Ea Magazine UK

From Rotterdam to CuraçaoIn the news in 1997–1998EUR and the new campus

May 2012

Precise case lawyer A day in the life of alumna Nathalie van Woerkom

erasmus alumni magazine

04

06 •07•08julY 2012Northsea jazzfestivalVan Morrison • D’Angelo • Tony Bennett • Ron Carter Golden Striker Trio Michael Kiwanuka • Pat Metheny Unity Band • Lenny Kravitz • Gregory Porter José James • Robert Glasper Experiment • Trijntje Oosterhuis • Rufus Wainwright James Morrison • Jill Scott • Caro Emerald • George Benson • Hugh Laurie David Murray Blues Big Band featuring Macy Gray • The Kyteman OrchestraAhmad Jamal • Amos Lee • Wayne Shorter Quartet • Michel Camilo • Aloe Blacc Gretchen Parlato • Lianne La Havas • McCoy Tyner Trio with Ravi Coltrane Bernhoft • and many more...

The balloon was part of the pro-

gramme during the Foundation Day

celebrations on 8 November 1972, the

EUR anniversary when it was known

as the ‘Nederlandse Economisch

Hogeschool’ for the last time. The bal-

loon was used for a treasure hunt. At

11 a.m. the Boesmans, a ballooning

couple from The Hague, took to the

air accompanied by the notes of a

brass band. The wind determined their

course. In their wake students fol-

lowed on the ground, desperate for

the envelopes that the couple threw

to the ground on tiny parachutes. If

you managed to lay your hands on

such an envelope you were a prize-

winner. Good prizes too: some LPs,

several bottles of sherry and, the pièce

de résistance, a portable radio. The

prize-giving ceremony was at 2 p.m.,

before the honorary doctorate for

Prof. J.J. Polak. And after the offi cial

public ceremony it was time for the

ball.

The celebrations in the Lecture Theatre

Hall lasted long into the night.

Time is fl ying by. On 26 June it will be just fi ve hundred days until the offi cial celebration

of the centenary of Erasmus University on 8 November 2013. The programme is beginning

to take shape and all existing academic events will be given a festive note in academic year

2013-2014. All faculties will award an honorary doctorate during the centenary celebrations,

the renovated campus will be offi cially opened in the autumn and the University will also

involve the city of Rotterdam in the celebrations. www.eur.nl/100

The photo was taken by an

employee of the Rotterdam

Medical Faculty’s Audiovisual

Service. EUR historic photo

archive.

Text Cora Boele

On the way to 2013

erasmusalumni. magazine 03

Foundation Day treasure huntA hot air balloon on the Institutenlaan? Has it made an emer-gency landing? After some nifty acrobatics it has managed to land safely alongside the H-Building and the University Library pond. The letters PH indicate that it is a Dutch aircraft and the sandbags around the basket tell us it is a classic gas balloon fi lled with hydrogen. ‘Nimbus’ is attracting a lot of attention. Have the lecture theatres of the C-Hal emptied by any chance?

06 •07•08julY 2012Northsea jazzfestivalVan Morrison • D’Angelo • Tony Bennett • Ron Carter Golden Striker Trio Michael Kiwanuka • Pat Metheny Unity Band • Lenny Kravitz • Gregory Porter José James • Robert Glasper Experiment • Trijntje Oosterhuis • Rufus Wainwright James Morrison • Jill Scott • Caro Emerald • George Benson • Hugh Laurie David Murray Blues Big Band featuring Macy Gray • The Kyteman OrchestraAhmad Jamal • Amos Lee • Wayne Shorter Quartet • Michel Camilo • Aloe Blacc Gretchen Parlato • Lianne La Havas • McCoy Tyner Trio with Ravi Coltrane Bernhoft • and many more...

04 erasmusalumni. magazine

Foreword May 2012

Dear Alumnus,For many of you, your student days will have been the best days

of your life. A time that you look back on with a great deal of

pleasure and perhaps some nostalgia.

I too treasure wonderful memories of my years as a student at Eras-

mus University. It was the time that formed me as the person I now

am, a time when I discovered my qualities and when my ambitions

were awakened. Of course there was also fun to be had with new

friends within and outside the University walls. You continue to see

some friends but lose touch with others, and you regularly wonder

how they are getting on.

Unsurprising, therefore, that a survey of alumni about this maga-

zine showed that you like to read what your former fellow-students

have got up to since graduating. Extra attention is consequently

paid to this in this edition.

Many memories are also attached to the campus itself, but you

would be surprised if you were to visit Woudestein or Hoboken

now. Erasmus University would not be a Rotterdam university if

there were not a substantial amount of pile driving and construc-

tion work, obviously with the aim of arming the campus for the fu-

ture and creating plenty of new memories. We will also extensively

focus on this in this edition. In the autumn of 2013, at the start of

the centenary year, the renovated campus will be officially opened

and you are warmly invited to attend.

For me, after more than two years ‘back in the EUR nest’, one

of my greatest pleasures is to see today’s students in action. Not

just out of nostalgia for the past, but also because I can see the

important contribution this University is making to their lives and

to society. I am glad that as an alumna, and now in the role of

chair, I can help my alma mater. There are many more tasks within

the University for which we could use the knowledge and help of

alumni.

So when will I see you back at Erasmus University?

Pauline van der Meer Mohr

blog.eur.nl/voorzittercvb

06

24

The Erasmus Alumni Magazine/EA is published by the Marketing & Communication Department of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

EditionVolume 2, EA 4 May 2012

The next edition of EA will be published inOctober 2012

Editorial AddressEUR, SM&C deptPO Box 17383000 DR [email protected]/alumni

Managing EditorCarien van der Wal, Alumni &Corporate Relations Officer

EditorsWieneke Gunneweg,

Editor-in-ChiefMieke Fiers, Desk Editor

ContributorsLobke van Aar, Cora Boele, Ronald van den Heerik, Eveline van de Lagemaat, José Luijpen, Geert Maarse, Pauline van der Meer Mohr, Dennis Mijnheer, Sanne van der Most, Dieudonne van der Veen, Steef van de Velde, Kees Vermeer, Henk Weltevreden, Levien Willemse, EUR faculties

including Erasmus MC, IHS and ISS

AdvertisementsCarien van der Wal, Dan Dinu

TranslationUniversity Translation and Correction Service, Groningen

PrintingVan Deventer, ‘s-Gravenzande

DesignUnit20: Yoe San Liem and Maud van Velthoven

Editorial Advisory Board (RAC)The RAC is made up of representatives of the EUR’s faculties and alumni associations and has an advisory role with regard to the production of EA.

CoverRonald van den Heerik

© Erasmus Universiteit RotterdamNo part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publishers.

Colophon

Pauline van der Meer Mohr, Chair of the Executive Board of the Erasmus University Rotterdam

04


Contents

06 Back to college

08 Erasmus News

11 From Rotterdam to Curaçao

12 A day in the life of Nathalie van Woerkom

18 Enterprising alumni

19 Column: Henk Weltevreden

20 Focus on research

22 Science News

24 In the news in 1997-1998

26 EUR and the new campus

31 Why Rotterdam?

32 Alumni Affairs

37 Column: Steef van de Velde

39 Family Portrait

26

18

12


Back to college

Babs van der Kooy: ‘My parents taught me to get the most out of what you’ve been given, which is the reason for the extra Master.’


When did you do your degree?‘I studied Medicine in Rotterdam from 2001 to 2007. During

my studies I did a Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology

from 2003 to 2005 at the Netherlands Institute for Health

Sciences, NIHES.’

What did you do after that?‘I worked for a year and a half at the Sint Franciscus Gasthuis

hospital. I then started my PhD research at the Department

of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Erasmus MC. That is

what I am now doing. I started a Master’s programme in Epi-

demiology at NIHES in 2010, which will end in September

2012.’

Why are you doing an extra Master’s degree?‘I did the first Master’s degree mainly because it meant I

could go abroad. I spend a month at a summer school in Bal-

timore. The focus of that Master’s degree was research and

how you set it up. The second Master’s degree is further in-

creasing my knowledge of epidemiology and public

health. My parents taught me to get the most out of what

you’ve been given, which is the reason for this extra Master’s

degree.

I am currently working on the programme “Ready for a

Child” (Klaar voor een Kind), the aim of which is to reduce

infant mortality in Rotterdam. It has a lot to do with public

health. You learn to see the bigger picture and are chal-

lenged to think more broadly. As a doctor you care for indi-

viduals, but you also see how data about health and disease

lead to certain policies. The Master is the theoretical support

for the fieldwork. It adds depth to my work as a doctor.’

What will you be able to do with it?‘The knowledge will enable me to do even better research.

Research needs to be done into whether the arrival of the

Birth Centre at the Sophia Children’s Hospital has had any ef-

fect and thus reduced birth problems. You can do that with

epidemiology.’

What attracts you about epidemiology?‘I want to know whether, for example, an innovation in care

works. Being a doctor is more than just giving someone a

pill. With epidemiology you deal a lot with statistics and big

groups of patients, but in the end it all comes back to the in-

dividual patient in the consultation room. If, for example,

you are aware of the risk factors of a disorder you can inform

the patient of them. Furthermore, there is a lot of creativity

in epidemiology. There are many measurement and research

methods and you must try and find an effective and imple-

mentable method. I find this exciting.’

What is it like to study again?‘More difficult than I had expected. I can’t concentrate as

long now. I find this quite funny. You take longer to take in

the material.’

Can you combine it with your work and private life?‘That’s not a problem. I don’t have any ties. I do a lot of sport

but that’s easy to combine with the programme. And it’s also

necessary for relaxation. I’m training at the moment for the

Dolomite Marathon in Italy and also hope to do a half triath-

lon. As far as work goes, the courses made a nice change

from my research.’

Will you have finished studying once you have done this?‘No, not yet. I’m first going to continue on to PhD research,

but may start a different programme again at some point.

You’re never old to study!’

Fancy studying again too?

Different faculties and institutes of the EUR offer post-

graduate training. See, for example, www.erasmusacade-

mie.nl and www.erasmusmc.nl/onderwijs

Photographer Levien Willemse studied Social History at the

EUR from 1981 to 1989

‘I can’t concentrate as long now. I think this is funny.’

‘This adds depth to my work as a doctor’

text Kees Vermeer

photo Levien Willemse

Babs van de Kooy (28) works as a doctor/researcher at the de-

partment of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Erasmus MC.

She is also doing a Master’s degree in Science Epidemiology.

‘Being a doctor is more than just giving someone a pill.’


Erasmus news

Dramatic Boat RaceOn 7 April Alumnus Roel Haen took

part in The Boat Race, the traditional

rowing race on the Thames between

the Universities of Oxford and Cam-

bridge.

