 32 hebben, openen we binnen
een nieuw te vormen centrum voor Academic
Teaching een tenure-pad voor jonge toptalenten
om na een track van 3-5 jaar onderwijshoogleraar
te worden, terwijl we de normale bevorderingen
op basis van onderwijsprestaties ingrijpend gaan
verbeteren.
De geschetste ontwikkelingen in onderwijs en
onderzoek zijn allemaal een logisch uitvloeisel
van de enorme stappen die we de afgelopen
jaren hebben gemaakt. Maar al die stappen
waren en zijn alleen maar mogelijk als de
universitas magistrorum et scholarium op orde
is. Als er sprake is van een werkelijke cultuur van
samenwerken. Alleen door die gemeenschappen,
waarin onderwijs en onderzoek gezien worden
als een proces van co-creatie, is het mogelijk
al die veranderingen in de wereld om ons
heen te blijven volgen. Dat is de kern van onze
universiteit, en alleen zo behoudt onze universiteit
zijn vooraanstaande positie. Alleen zo kan onze
universiteit als eeuwenoude institutie een baken
van vertrouwen blijven in een wereld waarin al te
vaak de “wisdom of the crowd” regeert. Bedenk:
het gaat niet om rankings, het gaat niet alleen
om topprestaties. We hebben als universiteit een
belangrijke taak in het maatschappelijke debat om
vertrouwen uit te stralen en gezaghebbend koers
te bepalen in de vele vragen en veranderingen
die op ons afkomen. Door de veerkracht van de
universitas, blijft de universiteit verbonden met
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alle veranderingen, en blijft tegelijk gezaghebbend
en relevant voor de maatschappij van morgen.
Niets lijkt veranderd, toch is alles anders. Onze
universiteit, dames en heren, is nu 380 jaar oud en
staat in een veel langere traditie die teruggaat tot
diep in de middeleeuwen. Onze universiteit heeft
veel gezien en veel meegemaakt. Maar ik heb al
aangegeven dat de essentie van onze universiteit
onveranderd is, gevormd als die wordt door
steeds dezelfde gemeenschap: de gemeenschap
van gelijkgezinden die nieuwsgierig is, die
vragen stelt, onvermoeibaar kennis overdraagt
aan jonge mensen die daarmee nog verdere
verten gaan ontsluiten dan hun voorgangers.
Een gemeenschap waar high trust heerst, waar
de maat der dingen niet het aantal is, maar de
kwaliteit. Waar naast veel aandacht voor hele
fundamentele vragen, ook veel aandacht is voor
maatschappelijke vragen. Waar de tijd wegvalt
in de vragen over verleden, heden en toekomst.
Een gemeenschap waarin verbinden en scheppen
centraal staan. Zonder verbinding met elkaar geen
inspiratie, zonder inspiratie geen schepping of
ontdekking. Daarom ligt dáár de nadruk van ons
nieuwe strategieplan. Het motto van ons lustrum
is goed gekozen: “Create and Connect” - dat is
de kern van onze universiteit. Dáártoe zijn we op
aarde, al 380 jaar lang.
Dies Natalis 2016
Honorary doctorates
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Dies Natalis 2016
Honorary doctorate for
Francine Houben
Laudation by
Maarten Hajer
Distinguished Professor
in Urban Futures of the
Faculty of Geosciences
Architecture and urban design are ways to
shape society. Once complete, buildings provide
structure to our social interaction, restricting
some possibilities, enabling others. As such, urban
development is an act of cultural intervention.
Architect Francine Houben is very much aware of
this cultural endeavour. Over the thirty years of
her career Francine Houben has won international
acclaim. Her humane architecture and her talent
for creating public domains within society stand
out. Invariably, her architecture is rooted in
observation: in watching and listening, in feeling
and in smelling. Houben starts any project by
walking around an area for weeks, talking to
people, taking photographs. The knowledge she
gathers is reflected in the architectural and urban
design choices that she makes.
An anecdote may illustrate this. In the mid-1980s,
her office Mecanoo was engaged for an urban
renewal project in a district of Rotterdam called
Afrikaanderwijk. Houben contacted the future
residents and discovered that they included many
retired or active dockworkers’ families. And
while the urban renewal department produced
mainstream low-rise designs of up to four or five
floors at most, Mecanoo came up with a plan for
high-rise construction affording splendid views of
the harbour, their harbour. Indeed, high-rise. Highrise on demand. High-rise for a social cause.
Francine Houben was educated in the modern
paradigm of architecture at Delft University of
Technology. However, inspired in part by her
collaboration with the Portuguese architect Alvaro
Siza, she soon embarked on a quest to find new
forms in which to express her social ideals. The
university library she designed for Delft reflects her
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liberation from the modern paradigm. The library
is located right behind the imposing university
auditorium, built by Van der Broek en Bakema
architects. It is regarded one of the greatest
achievements in the Netherlands of a movement
in architecture known as ‘Brutalism’. Houben’s
much-praised library (1997) is impervious however
to the brutalism of its neighbour. With its grassy
slope and diagonals the library, Houben says, is
‘a building that really wants to be a landscape’.
The library has been a favourite meeting place for
students from the day it was opened.
Since then, Houben’s work has developed
into an oeuvre that is more than impressive,
encompassing museums, complex music and
cultural venues, libraries and urban redevelopment
projects, as well as residential buildings and
offices, on four continents. Overseeing that oeuvre
Mecanoo does not represent a single aesthetic
style. Rather, Houben’s fame derives from her
capacity to bring out the best in people. Houben
constructs a mentality.
Opened in 2013, Houben’s new library for
Birmingham is a case in point. It gave the centre of
Birmingham a new, non-commercial heart – a new
public domain that was used by local residents,
in all their diversity, as soon as it was completed.
