As usual, the first Monday of September heralds the new academic year. Ok, last week Monday was actually the last Monday of August, but it was nevertheless the beginning of the first blocks. And what a start it was. Students were queuing for enrollment, staff members did not know how many students were enrolled in their courses, UCM skipped the first week of education and the tutor was kindly asked to organize the catch-up themselves. It was really funny to notice the communication about this. “De Limburger” headed “Chaos at University Maastricht” (how much will it cost to get rid of this image?) and the day after the SSC communicated in the same newspaper that it was not so bad and that only a few students had some problems. Obviously this was the preferred communication damage control. I thought that this was a strange strategy. Lesson 1 in each communication course is always: be honest and clear in your communication. So if there is a problem, say that there is one and do not try to make light of the consequences. Therefore the message of the Board was much better: their e-mail message showed an understanding of the problems that students faced and simply said: sorry, and I beg your pardon for this.
This year we had even two openings of the academic year: last Tuesday there was a ceremony around the opening of the Campus Venlo of Maastricht University. It was a nice event and the students that I met were really happy in Venlo. The major of Venlo delivered a nice speech as well as our chairman of the Board. Finally the deputy of the province of Limburg, Mr. Hessels, gave his speech. And his opening words gave me a real shock. He stated: my principle is to speak Dutch so I will address you in the Dutch language. Hey there, is this the famous international Maastricht University? The University that is so proud of its international strategy? The University that aims to attract students from all over the world? I think that this use of the Dutch language was a shame and insulting for the international students that attended the ceremony. Will somebody tell the deputy that we are an international university and that Limburg is developing into an international province? And to the students that could not understand his speech we must say: sorry and I beg your pardon.