The Boat Race was a disaster. First it

was interrupted by a swimmer, then

Haen’s boat broke an oar and then one

of his fellow rowers collapsed from

exhaustion. Haen studied Medicine

at EUR and is now doing research on

breast-cancer surgery at the University

of Oxford. Haen won the Varsity five

times with the Skadi rowing team.

Relatively relaxedErasmus University students experience much less study stress than students elsewhere in the country. These are the results of a survey about study pressure conducted by Erasmus Magazine and nine other university magazines. Nationwi-de, 40 percent of students suffer from extreme stress; in Rotterdam this is 32 percent.

It is now known as E-commerce but at the

end of the 1980s it did not have a name

and was still in its infancy. The students Jan

Kees de Jager and Karel van der Woude

saw a potential source of income in it. In

their student room-cum-office, they start-

ed a business. ‘It became serious quite

quickly,’ says Van der Woude. ‘There was

a natural division between us. Jan Kees fa-

miliarized himself with the newest technol-

ogy. He was very curious about its possi-

bilities. Innovation is a word that suits him

well.’ They combined the business with

their studies. De Jager did not give the im-

pression that he studied a great deal, says

Pieter Verhulst, a fellow member of the

Laurentius student association. De Jager

was the oldest of the fourteen members of

his year group in the association. Whether

it was drinks at the association, weekends

away or paintballing, you could count on

De Jager being there. ‘He always liked to

get into discussions,’ Verhulst remembers.

‘He was always armed with facts and was

good at cornering people.’ He laughs, ‘And

that over-excessive reliance on Diet Coke

was typical of Jan Kees even then.’ The

club members still meet up ‘irregularly’.

‘We even visited him at the ministry once.’

Van der Woude, still director of the busi-

ness, ISM eCompany, is not surprised that

his business partner eventually became a

minister. ‘He has always been politically ac-

tive, understands economics and can view

policy decisions from an entrepreneur’s per-

spective.’

‘He was good at cornering people in discussions’They are now in the spotlight but once they sat in the lecture theatre like everyone else.

Or did they stand out already, even then? EA takes a look at the student days of famous

EUR alumni. This time: outgoing Minister of Finance Jan Kees de Jager.

‘I look back to my study days with a great deal of pleasure. I am often at the EUR and see that little has changed. It is still an inspiring environment. Jan Kees de Jager

The student days of...

The alliance must be ‘a catalyst’ for the

existing collaboration. This appears in a

joint memo entitled More Value. The three

universities (LDE – Rotterdam has opted

for the E for Erasmus in the abbreviation

of the collaboration) have established six

‘academic domains’ in which they want

to work together and complement each

other.

The collaboration will take the shape

of joint ventures between the three

South Holland province universities, who

have been investigating far-reaching

collaboration since September 2010.

There will be LDE Centres for specific fields

of expertise and LDE Graduate Schools,

including Master’s programmes and PhD

tracks.

The memo forms the joint chapter in the

strategic plans that all universities must

have completed before the summer, on the

instructions of outgoing State Secretary of

Higher Education, Zijlstra.


Erasmus news

GaudiumStudent Association Gaudium ceased to exist

last year. Its former members keep in touch

through the Gaudium alumni association. EA

phones association secretary Rick van Setten

van der Meer.

“What happened to Gaudium?‘We did not have enough new applicants. I get the

impression that this is something affecting all stu-

dent associations, but we were the smallest.’

Now you are an alumni association. What is different now?‘There are no new members and we no longer have

a building. We don’t need one though: our mem-

bers are spread across the whole country. We do

organize meetings: just recently we held a reception,

which was very well attended.’

What are the advantages of the new situation?‘The age of the former members varies greatly. The

different layers now meet each other. With the more

studenty character that it used to have the older

members did not come as often. We all need differ-

ent kinds of activities now. We still hold receptions,

however.’

Were you a member of Gaudium? Do get in touch. www.gaudium.nl

Universities Games to RotterdamThe biggest European sporting event for students

is coming to Rotterdam in 2014. The European

Universities Games went to the EUR at the end

of November. Alumni are urgently asked to think

along/work/organize/support or help in any other

way.

Mail [email protected]

WHITE COAT - Wearing a white coat as a doctor entails a great deal of responsibility.

In order to emphasize this Erasmus University has introduced the ‘White Coat Ceremo-

ny’. Fourth-year medical students who are soon to begin their residency get a chance to

reflect upon their profession and how they should deal with patients. And they receive

their first white coat. The first White Coat Ceremony took place on 8 March 2012 with

125 medical students.

(Photo: Levien Willemse)

Rotterdam, Leiden, Delft not merger but allianceThe universities of Leiden, Delft and Rotterdam are opting for a strategic

alliance. A merger is therefore off the agenda.

EA calls...


Erasmus news

The measures are called ‘Nominaal = Nor-

maal’ (Official = Normal) and are intended

to help students study quickly. The Faculty of

Social Sciences began a pilot last year, and

this is now being extended. The number of

possible resits and the extent to which stu-

dents can use higher marks for one course

unit to compensate for a fail in another will

differ per faculty. At the Erasmus School of

Law (ESL) there will be no restrictions on

first-year students compensating for 5s, as

long as they have an average mark of 6.0 at

the end of the year. At the same time, ESL is

introducing a completely new programme:

Erasmus Law College. First-year students

will learn the theory and practise their skills

in study groups: groups of ten students will

analyse a case under the supervision of a tu-

tor. Lectures and practicals complete the pro-

gramme, which is structured according to a

uniform didactical model. (foto: RvdH)

All sixty ECTS credit points in the first year The large majority of the new first-year students at Erasmus University will have to earn

all sixty ECTS credit points in one year. The number of possible resits is being reduced

and passes can be used to compensate for fails.

‘A clear message for recruiters: do not wait until the end of the academic year to start looking for top talent.’ Prof.dr. Steef van de Velde, Dean of RSM, reacts to the RSM Graduate Placement Survey 2011, a survey of the career perspectives of its graduates. More than 70% of students start looking for a suitable job before they graduate.

Useful programmesAnyone who follows a part-time pro-

gramme that is considered useful by the

government, such as in the ‘shortage

sectors’ of education and care, will

be able to receive a grant from 2017

to meet the costs of the programme.

Anyone following a less ‘useful’ part-

time programme must meet the costs

themselves. It is not yet clear which

programmes precisely are considered

‘useful’.

Study delay fineMany students are worried about the

study delay fine (for anyone who takes

more than four years for a degree).

This also applies to part-timers. State

Secretary Halbe Zijlstra has announced

that part-time students who receive the

fine ‘due to special, individual circum-

stances’ can now make an appeal to

the graduation funds of the institutions.

Up to now these have only been open

to full-time students.

New structure part-time LawThe Erasmus School of Law (ESL) is

revising the structure of its part-time

programmes as of next academic year.

From then on the lectures will be given

on a Friday morning and students will

complete a course unit in five rather

than eight weeks. This means that they

will be able to complete their Bachelor’s

degree in four years and therefore avoid

the study delay fine.

The new system is mainly to ensure that

the students form more of a group.

They now follow the course units when

they want and therefore have little

contact with each other.

Brief news

From Rotterdam to Curaçao

MondayToday is my sister’s birthday. She is now 41, which is no

mean feat. I will buy her a present later and will end the day

enjoying a whisky and coke at her birthday party with the

family. But at the moment I am working on a project to im-

prove the financial reporting of the company where I work.

We are going to automate the reports as much as possible

and pour them into one mould. In my opinion the employees

should spend more time on analyzing and understanding

rather than in creating reports.

TuesdayGot up at 5.15 this morning. I decide to take a dip in the

Caribbean before the working day begins. After I have

taken my five-year-old son to school just after 7 a.m., I head

straight for the beach. That is the good thing about Curaçao:

you are never more than about a quarter of an hour from the

beach. The water is cold (25 degrees is cold for the tropics),

but refreshing. Having swum for about ten minutes, I shower

there and then set off to work. What more could you want?

Don’t get me wrong: we work hard here. But we party and

relax just as hard, if time permits. A good work-life balance,

if you ask me. That is why I returned to Curaçao after

studying in Rotterdam. At the time I had the possibility of

a good job, but it is difficult to maintain this lifestyle in the

Netherlands.

ThursdayAs a member of the supervisory board of a local bank I sit

on the audit committee. We have a meeting today. After

two hours of questions and answers with the internal audit

manager, we end with a session with the financial director

and the CEO. The bank is doing well, but it is clear that the

island economy is going through a light recession. Unfortu-

nately, there have been a lot of negative reports about the

Curaçaoan government (undoubtedly in the Dutch media

too). This has an effect on consumer and investor confi-

dence, not just on the island but abroad as well. This makes

everyone cautious and the economy is consequently on the

backburner. As they say, you take the good with the bad. It is

sometimes an island of extremes.

I spend the rest of the day in the office dealing with different

treasury matters. We discuss such things as cashflow progno-

ses and make preparations for the next funding round.

SundayMy Sundays follow a fairly fixed pattern: I get up at 6.30, go

on a 25-kilometer bike ride on my mountain bike, enjoying

the cool morning air (a cool 26 degrees Celsius) and the

stunning nature on my beautiful island. Then it’s a quick

swim in the clear, blue water on one of the beaches. At a

quarter to twelve I enjoy an early lunch with my wife and son

in Zanzibar restaurant at the beach, after which we return

home for a rest. It is hot in the afternoon, today at 1.17 p.m.

the needle is at 32 degrees Celsius. It is much too hot to do

anything outside. The air-conditioning goes on and we play

on the Wii. At 5.00 p.m. I go out cycling again, this time as a

family. Unfortunately, it begins to rain. But the batteries have

been charged and we start the week on a positive note.

Dieudonne van der Veen is a Business Economist (EUR, 1995), registered accountant (NIVRA, 2004), CFE (Certi-fied Fraud Examiner, 2008) and CICA (Certified Internal Control Auditor, 2009).In 2002 he joined the water and electricity board on Curaçao, first as financial manager and later as the director of financial-economic affairs. On 1 March 2012 he moved to HUCOR-Holding (hotel and catering industry) as director of Finance & Accounting.

After graduating from Rotterdam University in Business Economics in 1995, Dieudonne van der Veen returned to Curaçao. He now works as a director of finance & accounting, a consultant and sits on the supervisory board of a bank.

A dip in the sea before the working day begins


Battling for the last square millimetre Alumna Nathalie van Woerkom

A day in the life of Nathalie van Woerkom



It is a quarter to nine in the morning when Nathalie van

Woerkom turns off the Erasmus Bridge in her black BMW

X5. The rows of cars at the traffic lights are bathed in a dark-

orange morning light.