In the segment of environments for learning, the
building of Amsterdam University College (2012) is
another marvel of ingenious design.
Houben’s recent engagements are the envy of all
architects: the renovation and modernisation of
the Martin Luther King Jr library in Washington,
originally designed by Mies van der Rohe, and,
topping even that, the renovation of the worldfamous New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue.
The building, generally recognized as a hallmark
of public domain in Manhattan, is now entrusted
to the care of an architect who knows how to use
stones to build an open society.
Dies Natalis 2016
Word of thanks
Francine Houben
Rector Magnificus, dear audience
It is a great honour for me to be here today, in
this wonderful building, to receive an Honorary
Doctorate from Utrecht University. I thank
the Rector and the Board for the Conferral of
Doctoral Degrees for this prestigious and certainly
unexpected recognition. And I would especially
like to thank Professor Maarten Hajer for his very
kind words about my work, which centres on
people and social interaction.
People Place Purpose is the title of my most
recently published book. I am aware that most of
you would expect the work of an architect to be
form-based.That one might develop a certain style
in the early years of one’s career, find one’s own
identity in a certain style and then continue in that
style. For me, that does not make sense. Looking
back over a career spanning more than 30 years,
I liken my work to the year rings of a tree. The
core is the Delft University of Technology, where
I started my studies in 1974. The competition
we won as students in 1980 became the start of
Mecanoo architecten.
In architecture school, we are constantly taught to
focus on the building’s purpose. But many things
we once took for granted are no longer the same,
including the brief. My experience over 30 years
is that the programme will always change. As
architects, we need to design for predictable and
unpredictable change. What was education like 20
years ago, when we were designing the Faculty of
Economics and Management that opened at De
Uithof in 1995?
That is why I say: first the People, then the Place
and then the Purpose.
Utrecht University is interested in collaborations
both within the institution itself and with external
disciplines. As a member of the Society of Arts,
part of the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts
and Sciences, I can tell you how interesting and
inspiring it is to meet with people from other
fields. I am convinced that if you want to be
innovative, you need to work with researchers
from a wide range of specialities, with passion,
creativity and curiosity. Interesting developments
in architecture are produced by those who create
the freedom to experiment and work together
between the fragmented practices of design and
construction.
I look forward to stay in touch with the faculties of
Utrecht University as part of my lifelong learning.
I am deeply honoured to receive an honorary
degree in Utrecht, the city where I met my
husband Hans Andersson.
I would like to thank the University for this
Honorary Doctorate. As an engineer trained at
Delft University of Technology, it is a great honour
to be the first architect to receive this recognition.
How has education continued to develop over the
past ten years? And how are we now preparing
for the education of the future? Learning
environments keep evolving, however, people and
their senses do not change that much. Nor the
places where we design buildings, with their local
climate and culture.
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Dies Natalis 2016
Professor Robert J.
Sampson, Henry Ford II
Professor of the Social
Sciences at Harvard
University
Honorary supervisor
Tanja van der Lippe,
Professor of Sociology
Robert Sampson is one of the most influential
sociologists worldwide. He is Henry Ford II
Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard
University. His research centers on crime, the life
course, inequality, and the social organization of
cities.
The unique perspective that Robert Sampson
brings to sociology takes individuals seriously
and reveals how the social and cultural context
profoundly shapes mechanisms of social causality.
He underpins his challenging and inspiring ideas
by a rigorous analysis of data, including the use of
big data for informing public policy.
Based on one of the most ambitious studies in
the history of social science, Sampson’s globallyacclaimed book Great American City demonstrates
that neighborhoods influence their residents’ lives
along a wide variety of dimensions, including
crime, disorder, civic engagement, collective
efficacy, and altruism, and that differences
between neighborhoods are surprisingly enduring.
Sampson is innovative in that he takes a
systematic approach to measuring dimensions of
city life. His pioneering work has given rise to the
new field of ecometrics, which seeks to rigorously
quantify the impact of neighborhoods. Sampson
has thus laid out a comprehensive roadmap for
the study of context.
such as marriage, military service, or employment.
These findings have had a broad influence on
criminology worldwide.
Robert Sampson is the most cited author in
criminology and one of the four most cited
sociologists alive. He has published in the
flagship journals of sociology, criminology, and
demography. He has received many honors,
such as the Stockholm Prize in Criminology and
Distinguished Book Awards from the American
Sociological Association. He is a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a
member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Robert Sampson is a truly exceptional scientist. His
ability to see and analyze the importance of the
social context for human behavior has allowed
him to achieve a brilliant synthesis of the factors
that determine social inequality and wellbeing.
Sampson’s work is a source of inspiration for
students and researchers. It is an outstanding
example of how fundamental social research can
help us address urgent societal issues.
I am delighted that Utrecht University has decided
to award an honorary doctorate to Professor
Sampson. Congratulations!
Moreover, Sampson and his co-author John Laub
are renowned for the longest life-course study
of criminal behavior ever conducted, resulting
in the books Crime in the Making and Shared
Beginnings, Divergent Lives. They discovered that
even very active criminals renounce crime for good
after key “turning points” in their lives,
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Dies Natalis 2016
Word of thanks
Professor Robert J. Sampson
It is a genuine honor to be awarded an honorary
doctorate from Utrecht University on the occasion
of its 380th anniversary. I deeply appreciate the
recognition and I thank the Rector, the Board,
Professor Tanja van der Lippe, and the university
at large for this wonderful occasion. It is one I will
long remember.
I am particularly honored because social science
research at Utrecht is recognized around the
world for its quality and scientific rigor. Moreover,
the faculty here has produced important work
on issues that I have cared about and grappled
with my entire career—such as social inequality,
immigration, community networks, and crime.
