Professor Herman Kingma (59) has been elected as the new chairman of the university council, starting on 1 March. Kingma was chairman of the medical faculty council before the merger with Health Sciences. He is known to lead meetings with a friendly but firm hand. Kingma’s ambition is to stir up university democracy. “People are not very involved in the work of the councils and turnout at elections is low.” The new chairman intends to encourage the members of the university council to have more contact with their electorate. “That way, we can make it clear that we can do something for them. But in order to do that, you have to listen carefully to their problems.”