Van Woerkom’s office is on the 28th floor of the Maastoren.

It is a modest corner office. No expansive windows offer-

ing spectacular views, no minibar, no huge lounge area.

There is a trolley with half a dozen gift-wrapped bottles of

champagne: presents for the people who, after more than

two months of intensive negotiations, will be signing on the

dotted line today.

It is the day of the closing, as the completion of a company

takeover is known in the mergers & acquisitions, or M&A,

world. Van Woerkom – golden blonde hair, grey shoes, shiny

black Moncler jacket – grabs a few last things and thrusts

the previously announced non-disclosure agreement under

your reporter’s nose.

Canon is taking over Delft Diagnostic Imaging today, a

Dutch company specializing in medical software solutions

and X-ray systems. It is not a billion-dollar deal, but it is big

and complex enough for the selling party to call in a team of

experienced lawyers.

Minister of Economic AffairsVan Woerkom (41) is considered one of the best M&A law-

yers in the Netherlands. She represents companies that are

taking over, or being taking over by, other companies, and

supervises reorganizations, management buy-outs, interna-

tional investmentsand private equity transactions.

She is one of the few women in the world of mergers

and acquisitions. EA spent a day with alumna Nathalie

van Woerkom, lawyer and partner at AKD Advocaten &

Notarissen. ‘I spend most of my time ploughing through

contracts.’

text Geert Maarse

photo Ronald van den Heerik

Above:

Nathalie van Woerkom as

a student

Left:

Nathalie van Woerkom

at the offices of AKD

Advocaten & Notarissen in

the Maastoren in Rotterdam



Her name regularly crops up in trade journals.

They say she is typical of Rotterdam. No frills.

The embodiment of the new level-headedness.

Bij ons in de BV, the business programme

presented by Jort Kelder, placed her as the only

woman in an alternative cabinet, as Minister of

Economic Affairs.

She is cheerful, with a girlish figure, slim and

athletic (she runs ten kilometres every other day).

She is alert and talks fast, but combines that with

a relaxed, sometimes even stoical demeanour. A

woman in a man’s world, although she would say

her femininity does not play any role whatsoever

in her work.

After her Law degree at Erasmus University she

worked first for the Buruma firm and then for

Andersen. When the latter collapsed in 2002

as a result of the Enron scandal, she ended up

at AKD. She became a partner at 33. ‘I have

a business within a business. Apart from the

responsibility for the good running of my cases,

I must also ensure that we attract new clients,

that my team is trained and that people continue

to work for me. This variety is what makes it so

enjoyable. With each project I get to deal with

another business. A company that develops apps

works completely differently from a temp agency.

You spend your time solving problems. Combing

through contracts and checking that there can

be no discussion about a particular section. This

makes it an intellectual challenge.’

First the propedeutic certificateShe was brought up on entrepreneurship. She

grew up in Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht, where her

father was the director of an American company

that dealt in tectyl and lubricant products; her

mother was a housewife. Both hammered into

her how important it is to be ambitious, ‘My

mother even more perhaps than my father.’

She actually wanted to study Business Adminis-

tration, but failed to gain a place in the ballot. So

she opted for Law instead. She worked at Villa

Kakelbont and in the Tropicana Restaurant – it

was still open then.

However, she was primarily a hard-working

student. She joined the RVSV student association,

but only from her second year: she first wanted

to pass the propedeutic phase. She still regularly

eats with the other association members from

her year group. She graduated in 1993, with an

average mark of eight and two specializations:

private law and company law.

AKD has five offices: Amsterdam, Breda, Brussels,

Eindhoven and Rotterdam. Going by the number

of lawyers the firm is among the top five in the

Netherlands, but it has a different personality

from the big boys such as NautaDutilh and De

Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. Van Woerkom

says, ‘We have a strong focus on midmarket

transactions. Not the big stock-market flota-

tions and billion-dollar deals. We want to help

our clients and be physically close to them. That

is why we have several offices: it’s much more

practical if you have an office close by. Otherwise

you have to go all the way to the Zuidas area of

Amsterdam for every little trifle.’

Saving clauses

However, you cannot avoid the Amsterdam

Zuidas. Not today either. Stibbe, the law firm that

Canon has taken on, is based there. At 10.15

a.m. Van Woerkom and a colleague climb into

Van Woerkom’s car, which a trainee chauffeur

will be driving today. Too late, because the meet-

ing is planned for 11.00. No trace of stress. The

mileage is noted down and whilst she sends an

e-mail via her iPhone, which will stay in her hand

all day, she says with a smile, ‘They’ll start with a

cup of coffee anyway.’

They have worked since November on a purchase

agreement that is acceptable to both parties. A

battle for every square millimetre between the

Stibbe lawyers and Van Woerkom’s team. Not

about the price but about terms of warranty and

saving clauses. The result: a wad of paper as thick

as a phone directory that details, for example,

who is liable should anything should suddenly go

wrong in the production process a year after the

takeover. A single misplaced word can have huge

financial consequences. They have considered

every risk.

The meeting room at Stibbe is on the sixteenth

floor. There are twenty chairs around the big,

oval conference table. On the floor is an off-

white carpet, and on show behind glass is an

extensive collection of leather-bound law books

and case law, which go back to the beginning

of the 19th century. At the table next to Van

Woerkom and her colleague sit Guido Geerts (the

selling party), two financial advisors (the older of

whom is wearing a dollar tie for the occasion),

four Stibbe employees (a junior notary and three

lawyers) and two Japanese representatives from

Canon, who have come specially from

London. As well as a cappuccino or double

espresso almost everyone has a laptop, telephone

or iPad within reach.

This is where it is going to happen. This is what

the hours spent on the phone have all been for,

what they have worked through the nights and

changed endless passages for. Even now at the

last moment, a few more clauses go back and

forth. The girl in the corner of the room who

sorts the papers into a several-metres-long rack

resembling a bike-rack receives a new version

every now and then.

‘Days like this are fun,’ says Van Woerkom. ‘This

work can be quite stressful. Working days until

ten or eleven in the evening are extremely com-

mon. We have worked towards this point for

months. A closing is a form of release.’

Fully committed‘She’s a real fighter,’ Guido Geerts, the client, will

say about Van Woerkom a few days later. ‘I was

really impressed. I didn’t realize at first, but the

commitment she shows and the speed at which

she works is extraordinary. She suddenly saw a

link between page 2 and page 46 in that enor-

mous bunch of articles. For me it was all double-

Dutch, a nuance that I could not appreciate. But

it proved to be very important legally speaking.’

Patrick Polak, director of Newion Investments,

regularly hires her for a takeover. ‘A few years


‘In that enormous pile of papers she suddenly saw a link between page 2 and page 46’

College 10 | Internationalisering

Sprekers

Aanmelden?

Jan Peter BalkenendeHoogleraar Bestuur, Instituties en Internationalisering aan deErasmus Universiteit

Kees de JongOprichter Blauw Researchen FD columnist

Mirik CastroOprichter Simgasen John’s Phone

www.collegereeks.nl

X98B3 169F 1203 09A0Meld u aan voor 1 juli met de volgende code en profiteer van de alumni korting


ago she was heavily pregnant,’ he says. ‘I needed her and

didn’t know exactly when the baby was due. So I phoned

to ask, and found out that she had given birth three days

before. I said, “Why the hell are you answering the phone?”

She said, “Well, you called, didn’t you?” That’s what she’s

like. Fully committed.’

Despite the stereotypical image of lawyers – slick types in

fast cars – Van Woerkom’s work mainly consists of read-

ing. A lot of reading. ‘You have to keep up to date with the

literature, the case law,’ Van Woerkom says. ‘You need to

know your stuff if you want to join in. The greater part of

your time is spent going through sixty-page contracts. Plod-

ding away, making changes, ensuring that documents are

exactly how I want them to be. And if you are dealing with

a case you must make sure that you are always available. In

the evening, at night, regardless of whether you’re ill or not.’

Reading at schoolColleagues and friends sometimes wonder whether she is

not asking too much of herself. Patrick Polak says, ‘It comes

at a price if you want to continue to perform at this level.

I wouldn’t be able to keep it up.’ Angelique Martens, who

has worked as a junior notary at AKD with Van Woerkom for

more than ten years, says, ‘No one can put in such a top per-

formance and be the perfect mother and the perfect wife.

As a woman you sometimes have to make choices about

where you want to be.’

It is that familiar and unavoidable discussion about career

women. Van Woerkom, who has three children (five, seven

and eight-years-old), smiles when the subject arises. Her

husband is often abroad for his work and there are weeks in

which she too only eats at home a few times. So yes, it can

be a bit of a puzzle. Saturdays are devoted to the children

anyway, with football and her son’s hockey team that she

coaches. And she tries to find as much time as possible to fit

in reading at school and other activities. ‘I am the opposite

of my mother, who was always at home. As a child I liked

that. But if your mother works, you get to experience other

things. My children are learning to be independent some-

what sooner. Of course there are times when I wonder why

I don’t do something else. There have been times when they

couldn’t get hold of me when my son had fallen down. A

nosebleed, that sort of thing. You can’t avoid it. I purposely

live close to my work, so I can get home quickly if anything

does happen. And so I don’t have a long commute.’

Rabbits out of hatsAt 7.30 p.m. Van Woerkom, her AKD colleague, the client

and the two financial men sit down at a table in the Eau de

Vie Restaurant (‘Ron Blaauw was full; can you believe it?’).

The takeover is in the bag, but there is a bit of a fuss about a

bank guarantee. The corks should really have been popping

at lunchtime today, after one of the Canon representa-

tives had initialled the huge pile of papers and the notary

had handed round the closing binders printed in golden

lettering. But – ‘a final rabbit is always pulled out of the

hat’ – it turned out to be somewhat later. A last conference

call is held during the meal. A discussion with Stibbe and a

conversation with the buyers, who have had to change their

flight. The five of them sit bent over an iPhone that lies on

the tablecloth among the scallops and glasses of white wine.

Despite the best will in the world, it is not possible to settle

the matter during this one-and-a-half-hour long telephone

call. The shares are transferred the next day at four in the

morning.

It is nearly midnight when the garden gate opens and the

X5 drives over the little bridge onto the driveway. In the clear

night a few weak stars twinkle. The house is fast asleep. One

last question: does she think many people would like her

job? ‘It depends. Ambitious people definitely. They would re-

ally enjoy it. But I can imagine people might say they would

hate to have to work so much and have all that stress. It’s a

choice you make. And for me it’s the right one.’

Geert Maarse studied Business Administration (2006) and

Cultural Studies (2008) at the EUR, where he also did a Master’s

degree in Media & Journalism (2009).

Ronald van den Heerik studied Philosophy at the EUR from

1979 to 1983.