This makes the recognition doubly meaningful.
Allow me to briefly highlight my research in two
of these areas. The first is the question of why
individuals commit crime—a puzzle that has
motivated me since graduate student days. Early
on, I became dissatisfied with the then dominant
explanation that adult criminality resulted from
either poverty or childhood traits. Most poor
adults do not commit crime, and while childhood
traits are important, the origins of crime in
childhood are overstated by methodological
approaches that start with adult offenders and
look backwards in time.
In fact, if we begin with children in trouble and
follow them to adulthood, we find remarkable
divergence in life outcomes—notably, although
so-called antisocial children do become
disproportionately involved in delinquency as
adolescents, most stop offending by adulthood.
It was only by examining prospective longitudinal
data over the long term—studying lives forward
in time—that I discovered this fact with my
colleague, John Laub, when we embarked on a
long-term study of crime starting in the 1980s
that integrated historical archival records with our
own data collection on the lives of 500 Boston
men. Eventually the data we constructed spanned
from adolescence to age 70 – more than 60 years.
1 0 | Utrecht University
In a series of articles and books analyzing these
data, we showed the importance of pathways
and turning points across the life course for
understanding crime. We developed a theory
of age-graded informal social control that views
criminal behavior as constantly shaped and
mediated by social institutions and interactions.
We also discovered the importance of adult
turning points such as employment and marriage
that have the capacity to redirect criminal
trajectories. This is a liberating and ultimately
optimistic finding—yesterday’s offender is not
inevitably tomorrow’s criminal—in turn yielding
constructive policy options.
The second puzzle that I have long been
motivated to explain is spatial inequality. Despite
claims that technology has erased physical
distance and created a placeless world, a
surprising number of human behaviors are sharply
concentrated by place. Indeed, a small number
of neighborhoods account for the majority of any
city’s social problems.
To advance our understanding of this pattern
I helped design the “Project on Human
Development in Chicago Neighborhoods” in the
mid-1990s. In addition to a longitudinal study
of individuals that is still ongoing, our research
team constructed new ways to measure the
neighborhood environments in which human
development unfolds. Based on surveys of citizens,
videotaping of streets, social networks among
leaders and systematic observations, we created a
set of metrics for assessing ecology of the city—
what we termed “eco-metrics.”
We used the tools of ecometrics to test theoretical
hypotheses about why and how neighborhoods
matter, focusing on previously underappreciated
social mechanisms. For example, we showed
the independent role of a community’s level of
social trust and shared expectations for control—
its “collective efficacy”—in explaining rates of
violence. We also discovered that inequality is
more enduring than commonly thought and
Dies Natalis 2016
that neighborhoods influence a wide variety of
other social phenomena, including health, civic
engagement, cognitive development, leadership
networks, and migration flows.
In closing, I am once again deeply honored to join
the intellectual community of scholars at Utrecht.
In an era of increasing inequalities across the life
course and in cities around the world, I believe
that social science has a critical role to play in
making a difference and improving the human
condition.
Thank you.
1 1 | Utrecht University
Dies Natalis 2016
Jordi Savall, Musician
and conductor of
Medieval, Renaissance
and Baroque Music,
and EU and UNESCO
Cultural Ambassador
for Peace
Honorary Supervisor
Rosi Braidotti,
Distinguished
University Professor of
the Humanities
Jordi Savall is internationally recognized as a
leading figure in the field of Western early music,
largely responsible for reviving the use of early viol
family instruments , notably the viola da gamba.
His repertoire features medieval, Renaissance
and Baroque music, although he has occasionally
ventured into the Classical and even the Romantic
periods.
composers. His artistic practice thus became to a
large extent research-driven. This has also resulted
in a sustained pedagogical practice through
intensive courses, master classes and seminars.
The other remarkable aspects of Savall’s work
is his civic commitment to the social relevance
of musical practice. Not only does Jordi Savall
make a point of employing musicians from many
different cultural and religious backgrounds, but
also, in his choice of repertoire, he emphasizes the
Jewish, Islamic and Christian roots of a musical
tradition that is too often assimilated to only some
dominant ethnic and cultural group.
Jordi Savall has also made an original contribution
to the field as a director. In 1974 he formed the
ensemble Hespèrion XX (known since 2000 as
Hesperiòn XX1; In 1987 he founded La Capella
Reial de Catalunya, a vocal ensemble devoted to
pre-eighteenth-century music. In 1989 he founded
Le Concert des Nations, an orchestra generally
emphasizing Baroque music, but sometimes also
Classical and even Romantic repertoire.
By performing the great wealth of traditions and
sources that mark Europe as a multicultural and
cosmopolitan society, Jordi Savall re-appraises
diversity as a great resource and as a building
block of cultural dialogues for tolerance and social
cohesion.
Savall’s discography includes more than 100
recordings, with EMI Classics and then on Michel
Bernstein, Astrée label and, since 1998 on his
own label, Alia Vox. Savall has to his credit an
impressive list of international musical awards.
In recognition of his contribution, Jordi Savall
was appointed European Union Ambassador for
intercultural dialogue and UNESCO “Artist for
Peace”.
There are two other prominent features to Jordi
Savall’s remarkable career that are relevant for the
award of an Honorary degree by our university,
which is jointly sponsored by the Centre for the
Humanities and the Musicology section of the
Humanities Faculty, notably Professor Karl Kuegle.
This is a message the contemporary world needs
to hear and understand.
He was also awarded the Gold Medal of the
Region of Catalonia and the Légion d’Honneur
from the French Government.
It is only fitting therefore that today Jordi Savall
should be made an honorary doctor of our
distinguished university.
