Headlines

Last Monday, after having served for eight years, Ms B. vanVucht Tijssen took her leave from the university board, UtrechtUniversity's highest administrative body. In honor of herdeparture, a symposium was held on the policy areas Van VuchtTijssen focused on: quality of teaching staff, terms of employmentand academic leadership. During the symposium the concensus wasthat she initiated many good things for UU. For example, ten yearsago teaching was commonly viewed as less important than research,but now it is not at all unusual for instructors to endeavor to beexcellent teachers, to take teacher-training courses and to build acareer in teaching.

Socrates

Nearly 950 million Euros, or more than two billion guilders.That is the amount the European Union has at its disposal for thenext seven years to encourage more students to complete part oftheir higher education in another EU member state. The two billionguilders are earmarked for the Erasmus program, which is acomponent of the umbrella program Socrates, which has a totalbudget of more than four billion guilders. The decision waspreceded by a lengthy tug-of-war over the amount. The EuropeanParliament wanted to allocate a total of 2.5 billion Euros, but theeducation ministers of the various countries felt that 1.5 billionwas enough. The European Union has a separate fund, Leonardo, forforeign internships, which has a budget of nearly one billionguilders.

Chemistry

Chemistry students have to work hard, but the faculty hassucceeded in "nestling in among the best" in chemistry education asa result of its efforts to improve the education it provides. Thisis the opinion of the visitation committee of the association ofuniversities (VSNU), which reported the findings of its study ofchemistry teaching at UU last Monday. The assessment team foundthat the ICT component - and primarily the provision and use oflaptops to and by students - made Utrecht's chemistry programexcellent.