From the top floor of the

AKD offices you have

a fantastic view over

Rotterdam.


Enterprising alumni

What is it?

24MONTHS is an initiative of Erasmus University Rot-

terdam and the Holland Program on Entrepreneurship

(HOPE). 24MONTHS matches talented young people

with ambitious businesses. The young talents want to

become entrepreneurs. After a tough selection process

they get to work on three eight-month assignments

(24 months in total) within a business. They are given

a lot of autonomy here, and they receive intensive

supervision from 24MONTHS during the programme.

Businesses offer the trainees a challenging assignment

and a great deal of independence.

Interested in being a trainee or in providing an

assignment?

Go to www.24months.nl

The company gets fresh, enter-

prising talent for a specific as-

signment; the graduate gets a

serious chance to take a look

behind the scenes. 24MONTHS

sounds like a win-win situation.

Ask Peter Pesselse about the added-value of

the 24MONTHS project and he could not be

more complimentary: ‘You bring in enthusiastic,

enterprising talents who tackle an issue in your

company independently, with the right knowhow,

energy and a fresh, out-of-the-box approach.’

Pesselse is managing director of CARU Contain-

ers. CARU leads Europe in the field of sales, rental

and leasing of new and second-hand containers,

and has taken on two trainees from 24MONTHS.

One of them is Sabrina Kestens, an alumna of

Erasmus University. She started work at the con-

tainer firm in January. Her assignment is to cap-

ture the market for offshore containers.

‘Intrapreneur’During her studies Kestens had her own small

business, but found it too big a leap to continue

with this after she graduated. Once she had been

awarded her degree in 2010, as an economist

specialized in Urban Port and Transport Eco-

nomics, she worked for a year and a half as a

graduate trainee at the Ministry of Infrastructure

and the Environment. ‘In government there is a

consultation culture, so it takes a long time for

decisions to be made. We could sometimes spend

a whole day in a meeting and would still not have

reached a decision,’ she says laughing. ‘At CARU

there is a mentality of less talk and more action.’

Kestens read about the 24MONTHS project at the

end of November and responded straight away.

‘I wanted to work in a smaller, more dynamic

environment, where there is room for creativity

and responsibility.’ For her 24Months is ‘the ideal

next step.’ ‘I am learning a lot about the business,

am coached and trained by entrepreneurs and

am increasing my experience and expanding my

toolbox so I will be able to set up my own busi-

ness in the future.’ Referring to her position as

Setting out to sea with entrepreneurs-to-be

text Eveline van de Lagemaat

photo Ronald van den Heerik


May 1967. The logarithmic number system and German irregular verbs. Once again you sat in your room. It was one of those Sun-day afternoons you just had to endure: your last chance to prepare for a test. There you sat at your new desk, a pile of study books in front of your nose and an agonizing mathematical assignment that proved impossible to solve. Prove e = 2.71828 as a natural base. You thumbed indifferently through an old German dictionary, wanted everything and nothing, and made curvaceous splodges with your fountain pen on an empty notepad. Homework. For a moment you wondered what the meaning of it all was. You were only just fifteen. Too young for a moped, too old for a kite and too soon for questions about the meaning of life.Even dwarfs started small. The richly associative title of a docu-mentary (1970) by film director Werner Herzog. Little people, dwarves, are set free on an uninhabited island and organize themselves into chaos. The law of the jungle reigns supreme. The pecking order. That is now my place of work, among writers in a world dominated by AKO literature prizes and media-savvy pen-pushers. But it’s still a jungle full of dwarves, all of whom started small and stayed small.December 2011. As a friend of astronaut André Kuipers I travelled with him to Kazakhstan, standing close to the roaring flames of the Soyuz spacecraft in Baikonur. We now e-mail and he phones me every now and then. ‘When I gaze from here into the pitch-black universe, I really feel how fragile and relative it all is.’ May 1967. ‘Have you started on your prime numbers yet, son?’ your father asked triumphantly. Prime numbers. Those too. You didn’t reply. The next day your mathematics test was a flop. You forgot the German irregular verbs during that turbulent summer with Elise by the Bodensee in Konstanz.June 1970. You looked out the window, sat at your desk and thought back to May 1967. Irregular German verbs and a loga-rithmic number system. You felt a slight longing for that familiar confusion.Now you were allowed to go to the EUR, but you sat hunched over a map of the world and you didn’t want to go to France but to West Samoa. You were only just eighteen. Too old for a moped, too young for resignation but just too late for Sartre.

Henk Weltevreden (1951) studied Philosophy at the EUR. He writes travel stories, novels and columns and makes TV pro-grammes for the VPRO, NTR, RVU and Humanistische Omroep TV companies. His travel novel about North Korea De Stralende Ster van Paekdu (The Shining Star of Paekdu) will soon be published.

Column Jungle

entrepreneur within an organization she says, ‘At CARU I am

an intrapreneur!’

PitchThe matchmaker between trainees and businesses is the

24MONTHS organization. In this case it selected seven can-

didates to pitch to the company. They were informed about

CARU’s assignment

24 hours beforehand. In the pitch the seven presented

themselves and how they wanted to tackle the assignment.

‘This gave us a good idea of the different talents,’ says Pes-

selse. ‘At the end of the afternoon we could choose which

candidate we wanted to join forces with. It soon became

clear to us that we actually wanted two candidates. CARU

was set up in 1980 as a two-man band; we find working in

pairs suits our culture and the advantage is that the two tal-

ents can challenge and complement each other. Sabrina and

Allard [Langenhuijsen, the other trainee, ed.] work more or

less independently on the assignment.’

Armed with factsThe trainees report to the container company management

every fortnight. They work closely with a colleague whose

focus is the offshore market. Kestens says, ‘Our main focus

at the moment is documenting this. We are considering the

opportunities, threats and requirements in this relatively new

market.’

The market is interesting for CARU because the margins

are higher, says Pesselse. ‘The often rough conditions at sea

make it necessary to use stronger containers, and an off-

shore container must also meet higher safety requirements.’

The container company has grown rapidly in recent years,

but ‘we mainly used our intuition in important business deci-

sions. By taking on Sabrina and Allard we can now be armed

with the facts about the potential growth market of offshore

containers. After two months I can already say that there has

been a return on investment with these two talents.’

Author Eveline van de Lagemaat studied Social History at

the EUR, specializing in communication and information.

‘There is already a return on Investment with the trainees’


Sabrina Kestens is investigating the potential

growth market of offshore containers for Peter

Pesselse’s company


Focus on research DISCOUNT How do you get people to exercise regularly? In order to get a better idea of this these three re-searchers from different departments of the Eras-mus School of Economics (ESE) did a fi eld study at a gym. They randomly selected three groups of gym visitors. Group one received a discount of € 15 per quarter if they visited the gym once a week for 11 of the 13 weeks, and € 25 if they visited twice in those weeks. Group two received a € 15 discount, regardless of the number of visits. Group three was the control group.

CAMPAIGNThe researchers believe the results will be of interest to, for example, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, other parts of the public sector or insurance com-panies. For gyms the study does not appear to result in hard cash: people did not extend their subscriptions more often.

LONG TERMSocial psychologists generally study situ-ations, explains Willem Verbeke, Profes-sor of Sales and Account Management (Department of Business Economics). ‘We have now looked at a long-term effect, as economists do.’ The researchers have dif-ferent theories as to why such an effect oc-curs. Maybe the gym visitor makes friends at the gym, who encourage him to visit the gym, or maybe he becomes addicted to the good feeling that doing sport gives him? Maybe his health improves and he can consequently make better decisions?

IT SEEMS TO WORKHow do you get people to exercise regularly? Like this, it seems. From the fi rst provisional results it appears that the group that received a discount if they came each week visited the gym more often, behavioural economist Kirsten Rohde (Department of Applied Economics) explains. What is more, ‘Even after the discounted period they continued to return. They seem to have developed a habit.’

PERFORMANCE INCENTIVESRobert Dur, Professor of Economics of In-centives and Performance (Department of Economics), has done a lot of research into performance incentives in businesses. The gym study is not fully comparable with this. The incentive is much more limited: it is not your salary we are talking about but a discount of € 15. And it is in a very dif-ferent environment. But that in particular makes the study interesting. The incentive is weak and temporary but the effect ap-pears to be strong and for the long term.


STOPPING SMOKINGLearning a good habit with the help of an incentive can also be applied to other areas of course: taking your medicine every day, stopping smoking, losing weight. Studies have already been done of a number of such situations. But more research is needed if we are to under-stand how the mechanism works.

Text Mieke Fiers Photo Levien Willemse

The photo was taken in the Achmea

Health Center Rotterdam (the study did

not take place at this gym)

Alzheimer’sThe number of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other

forms of dementia is increasing at an alarming rate. The Alz-

heimer’s Foundation predicts it will have doubled by the year

2040. In order to improve treatment

and research, Erasmus MC and the

Havenziekenhuis hospital have set

up an Alzheimer’s Centre for the

South-West Netherlands.

See also www.erasmusmc.nl/

Alzheimercentrum


Science news

Environmental law still feels somewhat as

though it is imposed from above, whilst the

public and businesses bear their own res-

ponsibility for sustainable behaviour. In his

EUR dissertation for which he was recently

awarded a PhD, Harm Borgers suggests an

alternative approach, which actually makes

a claim on this individual responsibility. This

would also bring environmental law closer to

people’s experience.

Environmental law

CrisisinterpretedThe continuing economic crisis and one

round of cuts after another require expla-

nation, interpretation and a reaction from

experts. The media have been beating down

the door to Rotterdam economists for this.

See also www.economieopinie.nl

200 million less for research In the coming years the govern-

ment is set to make cuts to aca-

demic research of € 200 million

annually, according to calcula-

tions by the Rathenau Institute.

Spending will decrease from €

5.9 to 5.7 billion. The amount

of direct government spending

on academic research will have decreased to €

4.5 billion in 2016.

‘My mother taught me…’Why are some children better at sharing

and cooperating than others? This is what

Canadian biologist Viara Mileva-Seitz is

going to study. Her research falls within the

scope of the research programme of the new

department of Education and Child Studies of

Erasmus University. In a two-year study Mileva-

Seitz will look at whether some children are

better at cooperating and sharing because

they are better at observing social signals, have

genetic baggage that is favourable to social

behaviour or have been brought up that way.


Environmental law

Avoiding fraudStudents and researchers must develop more of a sense of what constitutes academic misconduct. In order to achieve this, the Association of Universities, of which Erasmus Uni-versity is a member, have drawn up a Dutch Code of Conduct for Academic Practice.

Students must receive training in academic integrity and from

now on researchers must explicitly vow to stick to the code.