The first is Savall’s patient archival research work
on musical scores, for instance on the scores by
Marin Marais, who became one of his favourite
1 2 | Utrecht University
Dies Natalis 2016
Sybil Seitzinger,
Professor in the School
of Environmental
Sciences University of
Victoria and Executive
director of the Pacific
Institute for Climate
Solutions.
Honorary Supervisor
Jack Middelburg,
Professor of Earth
Sciences, Geochemistry
The Earth is a special planet because there is life,
water and a reactive atmosphere with oxygen. The
rocks, water and the atmosphere have provided
the conditions for life to develop and evolve,
and the organisms have shaped the surface of
the earth and the composition of rock, water
and air. The living world (biosphere) and dead
world (geosphere) are connected in multiple ways
and have to be studied together, in particular
since one single species on this earth is causing
unprecedented changes at the global scale,
including climate change.
Prof. Sybil Seitzinger has shown worldwide
scientific leadership to integrate physical,
chemical and biological approaches to elucidate
environmental processes and how humans
have changed these. In her early career she has
pioneered studies on denitrification and the
production of nitrous oxide, a climate-active gas,
in aquatic systems: from small streams to large
rivers and estuaries. Denitrification is now widely
recognized as a natural ecosystems function that
humans should value and preserve.
Eutrophication, the perturbation of aquatic
systems due to human-derived nutrients, was
already recognized as an important environmental
problem in the middle of the last century,
but was primarily considered a local problem.
Prof. Seitzinger showed that nutrient release
from sewage, land-use change and changing
agricultural practices is a global problem. She
was instrumental in the establishment and
development of Global News, a UNESCO
1 3 | Utrecht University
supported initiative to quantify the nutrient
release to and transport by river to the sea at the
global scale. This made us aware that human
activities and policy measures upstream have
major consequences for ecosystem functioning
downstream, for example excess nitrogen release
in Iowa has consequences for low-oxygen
conditions in the Gulf of Mexico.
Professor Seitzinger combines scientific excellence
with outstanding scientific leadership skills and
commitment to serve the scientific community
and society at large. She has served 4 years as
president of ASLO, the American Society for
Limnology & Oceanography, and has been
executive director of IGBP, the international
geosphere-biosphere research program, from
2008-2015. In this function she has played a
pivotal role to involve the global community in
addressing global environmental processes such
as climate change. She continues serving the
community in her new role as director of the
Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions in British
Colombia.
With this honorary degree Utrecht University
recognizes her landmark contributions to nutrient
cycling in a changing world and her unselfish
world-wide leadership in connecting fundamental
science to pressing environmental issues.
Thank you.
Dies Natalis 2016
Word of thanks
dr. Sybil Seitzinger
It is a great honour to receive this Honorary
Doctorate from Utrecht University, particularly
during this special year – the university’s 380th
anniversary.
Three concepts characterize my career: global
environmental change, collaboration, solutions.
Early in my career I researched local scale issues
along the US East Coast, issues that quickly
showed themselves to have global ramifications.
I focused on nutrients entering coastal waters
from human activities including from agriculture,
sewage, and energy production in upstream
watersheds. Nutrient enrichment of coastal
waters might sound like something good, but too
much leads to loss of oxygen and algal blooms
harmful to ecosystems and humans, threatening
economic activities upon which coastal
communities depend. My research was the first to
show that coastal systems behave as a major filter
removing often half of the nitrogen from pollution
sources, thus helping to decrease the negative
impacts. This understanding is now incorporated
into many countries’ nitrogen management.
When I was a student there were 4 billion people;
now there are almost 7.5 billion. That’s billions
of wonderful people on our planet. It’s also a
very large number altering the face of our planet
- changing land use, degrading air, freshwater
and coastal ecosystems, and emitting greenhouse
gases leading to a warming climate, sea level rise,
ocean acidification.
The scale kept growing. I became the director of
the International Geosphere Biosphere Program
which brings together over 5000 incredibly
talented and committed scientists from all
continents, working to better understand the
causes and consequences of environmental
change, including the most urgent issue today,
climate change.
This past year I started a new chapter, as director
of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, with
my focus shifting from human impacts on the
environment, to now seeking solutions to those
problems. We engage researchers, policy makers,
entrepreneurs, and communities to develop
pathways to a low-carbon energy system and to
adapt to changing climate.
The environmental issues facing us are
indeed large. But this is also a time with new
opportunities, and an unprecedented level
of global collaboration as indicated by the
commitment last year in Paris by 196 countries to
reduce climate change.
I would like to think that my receiving this honour
reflects recognition of the interconnections of
our impacts from a local to a global scale and the
urgency to find solutions at all levels.
I am honoured to be receiving a degree from this
great university.
As my career advanced it transitioned from the
local and regional to the global. A big part of that
transition was collaboration with Dutch scientists
starting in the early 1990’s. With scientists around
the world we used knowledge at smaller scales to
develop detailed global models exploring patterns
of human impacts in watersheds around the
world.
1 4 | Utrecht University
Dies Natalis 2016
Anniversary
speech
Beatrice de Graaf,
Professor of the
History of International
Relations & Global
Governance
afternoon, on that same Sunday, these exotic
forces entered the city through the Wittevrouwen
Gate. Pieter Gerardus van Os, a Utrecht painter,
was present, and captured the momentous
occasion on canvas (still to be admired at the
Centraal Museum). Van Os depicted the moment
when the Cossacks were being cheered by a joyful
crowd before going on to make their quarters in
the city center.2 Their arrival was not a minute too
late. French gardes, in the meantime, were leaving
horror and destruction in their wake, killing and
maiming dozens of citizens that crossed their path
while withdrawing to the south.3
A University in Times of Crisis
On the occasion of this anniversary,1 I would like
to take you back to another important moment in
the history of our university. Not to its inception in
March 1636, but to its resurrection 200 years ago,
when, against the backdrop of turmoil and a great
European crisis, the new UU was prompted to
reflect on its sense of self, mission, and purpose.
We will see how the university’s board, professors,
and students took advantage of the crisis and
re-established the university as an autonomous
site for the production of knowledge and public
service.
The city liberated
On Sunday 28th November 1813, a historic
moment unfolded before the eyes of Utrecht’s
inhabitants. Very early that morning, around 3
o’clock, French occupation troops had left the
city through the Tolsteeg Gate under the cloak
of darkness. French scouts had sighted Russian
soldiers, “Cossacks,” approaching the city from
the east and had warned their comrades with
flares. And indeed, at half past two in the
1 The author would like to thank Christoph Baumgartner, Bas
van Bavel, Renger de Bruin, Leen Dorsman and Maarten
Prak for their comments on the text.
2 In addition to this painting he also wrote a report of what
transpired. The painting by P. G. Van Os was given to Tsar
Alexander I as a gift. On 18 December 1824, the painter
received in turn an expensive diamond ring as a token
of thanks, along with a letter from the Russian minister
of foreign affairs Count Nesselrode, explaining that the
tsar was very pleased with the painting. See: Van Eijnden
and Van der Willigen 1816–1840, vol. 3 (1820): 205; and
the appendix (1840); 73–74. The painting’s inscription
1 5 | Utrecht University
Utrecht was free again – finally liberated from
the oppressive politics and economic starvation it
endured during the final years of the Napoleonic
Wars, between 1809 and 1813. This was indeed a
joyful moment for most of Utrecht’s inhabitants.
Most of them had suffered during the previous
years of hardship. Utrecht’s population had
decreased. The short-lived pride of being a
capital and of showcasing an imperial palace
(at the site of today’s university library and halls
along the Drift) between October 1807 and April
1808 had long since given way to doom and
gloom. Sharp tax increases, cuts in social welfare
spending, and a severe commercial depression
had created significant impoverishment among
the people of Utrecht. The French authorities had
exacted a strict policy of austerity, and channeled
all remaining funds to the grande armée for its
campaign in Russia. From 1810 onwards, soup
was distributed at a food bank near the Holy
Cross Chapel on the Domplein. Protesters found
themselves incarcerated in the City Hall’s
was painted over another text, of which only the letters
Euro[…] are legible. According to De Meyere (1993: 92)
the new inscription was added in connection with the
giving of the gift to the tsar. See: https://nl.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Wittevrouwenpoort#/media/File:Wittevrouwenpoort_
te_Utrecht_in_1813_door_Pieter_Gerardus_van_Os.jp
3 For a vivid picture of these moments see the Dutch
children’s story (historically researched) by W.G. van de
Hulst, Van Hollandse jongens in de Franse tijd (Nijkerk
1913), 154–155.
Dies Natalis 2016
dungeons.4 Utrecht’s function as regional trading
center had almost come to a standstill.
The University unchained
Almost inevitably, with such problems depressing
the city and the country as a whole, the University
was also plunged into an existential crisis. Today’s
380th anniversary is a proper occasion to reflect
on the fact that between 1811 and 1815 this
university had been downgraded to a mere
undergraduate college. It had been stripped of its
ius promovendi.5 Its professors had been dismissed
or demoted to schoolmasters. Only Groningen and
Leiden had remained as sites of higher learning
in the Netherlands. Since the incorporation of the
Kingdom of Holland into the French empire in
1810, the emperor thought that two universities
would suffice for a country he saw as riotous and
only good-for-plundering. Funds for maintaining
the Academy Hall, the Hortus, the Sonnenborch
Observatory, the medical facilities, and the salaries
of the professors dried up. After 1811, the
Hospital was taken over by the French army, other
properties were simply confiscated, and the food
bank had turned the Domplein and academy sites
into one messy marketplace.6
Hence, Sunday 28 November 1813 was not only a
day of new beginnings for the city and country, it
also heralded a potential resurrection of academic
life. And so it happened – the University was
unchained again. The Prince of Orange, only nine
days after arriving in the Netherlands on 30th
November 1813, abolished the French language
throughout the educational system.
With his Organiek Besluit of 2nd August 1815, he
converted the two ‘Imperial Universities’ of Leiden
4 Renger de Bruin, Burgers op het kussen: Volkssoevereiniteit
en bestuurssamenstelling in de stad Utrecht 1795-1813
(1986) proefschrift; P.D. ’t Hart, De stadt Utrecht en zijn
inwoners: Een onderzoek naar samenhangen tussen
sociaal-economische ontwikkelingen en de demografische
geschiedenis van de stad Utrecht 1771–1825, 1983;
R.E. de Bruin, T.J. Hoekstra and A. Pietersma, The City of
Utrecht through Twenty Centuries: A brief history (Utrecht
1999); Renger de Bruin, ‘Regenten en revolutionairen
(1747–1851)’, in: Idem e.o. (eds.), ‘Een paradijs vol
weelde’. Geschiedenis van de stad Utrecht (Utrecht 2000),
315–373, here: 350–353.
and Groningen into Dutch state universities. And
soon after having been inaugurated as King of the
United Kingdom of the Netherlands in Brussels,
on 21st September 1815, he also restored Utrecht
University to its former rights. On 12th October,
Utrecht University was officially reinstated. Three
Hooge Scholen were now to educate students to
become governing elites in state and society. (Two
other universities, in Harderwijk and Franeker,
were not so fortunate and descended into
obscurity.)