Dutch academia was startled this year by a number of fraud

cases. It began with the large-scale fraud by Professor Diederik

Stapel of Tilburg University. There has also been a case at Erasmus

University in which academic integrity was violated. The academic

in question, Associate Professor Don Poldermans of the Erasmus

MC, was dismissed.

More information on www.vsnu.nl

The government was negligent about taking satisfactory measures to limit the use of asbestos.

This is what legal expert Bob Ruers, member of the Senate for the

SP Party, claims in his dissertation, for which he recently received

a PhD from the EUR. The government should therefore offer its

excuses to the victims, says Ruers. More than ten thousand peo-

ple have already died from inhaling asbestos fi bres. In the coming

years the same number again will probably die.

Prior to the full asbestos ban, in 1993, there was confl ict between

the industry, government, unions and victims. Signifi cant econo-

mic interests were at stake here, Ruers emphasizes.

See too www.comiteasbestslachtoffers.nl

‘Government negligent with asbestos regulations’

Ron Fouchier’s team was able to

mutate the current bird fl u virus

in a few steps to make it easier to

transmit from human to human.

The virus would cause the biggest

pandemic in history with millions

of deaths as a result. Fouchier sent

his fi ndings to the journal Science,

which submitted them to the

American National Science Advisory

Board for Biosecurity NSABB. This

strongly advised not to publish. The

danger was that the knowledge

could be used as a weapon in the

wrong hands. Fouchier believes it

is actually dangerous not to pro-

ceed with this kind of research.

Publication and further research can

mean that a mutation in this wrong

direction can be recognized and a

possible pandemic avoided.

After a special session the World

Health Organization (WHO) de-

cided to allow publication, and the

NSABB supported the decision.

However, the Dutch government

had not yet issued a permit to

export this sensitive knowledge.

In order to make a proper assess-

ment of the situation, it held an

international conference at the end

of April about security and the bird

fl u virus research. Fouchier was one

of the speakers. Outgoing State

Secretary Bleker has fi nally decided

to grant an export permit for the

research, which means that it can

now be published.

Dangerous fl u virus causes debateIn an extremely secure lab at the Erasmus MC, Virologist Ron Fou-chier developed a bird fl u virus that can be transmitted via coughs and sneezes. Sharing the knowledge about this caused a global dis-cussion about the use of such research and whether sensitive know-ledge should be shared, and if so with whom.


In the news in ‘97-’98

Martijn Koenen was a

candidate for the D66 Party

in the municipal council elec-

tions (photo: RvdH)

Floortje (r) en Brechje van

Eijck won bronze at the World

Rowing Championships

(photo: RvdH)

Martijn Koenen40, Public Administration

What were you up to in 97-98?‘Politics was not really my calling but I was interested in

political and social developments. I was one of the

founders of the Youth Board and a member of the

Young Democrats and D66. When they asked me if I

wanted to be a candidate for the municipal council elec-

tions it sounded like a good idea. Unfortunately, we did

not win enough seats.’

What do you do now?‘I graduated in 2000 and now work as a customs and

excise inspector in Rotterdam.’

How do you look back at that time?‘It was a valuable and particularly fun period, but I gave

up my political ambitions. I got fed up fairly quickly with

the culture in local politics: people who take themselves

way too seriously and whose main worry is themselves

rather than society.’

Floortje (l) en Brechje van Eijck both 36, Medicine

What were you up to in 97-98?‘We qualified for the World Rowing Championships in

France. In the end we won bronze there. A fantastic end to

the season. We rowed for one more year and then stopped

because we were both doing residencies.’

What are you doing now?Floortje: ‘I have been a trauma surgeon since October 2009. I

was awarded my PhD by Erasmus MC two years ago. I now

work in the Slingeland Hospital in Doetinchem.’

Brechje: ‘I am now a gastroenterologist at the Kennemer

Gasthuis Hospital in Haarlem.’

What do you remember most?‘The medals at the World Championship were the highlight

for us of course. A fantastic time that we would repeat at

the drop of a hat. The intensive training programmes taught

us how to plan and switch between our studies – and now

work – and our private lives.’

EA takes a trip

back in time and

wonders how

the students

who made the

news in the

academic year

of 1997-1998 are

doing now.

text and photos from

now Sanne van der Most

Sanne van der Most

studied Private Law at the

EUR. She graduated in 1999.


Femke Lagerveld

(2nd from right) was on the

Eureka Week Committee

(photo: private collection)

Karel van der Flier

organized big student

parties

(photo: LW)

Femke Lagerveld37, Dutch Law

What were you up to in 97-98?‘As a member of the Eureka Week Committee I was responsi-

ble for the design and content of all the printed material and

for the cabaret evening, where a then relatively unknown

Thomas van Luyn performed. I also organized a hypnotist,

called Mr Black, and the lunch concert on the first day.’

What do you do now?‘I work in the House of Representatives as a policy officer for

Security and Justice for the VVD Party and am also doing a

Master’s degree in Political Science.’

Fond memories?‘It was completely different from “normal” study. As a com-

mittee we had to organize all sorts of things and got to go all

sorts of places. We ate together once a week. It was great

fun. What did I learn? How to work together in a group. And

that you have to accept that people have their own way of

doing things.’

Karel van der Flier37, Business Economics

What were you up to in 97-98?‘I ran an events company together with two fellow year-

group members of my student association:

Young Promotions. We organized big parties for student as-

sociations and for the EUR. Real parties to blow you away

with famous bands like Kane and Bløf.’

What do you do now?‘For years I bought up businesses that were performing bad-

ly, did them up and sold them on. As that was going so well

and I am an entrepreneur at heart, I didn’t finish my degree.

I have never regretted it. I now work with my wife Mariska,

who is an interior designer. She is very creative but some-

what less business-minded. I therefore do that part now.’

Anything else you learnt?‘I learnt how important it is to be able to trust whoever you

work with with your life. And that it is better to make a bad

decision than no decision at all.’

In September 2003 I passed Petri’s Eggs on the

Woudestein Campus for the last time, on my way

to collect my Business Administration degree.

Now I am back and armed with a notepad. At the

request of EA I am writing an article about the

renovation and new developments on the cam-

pus. And a lot has changed.

Note 1: The grassy slope or sunbath-ing area in front of the big Mensa has completely disappeared.

Here on this spot every student or former student

has sat on the grass at some point to enjoy a few

rays. Now there is a hole many meters deep in

which construction workers walk back and forth

between rusty sheetpile walls. They are working

on an underground car park with a thousand

parking spaces, Huub Juurlink tells me. He is an

architect at Juurlink [+] Geluk and the designer

of the master plan for the new campus. ‘The car

park is one of the most difficult jobs,’ he says,

pointing to the tension braces in the wall of the

hole. ‘These are to prevent the building subsiding

into the car park.’ This is not an unthinkable sce-

nario: exactly that started to happen in 2007 with

the Erasmus MC-Sophia when they built a multi-

storey car park next door.

On top of the underground car park they will

build a new Plaza. This ‘student boulevard’ should

form the heart of the new campus. The Plaza will

run as a straight line through the campus, from

Commotion at the Plaza

Erasmus Universiteit and the new campus


Work on the Woudestein

Campus

Phase 1

Completion date: July 2013

Work: construction of

underground car park, Plaza,

park, student accommodation

(U-Building), Student Pavilion

and renovation of C-Building.

Cost: 92 million

Phase 2

Period: September 2013–2028

Work: renovation of H-Building,

renovation of L-Building,

including the Mensa, which

will be transformed into a food

court, construction of a hotel,

new sports hall.

Cost: More than €300 million

(set aside)

On Campus Woudestein they are busy demolishing, constructing and

renovating. Alumnus Dennis Mijnheer returns to the university for EA

to find out what the plans entail.

text Dennis Mijnheer

illustrations Lobke van Aar


the Burgemeester Oudlaan all the way to the Kral-

ingse Zoom/Brainpark. ‘The Plaza will be as long

and wide as the Willemsbrug, with restaurants

on both sides, a hotel, student accommodation, a

new gym and lots of benches,’ says Juurlink.

The idea is that the Plaza will become a real meet-

ing place bringing together the whole campus.

That used to be very different: you cycled to the

building where your lecture was and had little to

do with the rest of the campus. There were whole

groups of students from other faculties that you

never met. In future everyone who has to be on

the campus – be it for a lecture, a symposium or

otherwise – will enter at the Plaza. From the car

park you will also immediately enter the ‘heart of

the campus’, as Juurlink calls it. ‘A student heart

full of commotion, cyclists, benches and a lot of

green. We have made the car park construction

very strong so that we can plant big trees, such

as sycamores, on top. I am looking forward to an

Indian Summer with a busy Plaza in all the colours

of autumn.’

Bart Straatman, member of the Executive Board

of the University, has the image imprinted in his

mind. He gained his inspiration from universities in

Hong Kong, Singapore and Edinburgh. ‘We now

have the opportunity to update all that is out-

dated on the campus. For the long term we have

set aside € 400 million so that we will once again

count among the top universities.’ The expansion

is taking place in phases. ‘We are going to keep

checking if we can still afford it. Otherwise we will

first have to save.’

Note 2: Café In de Smitse has disap-peared from the F/G Building.

Nine years ago we might not have had a Plaza

but we did have Café In de Smitse. It was the

only semi-lively place at Woudestein with en-

tertainment in the form of cheap beer, music

and fellow students, even the braggarts. A few

enquiries tell me that In de Smitse has moved to

the T-Building, which opened in 2005. From sum-

mer next year this student café will have serious

competition from the Student Pavilion. The new

building measuring 32x32 metres will be on the

spot where at the moment twenty foundation

piles stand. A grand café is coming with seating

for 140, a terrace outside, meeting rooms, study

areas and a multi-functional hall with seating for

200 or standing room for 400. ‘The aim is that

‘In the pavilion there will be second-hand furniture, which is both sustainable and welcoming’


the pavilion becomes the lively centre of the campus,’ says

Dick Pakkert, who has been taken on as its manager. He is

also manager of the Rotterdam café-restaurant De Unie and

the Rotown concert hall. It will be no trouble to bring some

life to the pavilion in the daytime, he believes. ‘The evening

will be the biggest challenge. Students have lots of other

options, such as the Oude Haven and the Oostzeedijk, and

once they are in town or at home it is a long way back to the

campus.’ Pakkert therefore wants to bring the ‘city’ to the

campus: with its own (mainly organic) food, films, theatre

and concerts.

Note 3: The F/G-Building has a snack cart selling döner kebabs right outside.