Europe, and the country, still in chaos
Given these developments, we also need to
consider the spirit of the times, and to honor the
fact that this regeneration took place in a setting
defined by widespread insecurity, by sentiments
of a fundamental crisis, and by the chaos that still
prevailed in this immediate post-liberation period.
Europe was in turmoil.7
Napoleon’s troops were still on the loose. The
Völkerschlacht of October 1813 had dealt a
severe blow to his Imperial Reign and myth of
invincibility. But Napoleon was raising new troops
and his generals were still rampant across Europe.
Even after his defeat and exile in 1814, while
the Great Powers convened in Vienna, trying
to negotiate a lasting peace agreement and a
restoration of order and security on the continent
and beyond, Napoleon returned with a vengeance
in March 1815.
For Utrecht, this was not some faraway rumble of
distant battlefields and diplomatic saber-rattling.
The ongoing international crisis had a direct
6 Martijn van der Burg, ‘“Une nation, naturellement si
studieuse”. Het aanzien van de Nederlandse universiteiten
in de napoleontische tijd’, in: L.J. Dorsman and P.J.
Knegtmans, Universiteit, publiek en politiek. Het aanzien
van de Nederlandse universiteiten, 1800–2010 (Hilversum
2012), 13–28.
7 Beatrice de Graaf, “Bringing Sense and Sensibility to the
Continent: Vienna 1815 revisited,” Journal of Modern
European History 13 (2015) 4: 447–457. I and my ERC
project team are currently investigating this underresearched period of pan-European crisis, terror, and
reconstruction.
5 By Imperial decree of 22 October 1811. Courier van
Amsterdam, No. 299, 24 October 1811.
1 6 | Utrecht University
Dies Natalis 2016
impact on the general public and local academic
life. Prince William of Orange’s first decree in
December 1813 called for the capital punishment
of any Dutchmen remaining under French arms.
This was no small matter because many Dutch
students still fought on Napoleon’s behalf.
Napoleon had introduced compulsory military
service in the Netherlands,8 and although
university students mainly hailed from noble
families, and could afford to pay for replacements,
other, less fortunate students were indeed
recruited as officers in the garde d’honneur.
After 1813, they joined the troops of their new
King William I, to be deployed at the Battle of
Waterloo, which would cost the lives of numerous
Dutch soldiers on 17–18 June 1815.9 It was not
until October 1815 that the professors in Leiden,
Groningen, and Utrecht could welcome the return
of their students to the university, and they were
finally able to disband the “Jager-korps,” army
units composed of student recruits.10 But even
after the Second Paris Peace Treaty was signed
on 20th November 1815, rumors of the Emperor
returning once again, kept resurfacing. Militiamen,
national guards, and regular soldiers were still
mobilized throughout the country.
traumatized, they were nonetheless prepared
to spend all their remaining resources on the recreation of academic life. Perhaps we might even
say that this backdrop of chaos and turmoil was
exactly the right time and place for the resurrected
University to reflect on its own sense of self, aims,
and purpose. And this generation of war-weary
veterans knew how to do this.
My point in taking us back to a highly volatile,
uncertain period in time, both for the continent,
this country and the academic community, is to
be reminded that Utrecht University was re-born
in a time of significant crisis and insecurity. Terror,
war, and streams of refugees were still vivid
images at the time. For both its founding fathers
(18 professors) and the University’s students
(around 200 in 1818),11 the distance between the
battlefield and the lecture hall, between prison
and pulpit, was remarkably thin. Shaken and
First of all, Willem Emmery de Perponcher
Sedlnitzky, the newly appointed President Curator
of this University, had a courageous role to play at
this moment of academic resurrection. The times
required practical, organizational, political, and
moral leadership. Three days before the liberation
of Utrecht, on 25 November 1813, French
troops on the retreat arrested the 72-year old De
Perponcher, and took him hostage. De Perponcher
was incarcerated in the Sainte-Pélagie prison
where he spent four horrific months without
knowing what fate would await him. Finally, in
March 1814 he was released. Upon his return,
he resumed his responsibilities straightaway.
After a brief stint in the municipal and provincial
government of Utrecht, he was appointed
President Curator of Utrecht University on 16
October 1815, where – until his death in 1819 at
the age of 78 years – he oversaw the re-creation
of the University. He immediately set to work to
resurrect the faculties, reclaim the university sites,
and hire new professors, the best ones there were,
even scouting for talents abroad.12 He was assisted
in all this by his Rector, Jodocus Heringa, who
had been appointed to this position in 1798 and
again in 1811 and had fought for what remained
of the University throughout the French years.
On November 6th 1815, Heringa, an influential
theologian, celebrated the “new organization,
expansion, and luster” of the University, now free
from oppression, and encouraged his colleagues
8 The strict application of it from 1810 onwards caused
large riots in Utrecht in March 1811.
10 For the President’s welcome speech to the Jagers see:
Nederlandsche Staatscourant, 12 October 1815.
9 Johan Frederik van Oordt, who earned his doctorate
in theology at Utrecht in 1821 and later founded the
“Groningen School of Theology,” joined the StudentSpecial Forces (Jagerkorps) in 1815.
11 See J.P. Fockema Andreae e.o., De Utrechtse Universiteit
1815–1836 (Utrecht 1936), 102.
The University as an institution for the
creation of an open society?
1 7 | Utrecht University
12 R. de Bruin, “Perponcher Sedlnitzky, Willem Emmery de.”
In: Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland 1780-1830
(November 2013).
Dies Natalis 2016
to “increase the usefulness and pleasure of your
lives […] in the service of scholarship through the
bond peace […] for the sake of civil society and
the congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”13
Second, a new strategy was developed, for the
university as a whole, to support the creation of a
new generation of learned elites. When I recently
dropped in on our own President of the Board,
Marjan Oudeman, she explained to me how hard
it is to keep a steady gaze on strategic purposes,
on content and substance, instead of getting lost
in the nitty gritty of day-to-day business. I can
imagine that these first professors in 1815 had
a hard time focusing on strategy as well, while
everything around them had to be resurrected
from scratch. Notwithstanding these concerns,
Perponcher, Heringa, and their colleagues did not
let the crisis go to waste. They took the Organiek
Besluit from August 1815 to heart, and set about
to prepare their students for a position amongst
“the learned estate” in society.14 The overarching
aim was to raise knowledgeable citizens, to
improve scholarship, and to emancipate the
people through Bildung. Students were to be
imbued with the humanist ideal of encyclopedic
knowledge by teaching them the classics and by
encouraging them to reflect upon and participate
in current affairs in science and society.15 To
achieve these ambitions, it was felt that autonomy
was essential. Professors were now appointed by
the ministry of education. Salaries were paid by
the central authorities, instead of the municipality
as in the days of old. Moreover, to augment the
academic freedom that most of the professors
considered essential for their work – both vis-àvis the local authorities and the state – central
standards and professional guidelines were
adopted. Scholarly practices and the scientific
13 Redevoeringen en dichtstukken ter vieringe der plegtige
inwijding van de Hoogeschool te Utrecht (Utrecht:
Paddenburg & Schoonhoven, 1815), 52. See also J.P.
Fockema Andreae e.o., De Utrechtse Universiteit 18151836 (Utrecht 1936), 3-5, 9-11.
14 “Koninklijk Besluit nopens de organisatie van het
hoger onderwijs.” In: Bijvoegsel tot de Nederlandsche
Staatscourant, 12 October 1815.
1 8 | Utrecht University
disciplines were enhanced. A new, fifth, faculty
was created by splitting the old Artes Faculty
into one for the Humanities and one for the
Natural Sciences. Within these faculties, new
(sub)disciplines were developed, in mathematics,
statistics, and economics for example. And
existing disciplines were modernized – students
in Dutch (Nederduitse taal- en letterkunde) and
economics could now follow classes in Dutch
rather than in Latin, and the native language was
also introduced for all other communications
within the university, save for teaching.
Thirdly, a transnational perspective (to call Utrecht
a global university in 1815 would be stretching it
a bit too far) was adopted to attract international
talents and acquire international textbooks. The
Royal Decree explicitly mentioned good practices
in dealing with foreign students and professors.
Rather than focusing on parochial interests and
keeping a low profile, the university embraced the
realities of the new era, reaching across borders
and across disciplines.
Fourthly, in terms of infrastructure, the medical
sites were expanded, laboratories were built, and
new instruments purchased.
Finally, students’ wellbeing was to become part
of the university’s remit. Those who had been
traumatized or orphaned as a result of the years
of military hostilities were given moral care as
well. Every Sunday, students were to attend
sermons, delivered by one of the professors within
the university. Personal counselling was available
as well – of course, still very much clad in Christian
morality, but still.
15 See Peter Jan Knegtmans, “Liefde voor de wetenschap.
Het negentiende-eeuwse universitaire onderwijs en
de scheiding tussen wetenschappelijke vorming en
wetenschappelijk beroepsonderwijs,” in: L.J. Dorsman
and P.J. Knegtmans, Van Lectio tot PowerPoint. Over
de geschiedenis van het onderwijs aan de Nederlandse
universiteiten (Hilversum 2011), 11–24, here: 11.
16 Klaas van Berkel, Universiteit van het Noorden. Vier
eeuwen academisch leven in Groningen, Deel 1 De oude
universiteit, 1614-1876 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2014).
Dies Natalis 2016
This strategy was not altogether new.16 However, a
new spirit and sense of urgency to create a culture
of learning and research free from oppression
permeated these activities – stimulated by the new
administrative and royal decrees, but executed in
relative autonomy by the University board and the
very closely knit community of professors.
A few caveats need mentioning. It has to be
stressed here that “open” in 1815 was, from
our perspective, still very conservative, elitist, and
closed. No women, very little other diversity, and a
very strong reliance on Christian norms and values
characterized the academic community in these
days.17 Democracy was a distant ideal. Too many
social classes, economic groups, and minorities
were excluded from academic life. Hierarchies
were strong, elitist thinking even more so.
However, if we take the moment of rebirth in
1815 in its historical context, instead of judging if
from our present perspective, what they achieved
is still quite remarkable. A generation of civil
servants, engineers, and public intellectuals was
educated – gebildet – to rise to the occasion of
a new Kingdom and a new European order as it
was being created at the very same time. All were
educated in their specific discipline, as well as in
general courses on philosophy, theology, history,
and even diplomacy. Moreover, the university did
not shun its public role, did not turn inwards, but
immediately assumed a leading role in society.
Professors contributed to evaluation boards and
carried out investigations intended to improve the
educational system. The Hortus Botanicus and
medical facilities helped to combat cholera and
other diseases.
17 J. Huizinga in het Leidsch Universiteitsblad, 7e jaargang,
110. 16, 20 mei 1938 in: Verzamelde Werken, vol. viii
(Haarlem, 1951) 29–30. See also Joseph Wachelder,
“Wetenschappelijke vorming – een omstreden kwestie,”
in: Gewina 16 (1993) 123–140, here: 11.
Although autonomy was their aim, isolation
was explicitly not what they were after. Those
first 22 professors operated publicly, and in a
transdisciplinary (perhaps one should say, predisciplinary) manner. They combined ethical,
theological, and legal arguments, acted
simultaneously as preacher, teacher, and public
consultant. They used their scholarship to convey
meaning and to nurture ethically aware students
and citizens. They also openly communicated
(and quarreled) about their preferred values,
sentiments, and desires for academia.