I fear that the design of the snack cart will be no match for

the new Student Pavilion. Stefan Prins, architect at Power-

house Company, designed the pavilion, with lots of sheet

glass to keep it as transparent as possible. ‘But there are

going to be big blinds to keep out the sun. In the summer

we will then need to use less energy to cool it, and by shut-

ting the blinds a certain sense of intimacy will develop,’ says

Prins. He shows me an artist’s impression of a winter scene: a

frozen pond, students skating and an – he’s right – intimate-

looking pavilion. Between the pavilion and the pond there

will be steps like a sort of paddy field. ‘A good place to work

quietly by the water in the summer,’ says Prins.

The future pond is not just for aesthetic purposes: the water

will also be used to cool the pavilion. There are more such

sustainable ideas in the design. Prins says, ‘The wish of the

University was to design a building that is both lively and sus-

tainable. This was an interesting challenge because the live-

lier you want it to be the less sustainable it often becomes.

Erasmus Universiteit en de nieuwe campus

‘Over the course of time the central hall filled up with a coffee corner and all sorts of cubicles.’


And vice versa.’ The pavilion’s interior is under discussion at

the moment. Pakkert says, ‘I don’t want everything white

and austere because the students then feel they aren’t al-

lowed to touch anything. We are therefore opting for sec-

ond-hand furniture: that is both sustainable and welcoming.’

Note 4: A bright-red (!) prefab-like building has risen in front of the M-Building.

In my time the campus was dominated by the colour grey.

In the new plans there is luckily more colour. But this bright-

red building with coloured stripes beats them all. It proves

to be called the ‘V-Building’ and contains such things as the

Erasmus Shop, a hairdresser and the seven lecture theatres.

Different faculties are being temporarily housed there due

to the renovation of the monumental C-Building. This build-

ing has been completely stripped and is not accessible; the

restoration work is now in full flow. All technical installations

such as the air-conditioning systems, electricity and heating

are being updated, says Sharif Ben Chamach, who studied

Law until 2006 at the EUR and now works for Breijer Bouw

en Installatie, the main contractor on the renovation project.

‘Over the course of time the central hall filled with a coffee

corner and all sorts of cubicles,’

says Ben Chamach. ‘It was the university’s wish to return the

building, which dates from 1964, back to its original state.’

Note 5: Petri’s Eggs are nowhere to be seen.

They used to be by the Burgemeester Oudlaan, at exactly

the same spot where the entrance to the new plaza will be.

Therefore, ‘something’ had to be done about Petri’s Eggs.

‘We looked into whether it would be possible to keep the

eggs, but from a technical point of view they were on their

last legs,’ says Kees Lansbergen, director of the Erasmus Ser-

vices Department (EFB). It was not possible to restore them.

They would have fallen apart during transport. ‘We did con-

sider reproductions, but Petri’s heirs were against that.’ They

said goodbye to this artwork with a ceremony and an exhibi-

tion last year. ‘With pain in our hearts,’ says Lansbergen. ‘I

studied here myself at the end of the 1970s and they were a

feature of Erasmus University.’

Their disappearance is almost symbolic: the round forms of

the artwork were a silent protest by Petri against the cold

rectangular shapes of the grey concrete university buildings

in the 1960s. However, the trend seems to have been bro-

ken: the ‘new’ Woudestein is gaining colour, glass and a lot

of green.

www.eur.nl/campus/ontwikkeling_campus

Dennis Mijnheer studied Business Administration at the EUR.

He graduated in 2003 specializing in Marketing Management.

New Hoboken Building

Construction work is not just

going on at Woudestein but

it is also all systems go at the

Erasmus MC (Hoboken). In the

autumn of 2009 the first phase

of the large-scale refurbishment

began with a construction bud-

get of € 449 million. Work is

currently underway on the East

section, the tower of which

will have thirty floors and, at a

height of 120 metres, will be a

good bit higher than the cur-

rent white tower. The East sec-

tion (at Sophia) is expected to

open in 2013. The completion

date for the whole new buil-

ding is 2017.

Nice animation at: www.

erasmusmc.nl/nieuwbouw

ww

w.e

rasm

usa

cad

emie

.nl

Nieuw: Recht(st)reeks Rotterdamwww.erasmusacademie.nl/rechtstreeksrotterdam

Het juridisch PAO-onderwijs is in een nieuw jasje gestoken!

De laatste ontwikkelingen binnen uw vakgebied

+ praktische tools voor de praktijk

+ ervaren docenten uit wetenschap en praktijk

+ gegarandeerde PO-punten

+ netwerkborrel met aansluitend buffet en lezing

Donderdag 14 juni 2012 van 13.00 – 17.30 uur

op de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam.

Kijk voor het programma of voor direct inschrijven op

www.erasmusacademie.nl/rechtstreeksrotterdam

Eras

mu

s U

niv

ersi

teit

Ro

tter

dam

Op deze pagina vindt u een kleine selectie van een prachtig aanbod aan relatiegeschenken van de

Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. Op www.eur.nl/faciliteiten/relatiegeschenken/assortiment/ vindt u ons

volledige assortiment. Bestellingen kunnen geplaatst worden door een e-mail te sturen naar [email protected].

Relatiegeschenken

erasmus in europa

Eras

mus

Uni

vers

iteit

Rott

erda

m

Rrob derksrene leisink

/

Erasmus in Europa€ 3,95

Briefopener€€22,50

Bronzen beeld ErasmusHoogte: 15 cm € 99,65

Presse papier€ 20,-

Dopper€ 8,-

Doosje assorti chocolade15 stuks € 6,50


‘I was born and bred in Lonneker, a small

village close to Enschede. After secondary

school I went to Nyenrode Business Univer-

sity. I then studied Business Administration

for two-and-a-half years (MSc) at the EUR.

When I came to Rotterdam I did not feel

anything for the city. My love for it grew

really slowly but the city is now my anchor.

This is partly due to such great events as the

Film Festival in which I immerse myself each

year.’

Entrepreneur Herman Vaanholt is the orga-

nizer of the Rotterdam City Race (previously

the Bavaria City Race). He is not afraid of

noise, but he does like to seek out a bit of

nature too. ‘The Kralingse Bos is the Central

Park of Rotterdam. You can find peace and

beautiful nature at a stone’s throw from the

city noise.’ His favourite place is the terrace

of Restaurant De Tuin van de Vier Wind-

streken, by the Kralingse Plas. It is no coin-

cidence that he has been co-owner of ‘De

Tuin’ for fourteen years.

‘De Tuin is so great because everyone is wel-

come. People come here especially for our

food and drink, but they sometimes also pop

in after having been out in the woods. In the

spring you sometimes get riders on horses

on the terrace just like in the old days; in

the summer visitors arrive on foot and in the

winter there are skaters. The huge terrace

by the water with the long jetty is a real hot-

spot in the summer, but if you come at other

times, you can enjoy the peace and quiet.

In the spring I sometimes sit here really early

in the morning to watch the sunrise. It is so

beautiful here then!’

Eveline van de Lagemaat studied

Social History at the EUR, specializing in

communication and information.

Why Rotterdam

The Kralingse Bos is the Central Park of Rotterdam

The Kralingse Bos is the Central

Park of Rotterdam

Name: Herman Vaanholt (50)

Degrees: Bachelor’s in Business

Administration (BBA) Manage-

ment (Nyenrode),

Business Administration (MSc)

EUR

Graduated: 1986

Proud of: De Tuin van de Vier

Windstreken Restaurant

Herman Vaanholt’s love for Rotterdam grew slowly. The

entrepreneur now feels more than at home there.

text Eveline van de Lagemaat

photo Levien Willemse



Alumni affairs

Erasmus University RotterdamAlumni & Corporate

Relations Office

Room A1-51

Burgemeester Oudlaan 50

3062 PA Rotterdam

Telephone: 010-4081110

Fax: 010-4089075

[email protected]

www.eur.nl/alumni

Alumni Advisory Board

Rinkse Brand, Marcella

Breedeveld, Michel Dutree, Jan

Hendrik Egberts, Bon de Jonge

van Ellemeet, Sietze Hepkema,

Frans van Houten, Ila Kasem,

Guus Lubsen, Lilianne

Ploumen, Derek Roos, Dominic

Schrijer, Dick Verbeek, Frans

Weisglas, Henk Weltevreden,

Pieter Zevenbergen (chair)

UL library card for alumni

Alumni of the EUR can apply

for an UL library card at a

reduced rate: € 15 instead of €

30. Request your UL library

card by sending an e-mail to

[email protected] stating your

surname, initials, address, date

of birth and former student

number.

Opening of the Academic

Year 2012/2013

You are all invited to the

traditional opening of the

Academic Year 2012–2013.

3 September 2010, Aula, EUR

Social media

The EUR communicates via

Linkedin, Facebook and

Twitter. Register now.

Erasmus Alumni Database

Your alma mater, the EUR, will

celebrate its centenary in

2013. We want to involve as

many alumni as possible in the

celebrations. If you are unsure

whether we have your recent

personal data please contact

us ([email protected], 010-

4081110). You can also

request a new login so you

can manage your own

database entry and not miss a

single announcement.

World map of EUR alumni

EUR alumni jet off across the

whole world. In order to get a

picture of this the EUR has

developed a web application.

From www.eur.nl/alumni you

can access a special version of

the well-known Google Maps,

which shows all alumni from

the Erasmus Alumni Database

right to city level. Naturally this

is anonymous.

EUR Language & Training

Centre

As an alumnus of the Erasmus

University Rotterdam you

receive a discount on the

Chinese, English, Italian,

Japanese, Dutch and Spanish

language courses at the EUR

Language & Training Centre.

Evening courses: 10 lessons,

starting three times a year –

January, April and October –

5.30-

8 p.m. (higher levels of

Spanish until 9 p.m.).

Intensive courses: in three

weeks you learn what you

would otherwise need two

evening courses for

(20 weeks altogether).

Dutch (January and August),

English (August), Spanish

(August)

English for special purposes:

Business Writing Skills,

Academic Writing and a

Cambridge Course in which

you can prepare for the

prestigious Cambridge

Certificate.

Unable to find what you are

looking for? The Language &

Training Centre also provides

tailor-made solutions.

[email protected], 010-4081995,

www.eur.nl/ttc/alumni/

General Erasmus Alumni

Association

Alexandra Staab

PO Box 4382,

3006 AJ Rotterdam

Telephone 010-4149407

eav@

erasmusalumnivereniging.nl

www.

erasmusalumnivereniging.nl

Sport at a discount

EUR wishes to emphasize and

strengthen the ties with its

alumni. Alumni can therefore

take part in sporting activities

at Erasmus Sport even after

they have graduated.

Furthermore, EAV members

can participate in sporting

activities there at student

prices. For information on the

sports on offer and fees see

www.erasmussport.nl.

General Studies/

Erasmus Culture

Fedde van der Spoel

Room E1-47

010 408 2693

[email protected]

http://www.eur.nl/sgec

Party at Smitse

Just before the summer

Erasmus Culture and Café In

de Smitse are holding an

open-air festival. The most

promising artistes of the last

season will perform one more

time. Start the summer at this

mini-festival at the EUR.

1 June 2012, 5 p.m.,

Woudestein Campus

Erasmus Studio

A new initiative by General

Studies, Erasmus Culture and

Erasmus Podium.

The lighthearted ‘Studio

Erasmus’ talkshow once a

Mandeville LectureAt the invitation of the Erasmus University Rotter-dam, the Rotterdam business community united in Club Rotterdam and the EUR Trustfund Association, the former president of the Central European Bank, Jean Claude Trichet, will give the Mandeville Lecture on 6 June 2012. This lecture is considered an ‘hono-rary social doctorate’. Former laureates include Wim Duisenberg (1998), Bernard Kouchner (2002) and Joop van den Ende (2011).6 June 2012, Aula, EUR. Info. at www.mandevillelezing.nl


month. Guests pop in to

discuss academia, politics,

culture, media and the EUR.

Fourth edition on 24 May

2012, 8-9.15 p.m., doors

open at 7.30 p.m., De Unie

(Mauritsweg 34-35), free.

Reservation recommended via

[email protected]

Erasmus School of Economics ESL Alumni Affairs

Charles Hermans

[email protected]

Room H7-19


www.esealumni.nl

The ESE organizes a limited

number of annual events, such

as the ESE Alumni Day in the

spring on the opening day of

the EFR Business Week and the

Autumn Day.

ESE maintains ties with

alumni

The ESE attaches great

importance to strong ties

between the alumni

themselves and between the

alumni and their faculty. This

means graduates can learn

from the practical experiences

of others and stay informed of

the developments within their

field. All new alumni of the

ESE receive a two-year trial

membership of the EAV

(General Erasmus Alumni

Association) as a gift from

their faculty.

The Erasmus Education

Fund

The aim of the fund is to

support initiatives that enable

talented underprivileged

young people to go through

further education and thus

become the leaders of future

generations.

More information at www.

erasmuseducationfund.nl

Your contribution is much ap-

preciated. You can transfer it

to account number

11.69.09.436 in the name of

the Erasmus Trustfonds in Rot-

terdam stating ‘Erasmus Edu-

cation Fund’.

Dean Philip Hans Franses

receives honorary docto-

rate

Professor Philip Hans Franses

was awarded an honorary doc-

torate in econometrics by Chi-

ang Mai

University, one of the biggest

universities in Thailand. Franses

is the first Dutch person to re-

ceive an honorary doctorate

from a Thai university. He was

awarded the honorary docto-

rate by the crown prince of

Thailand Maha Chakri. ‘It was

a memorable and moving ex-

perience,’ said Franses.

Vici Grant for Ingolf Ditt-

mann

Ingolf Dittmann, Professor of

Finance, has received a Vici

Grant of € 1.5 million from the

Netherlands Organisation for

Scientific Research (NWO). His

proposal received the highest

assessment of A+ no fewer

than three times from the in-

ternational judges. The Vici

Grant is one of the largest in-

dividual scientific grants in the

Netherlands. The Vici Grant

will provide Dittman with the

opportunity to set up his own

research group.

Professors appointed

Dr Onno Steenbeek has been

appointed Professor of Profes-

sional Practice in Risk Manage-

ment of Pension Funds on be-

half of the EUR Trustfund As-

sociation.

Prof. Enrico Pennings has been

appointed Professor of Applied

Industrial Organization.

Prof. Victor Maas has been ap-

pointed Endowed Professor of

Management Accounting on

behalf of the EUR Trustfund

Association. His work will in-

clude conducting management

accounting research.

Correction

An erroneous link was made in

the advertisement for the

Erasmus Education Fund in the

previous edition of Erasmus

Alumni Magazine between the

photo of ESE graduates and

the text about talented,

underprivileged students. The

photo and the text are

unrelated.

EFR Alumni Association

EFR Secretary

Alumni Association

2011/2012

Alissa Daurer

Room H16-30

[email protected]

www.efr.nl/alumni

EFR Alumni Dinner

The annual Alumni Dinner of

the EFR (Economics Faculty

Association Rotterdam) was

held in Amsterdam on

Saturday 4 February. Despite

problems due to snow, 110

former board members

attended.

Barbecue and football

EFR Alumni activity for former

board members and former

active members (Erasmus

Recruitment Days and Business

Week Committee). During a

barbecue at the Kralingse Plas

the above are invited to cheer

on the Dutch national team in

their first match in the

European Championships. An

official invitation will follow.

9 June 2012 Café-Restaurant

De Tuin

ESE-Ere AwardThe Erasmus School of Economics has conferred the first ESE-Ere Award to Dean Philip Hans Franses. At the ceremony during which Justus Veenman, director of the Applied Economics capacity group, presented the award, Franses was praised for stimulating high-quality teaching and research in the Faculty and suc-cessfully representing Faculty interests. His media ap-pearances and frequent contributions to the website EconomieOpinie.nl are also valued. Furthermore, his work outside the Faculty, such as his teaching ap-pointment at the University of Paramaribo and his membership of the KNAW, contributes to the Facul-ty’s reputation.


Bachelor Honours Class

Alumni Society

Nicky Hoogveld

Postvak H6-26

[email protected]

www.esehonours.nl

FSR Alumni Association

(Financial Study Association

Rotterdam)

Jordy Streng / Joris Kil

Room H14-06


[email protected]

www.fsralumni.nl

FSR Alumni Golf

Tournament

Annual golf tournament with

the alumni members of the

FSR at the end of the academic

year. 2 June 2012, 11 a.m.

Delfl and Golf Course

FSR Alumni Yearbook

The FSR Alumni Association

published an annual yearbook

for the fi rst time last year. In

order to make this complete,

FSR Alumni can mail their

personal details, current

employer and position to

[email protected]. The second

edition of the FSR Alumni

Yearbook will appear in June.

Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS)Alumni Affairs

Lalita Rambhadjan

Room M8-22

www.eur.nl/fsw/bsk/abeur

LinkedIn group: Erasmus

University Rotterdam

Alumni ABEUR

Twitter: @ABEUR_alumni,

@EUR_BSK

Psychology

Ilona Boutestijn

Room T13-48

[email protected]

www.psyweb.nl

Sociology

Dr Bram Peper

Room M6-07

[email protected]

www.eur.nl/fsw/soc/alumni/

Linkedin: Alumnivereniging

Sociologie (EUR)

New professors

Prof. Justes Uitermark,

endowed chair of ‘Society

development’ established by

the Dr Gradus Hendriks

Foundation

Prof. E.H.W. Korsten,

Psychology, particularly Clinical

Child and Adolescent

Psychology

Prof. Markus Haverland, Public

Administration, particularly

Political Science.

Inaugural lectures

Prof. Harry Geerlings,

Sustainable mobility

7 June 2012, 4 p.m., Aula

Prof. Steven van de Walle,

Comparative Public

Administration

28 June 2012, 4 p.m., Aula

Big prize for public

management scholar

Prof. Walter Kickert has

received the Routledge Prize

for Outstanding Contribution

to Public Management

Research for his services to

public management studies in

Europe. According to the jury

his services include a leading

role in determining the links

between politics, public

administration and

management. Kickert received

the prize during the annual

conference of the International

Research Society for Public

Management on 13 April in

Rome.

Erasmus School of Law (ESL)Alumni Affairs

Munish Ramlal

Room L5-026


e-mail: [email protected]

www.frg.eur.nl/alumni

Anniversary book

The history of the Erasmus

School of Law is being

recorded in an anniversary

book by Prof. L.J.J. Rogier and

Prof. L.C. Winkel. It should be

completed in the ESL

anniversary year 2013.

Dining in the car park

In its anniversary year of 2013

ESL wants to organize an

exclusive dinner for its alumni

and contacts with a lecture by

a renowned speaker. And a

special location: the car park

that is currently being built on

Woudestein campus. The

money raised by the dinner

will go towards the ESL Talent

Fund.

ESLTalentFund

With the establishment of the

ESLTalentFund the Faculty

wants to make it possible for

extra activities and projects for

talented students to continue

to go ahead despite the cuts.

As an alumni you can support

your faculty with an annual or

one-off donation to the

ESLTalentFund.

Erasmus MCErasmus MC Alumni Affairs

Erasmus MC Alumni

Association

Laurence Walhout,

management assistant

Connie Meilof, alumni

offi cer

Communication

Department,

Room Gk-954

PO Box 2040

3000 CA Rotterdam


[email protected]

www.erasmusmc.nl/alumni

Alumni Lunch: In Praise of

Medicine

Annual lunch for alumni of

Erasmus MC before the

lecture ‘In Praise of

Medicine’ with the theme:

The biological clock.

5 October 2012, 12.30 p.m.,

Concert and Congress

Sociologist Van Doorn honoured with chairJacques van Doorn was the founder of the Sociology programme at Rotterdam and one of the greatest Dutch sociologists since the Second World War. He died on 14 May 2008.To honour him the FSW has established the Prof. J.A.A. van Doorn Chair. The holder of the chair is appointed at the FSW for 0.2 FTE for a period of six months and receives a ‘Jacques van Doorn Fellow’ ap-pointment at the NIAS.Professor of Public Administration Mark Bovens is the fi rst to be appointed. He will hold this chair from 1 February to 30 June 2012. He will give the Van Doorn Lecture on 21 June 2012. (photo: Levien Willemse)

21 June 2012, 4 p.m., Aula, www.eur.nl/fsw/vandoorn

Alumni affairs

ww

w.e

rasm

usa

cad

emie

.nl

Korting voor alumniwww.erasmusacademie.nl

Ook al bent u afgestudeerd, uitgeleerd raakt u nooit. Op een groot aantal opleidingen

ontvangen alumni van de EUR daarom 10% korting op onze cursusprijs.

In september starten: • Transitiemanagement• Appreciative Inquiry • Energy Finance• Contractonderhandelingen®

• IDM: Grondslagen, Informatie en Samenleving

Kijk voor ons volledige aanbod op www.erasmusacademie.nl of neem contact op met Miranda Smit, opleidingsadviseur van Erasmus Academie

tel. 010-408 1796 of mail naar [email protected]

Building De Doelen,

Rotterdam www.

lofdergeneeskunst.nl

Faculty of Philosophy (FW)Alumni Affairs

Dr W.M.J. Ophelders

Room H5-33


[email protected]

ERA Faculty Association

Room H4-15


(Mo-Thu from 11.00 a.m. to

5.00 p.m.)

[email protected]

http://erarotterdam.nl/

Monthly ERA reception

Every third Thursday of the

month, an ERA reception is

held with fun, philosophical

discussions and beer aplenty!