A case in point was historian and philosopher
Philip Willem van Heusde (1778–1839), who
started teaching in Utrecht at the age of 25 in
1804. Owing to his great didactic reputation this
romantic child of the Enlightenment earned the
nickname “praeceptor Hollandiae” (in analogy to
the protestant reformer Melanchton). He taught
his students, with his humanist approach, how
best to achieve a mature, aesthetic, ethical, and
emotional life.18 Others, such as the enlightened
protestant theologian Heringa, whom we met as
Utrecht’s first Rector after the 1815 resurrection,
combined theological, administrative, and
educational responsibilities. (In later years,
the positivist theologian and philosopher
Cornelis Opzoomer [1821-1892], advocated
a combination of empirical and value-based
research, accountable to debate and deliberation
– instantiated in his for contemporaries
endearing fusion of Darwin and theology.19) Their
scholarship, however moralistically substantiated,
was a liberal one (in the classical sense of the
word), wedded off to neither profitmaking and
innovation alone, nor to clerical isolation on the
other. (If you wonder about all of these theological
Het nut van geschiedschrijving. Historici in het publieke
domein (Amstelveen 2015), 24–30.
19https://www.kb.nl/themas/filosofie/cornelis-willemopzoomer
18 Leen Dorsman, “Philip Willem van der Heusde (17781839). Verlicht romanticus,” in: Leen Dorsman e.a. (eds.),
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examples: two thirds of the student population
were theologians, therefore, many professors
belonged to this faculty.)
If we do not restrict the definition of valorization
to economic innovation and profit, but translate
it instead as “public knowledge,” this ambition
was a prominent feature of the university from
1815 onwards. Students’ programs were veritable
curricula of the liberal arts and sciences, including
lectures on rhetoric, debating techniques,
philosophy, and theology for almost every student,
including those studying economics – challenging
them to teach themselves to lead the “good
life.” Their’s was a very early avant la lettre
ouverture to Martha Nussbaum’s study Not for
Profit,on how the humanities have been central to
education because they have rightly been seen as
essential for creating broad, reflective minds, and
competent democratic citizens.
In conclusion
Utrecht’s rebirth happened at a time of great crisis
and turmoil. The University’s resurrection was
due to the return of a Prince and the liberation
of a country by an international coalition. This
European peace, which was established at such
a great expense in 1815, was the outcome of a
veritable European Security Project that procured
peace and order for decades to come – albeit
sometimes on rather reactionary terms.20 In the
Netherlands and in Utrecht in particular, the restart of the University resulted from the tour de
force of a war-weary generation of professors, a
courageous Chancellor and engaged students.
They felt – and responded to – a deep desire
for the restoration and reconstruction of state,
society, and public morale.
Against Napoleon’s predatory educational
policy – where university funds ultimately only
served to subsidize his garrison state – the
new founding fathers posited a University
that aimed at educating a new learned estate
in freedom and autonomy. After 1813 this
freedom from oppression was translated into
a quest for institutionalized autonomy and the
professionalization of the academy – which
was at the same time driven by a motivation
to contribute to the reconstruction of science,
industry, and society.
In times of crisis, wars, and terror, this second
generation of founding fathers (after their
forbears of 1636) took the crisis of their day
as an occasion to reflect upon the university’s
self-understanding and purpose. They created
a professional, autonomous, secure intellectual
environment from which we still benefit. They
nurtured bright minds able to serve state,
industry, and society. This new, all-round, learned
estate set about to improve medical treatment,
enhance economic welfare, innovate the Dutch
infrastructure, and offer philosophical, ethical,
historical, and theological enlightenment to the
public.
Even though our university at the time knew
nothing of Science Parks or National Research
Agenda, today’s anniversary celebration marks an
appropriate moment to consider what we may
glean from its resurrection 200 years ago. First and
foremost, I suggest that we need to send all of our
Board Presidents on a four-month sabbatical, to
an austere retreat similar to that of De Perponcher
in St. Pélagie, to reflect on their strategic plans.
Second, the crises of our day, be they owing to
political disorder or to governmental oppression
as in the French era, calls for University professors,
presidents, and chancellors who can rise to the
occasion. Today’s crises, be they acute or lingering,
in refugee streams, terrorist attacks, aging-related
diseases or climate change, demand an immediate
academic response from faculty and students
alike. Fear, anxiety, and a crisis mentality can so
easily narrow our horizons and more often than
not prompt parochial reflexes. Instead, strategies
and practices
20 SECURE.ERC-project. http://securing-europe.wp.hum.uu.nl/
about/
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of cosmopolitan openness are what is called for,
the willingness to engage with other cultures,
religions, and transcend our own horizon of
understanding. This is not something we can leave
to our President alone. Following from this, in the
third place, we need an academic community that
works and collaborates together, that maintains
and celebrates professional standards, but one
that takes care of the wellbeing of its students
as well – not an easy task given the enormous
expansion of our University since 1815. Do we still
find time to work and dialogue with our students,
and seek to educate them in the broad, reflective
sense of the 1815 generation? In my classes, I
notice how much students desire to transcend the
mere exchange of scientific methods and findings
and want to reflect on how they should respond
to current pressure points, like terrorist attacks,
the demands of some to close the borders, etc.; in
other words, to openly consider where they and
we should stand.
In short, only when these kinds of priorities
hold sway in this place and for the years to
come will we be able to spread the insight
that for the development of Professional and
Public Knowledge on behalf of state, society,
and industry, the University has to remain
an autonomous place for the formation of a
reflective, all-round Learned Estate.
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