A good opportunity for a

good chat with your

successors.

From 8 p.m. Café Boudewijn,

Nieuwe Binneweg 53 a-b,

Rotterdam,

www.bbcboudewijn.nl

Erasmus School of History, Culture and CommunicationESHCC Alumni Matters

Sabai Doodkorte

Room L3-30

010-4082874

[email protected]

www.eshcc.eur.nl/alumni

Farewell lecture Prof.

Marlite Halbertsma

Her farewell lecture is called

‘Arrogant dogs. On cultural

heritage and other matters.’

8 June 2012, 4 p.m.

Laurenskerk, Grote Kerkplein

27, Rotterdam

www.eshcc.eur.nl/

uitnodigingafscheidsrede

Farewell lecture Prof. Ton

Bevers

On 16 November 2012, Prof.

Ton Bevers will be leaving the

Erasmus School of History,

Culture and Communication.

16 November 2012, 4 p.m.,

Aula, Woudestein Campus


Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus UniversityAlumni Offi cer

Jennifer Ritfeld

Kamer T6-30

Telefoon 010-4082698

www.rsm.nl/alumni

[email protected]

RSM Alumni Day

Participate in sessions in which

top RSM researchers share

their latest knowledge. The

concluding session is a

discussion between RSM

Distinguished Alumni and

researchers about social

enterprise.

25 May 2012, 9.30 a.m.

– 8 p.m.,

Woudestein Campus

J-Building

http://www.rsm.nl/alumni/

events/alumniday/

Erasmus Energy Forum

Presentations, debates and

discussions by leading

decision-makers at both

academic and commercial

levels – the energy networks

for the future.

15 June 2012, 8.30 a.m.

– 3 p.m., Drijvend Paviljoen

Rotterdam

http://www.erim.eur.nl/ERIM/

Research/Centres/Energy/

Erasmus_Energy_Forum

RSM Leadership Summit

This event provides you with

the opportunity to become

familiar with the experiences

of senior executives of leading

international businesses.

During a celebratory reception

you will be able to have a chat

and network.

5 October 2012, 2–6.30 p.m.

Beurs, World Trade Center,

Rotterdam

http://www.rsm.nl/alumni/

events/leadership-summit/

New BSc/MSc Alumni

Relations Manager

Since 7 February 2012,

Jennifer Ritfeld has held the

post of BSc/MSc Alumni

Relations Manager at

the Corporate and Alumni

Relations Offi ce of the RSM.

Prior to this she worked as

Communications Advisor/

Commercial Specialist at the

American Embassy in The

Hague. Jennifer (1976) is

responsible for policy

development, transforming

this into activities that will tie

BSc/MSc alumni more closely

to the RSM.

International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) ISS Alumni Matters

Sandra Nijhof

Kortenaerkade 12

2518 AX Den Haag


E-mail [email protected]

www.iss.nl/alumni

2518 AX Den Haag


E-mail [email protected]

www.iss.nl/alumni

2012 Anniversary

Please make a note of 12

October 2012 in your diary. ISS

will celebrate its 60th

anniversary during the period

September 2012–July 2013.

Most anniversary activities are

scheduled in the week of 8–12

October 2012. On Friday 12

October special alumni

activities will take place.

iBMGiBMG Alumni Matters

Ernst Bakker

[email protected]

www.bmg.eur.nl/alumni

CPB Prize

Rudy Douven and Erik Schut

have received the CPB Prize.

This prize from the

Netherlands Bureau for

Economic Policy Analysis (CPB)

is awarded for the best

academic article published in

2011. They received it for the

article Pricing behaviour of

non-profi t insurers in a weakly

competitive social health

insurance market.

Veni Grant

Ellen van de Poel has received

a Veni Grant of € 250,000. This

grant will enable her to start a

line of research in the fi eld of

inequalities in health care in

third-world countries.

Award for Menno Kiel

Menno Kiel received the Best

New Investigator Podium

Presentation Award for his

presentation during the annual

congress of the International

Society for

Pharmacoeconomics and

Outcomes Research (ISPOR).

The title of the presentation

was: assessing the compliance

& persistence of allergen

immunotherapy in allergic

rhinitis using a retrospective

pharmacy database from the

Netherlands.

Erasmus MC Medal

On her departure as director

of operational management of

the iBMG, Marieke Veenstra

was awarded the Erasmus MC

Medal by Huib Pols, Dean and

member of the Erasmus MC

Executive Board. Veenstra

received the medal for her

services to the Erasmus MC

and the iBMG and therefore to

society in a way that conforms

with Desiderius Erasmus: self-

willed and in solidarity with

one’s fellow man.

Alumni affairs

Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies IHS Alumni International

Ore Fika, Sarah Steendam

Room: T14-33

Telephone: 010-4089874

www.ihs.nl/alumni

IHS Alumni International

Award

Urban actors at the local level

both professional and non-

professional, are largely

neglected by politicians and the

media. Yet they are the main

catalysts behind the processes

shaping cities as engines of

economic growth and

development. IHS-AI wants to

recognise and honour these key

actors in urban management

and development. The award

will be presented to the winner

at the World Urban Forum,

Naples, September 2012.

Nominate your champions now

through www.ihs.nl/alumni.

IHS Refresher Courses 2012

In 2012 IHS will organize two

refresher courses for IHS NFP

alumni with funding from

Nuffic. In Uganda the course

will focus on Pro-Poor Public

Private Partnerships and in the

Philippines on Affordable

Resilient Housing. IHS Alumni

will receive an invitation to

apply. Also please keep an eye

on our website for updates and

opening of the application

procedure. www.ihs.nl

IHS Alumni International

new board opening

Are you interested in actively

contributing to the creation of a

global network of urban

professionals? Act now. In June

2012 the current board of IHS

Alumni International will make

place for new board members.

IHS Alumni will receive a call for

application around June 2012.

Erasmus Institute for Financial PlanningIFP Alumni Affairs

Theo Hoogwout

Room H 16-07

010-4081491

www.erasmusifp.nl

Column Multiple choice


I hesitated. Again. It was my very first multiple-choice exam, for the Microeconomics course unit, and it was much, much more difficult than I had imagined, let alone hoped. I was, so to see, not the only one. We sat there in our hundreds in the Ahoy Hall (it was a propaedeutic course unit for the Econometrics pro-gramme, but a kandidaat course unit for the Business Economics programme) on that cold January day in 1979 and the grimaces on the faces of my fellow students spoke volumes. I hesitated between answer 9A and answer 9C.The exam consisted of 36 questions, and for each question you had a choice of three answers: two rivalling answers, A and B, and the answer C of ‘I do not know’. The right answer got you two points, the wrong answer (obviously) zero, and the too-often honest answer of C, ‘I do not know’, one point.In total you could gain a maximum of 72 points and therefore a mark of 10 for the exam, but 36 points or fewer got you a 1. Too many Cs and you therefore would not make it. It transpired that all multiple-choice exams within the programme used this model.Many years later I myself had to write exams and, believe me, creating a good multiple-choice exam is unbelievably difficult and time-consuming, particularly now that the ingenious model above is no longer in use. Do not ask me why not. I suspect that it was not educationally responsible. Nowadays, for each question you must provide four potential answers, and answers such as ‘none of the above are correct’ and ‘answers A and B are correct’, however attractive they might seem to the exam setter, are strictly forbidden. Anyway, matters such as the feasibility of the curriculum, assurance of learning, and examining are central to the many accreditations that we must undergo. Inconvenient but justified. We also hope to make great advances with the upcoming introduction of theN=N Programme (Nominaal is normaal; Official is Normal) to motivate students more and enable them to study within the official timeframe and thus avoid study delay fines for student and institution.Answer 9A or answer 9C? Of course I no longer know what I answered, but I do know that I did not pass the Microeconomics course unit in that January round. Maybe I opted for C just a bit too often.

Steef van de Velde (1960) studied Econometrics from ’78 to ’85 at the EUR. He returned in 1997 and is now Dean of the Rotterdam School of Management and Professor of Operati-ons Management & Technology.


Family portrait

Donne was born and bred in Singapore. She was

put in a boarding school by her father, who wor-

ked for a Dutch company. She has lived in the Ne-

therlands ever since. Donne: ‘Singapore is still ex-

tremely important to me. My family lives there,

but I also derive my sense of identity from it. It is

home. A country that is ruled authoritatively but

fairly.’

Ernst: ‘What is also remarkable is that it is more or

less free of corruption.’

Ernst: ‘RSC was holding an anniversary party and I

did not yet have a lady, as we called them at the

time. Donne accepted my invitation and we had a

fantastic evening. We carried on dating but up to

our wedding in 1980 we lived apart, which was

the norm at that time.’

Donne: ‘We carried on with our student life as

much as possible. We both did a lot of sport. I

was also on the University Board for three years.

We saw each other during what were known as

the integration evenings at RVSV, where boys and

girls got together. We made joint use of study

rooms at the Medical Faculty and I was more than

welcome at Ernst’s student house due to my coo-

king skills.’

Ernst: ‘We have a special bond with Rotterdam,

and can still be found regularly at alumni activi-

ties. “That is only possible in Rotterdam, the birth-

place of economists, and they continue to build

forth, Botlekplan and Europoort.” That is a frag-

ment of a student song I can still hear myself sin-

ging. We have tried many a time to get our en-

thusiasm for Rotterdam and the EUR across to our

children. They study and live all over the country

but not in Rotterdam. That’s the way things go.’

She came and cooked at his student house

Ernst Kaars Sijpesteijn,

61, businessman

Degree: Economics 1971-

1979

Donne Kaars Sijpesteijn-

Gan, 57, lawyer

Degree: Law 1973-1980

Their first date was at the

anniversary party of a student

association. After they graduated

they got married. None of their

four children chose the EUR

text and photo Ronald van den Heerik

ROTTERDAM SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENTERASMUS UNIVERSITY

OPEN PROGRAMMES, AND IN-COMPANY ARE SERVICE LINES OF

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION AND ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

RSM ExECutIVE EDuCAtION: ENAbLING YOuR buSINESS SuCCESS

RSM Executive Education has been educating the leaders of international companies for over 20 years. Our global network of expert faculty delivers superior value in the areas of leadership, strategy, operations management, HR, marketing, and finance.

Open ProgrammesHighly practical tools based on cutting-edge research

Customised in-company Programmes Truly customised for a lasting positive impact on your business

JOIN tHE PREMIER LEAGuE

www.rsm.nl/open www.rsm.nl/incompany

vrstl4_advOP-IC_EA_230x297_def.indd 1 29-03-12 18:21

Ea Magazine UK

Documents

Transcript of Ea Magazine UK