“Do you want to know where the dean’s office is? Or do you need to find Wolfgang’s room?”, the receptionist at Zwingelput 4, asks. The journalist is a bit confused: “Wolfgang is the dean, right?” The receptionist signs the way to an office on the first floor.
Wolfgang Giernalczyk understands the confusion: “I’m not in favor of the dean’s office – or what used to be the dean’s office. It’s behind the reception desk, not very approachable for students and staff. I’d rather stay here with my door open.”
Last February, Giernalczyk was appointed as dean of University College Maastricht. It’s in the year that the liberal arts programme celebrates its twentieth anniversary. Observant arranged an interview with this ‘home grown’ dean, as Giernalczyk studied and worked at UCM before.
How would you describe your leadership style?
“I think in terms of inclusivity. I'm very much aware that by the end of the day somebody needs to take the decision and is responsible for that. I try to work informally a lot, consulting people, getting their input. Then, I at least know – suppose a decision is unpopular – that it is unpopular. Honestly, I think any other approach would be doomed to fail in a place like this, because people feel so committed. I have so many smart people working with me, it would be foolish to not include them. Furthermore, I think it's useful to have a dean who knows the place. I had all kinds of different roles and positions at UCM: from student to teaching assistant to lecturer to various managerial roles. I slowly grew into it.”
And you still have time to teach some courses?
“Yes, I believe I should be involved in education, I don't want to lose touch with reality. I teach less than I did before, but I still run my argumentation courses twice a year. I also have 15 to 20 students, whom I guide through the program as academic advisor. We had a shortage of tutors in period six and I was about to step in. The team protected me though. Afterwards, I was happy with this, it would have become too much.”
"Imagine that I’m convinced we have an open culture and my colleagues think we don’t"
After the early departure of dean Jos Welie in the spring of 2022, the faculty board of Science and Engineering (of which UCM is part of) took plenty of time looking for a successor. Welie once said to Observant that it is a “very taxing job”. What do you find the most difficult part of being a leader?
“Things are going smoothly this far, but where I still need to gain more experience is taking formal HR decisions for scientific staff. I want to get a repertoire of how to deal with these things. Furthermore, I would love to create that culture where people feel free to drop in and tell me: ‘Wolfgang, that was not a smart idea, that was a mistake’. Imagine that I’m convinced we have an open culture and my colleagues think we don’t. Then I do sit in an ivory tower in the end. That is something I would like to avoid.”
Did you already get some critical input?
“Staff members suffer from a high workload, especially towards the end of the academic year. I see people’s point and try to help, but it’s a slow-moving ship. We had a couple of long-term illnesses (not necessarily related to workload) and we tried to tackle that by ad hoc appointments. You want to have results immediately, but it’s not always possible. For next academic year we hired new staff (6 fte). This decision was taken one or two months ago, but it will not be before mid-August that they start working. Another difficulty: in the open curriculum of UCM [the course catalogue contains almost 200 courses, skills trainings and projects, ed.] students can pick the courses that they find interesting, but we don't necessarily know which courses will be ‘popular’. This is something we need to take into account for staff planning. We try to make a good estimation, based on what we know from former years.”
Is that estimation reliable?
“Not always. An example: we have a maximum intake of 275 students, but we select more, because not everyone choses UCM in the end. In the past, roughly 58 percent of students accepting our invitation. This year, it was 72 percent! We don't know where this is coming from, so we have received like 315 course registrations of freshmen. Over the Summer, there will be roughly a 10 percent ‘no show’ rate, so it will probably go below 300. It's a luxury problem for UCM, a very nice compliment also, but it's still something we need to deal with.”
"During civil service I worked with children who where difficult to educate"
You started studying UCM in 2005, why did you choose liberal arts?
“When I was a student in Germany, there was still a mandatory military or civil service. I chose the latter. I was a bit rebellious, super grumpy because I felt they were forcing me to do something. But afterwards, I think having this extra year to reflect was one of the best things that happened to me. I knew better what I wanted: international politics, a bit of economics and psychology, and I looked for study programs that had the possibility to combine those aspects. My sister did a master’s at the School of Business and Economics in Maastricht and once took me to a problem-based learning session. I liked it a lot. I stumbled over UCM and I was like: ‘This is it.’”
What did you do during civil service?
“I worked at a school for children between 10 and 18 years old, who were difficult to educate. In the mornings I helped the teachers and gave guitar classes to some children. In the afternoon I was helping out with the building and driving the children to sports classes. I had the opportunity to really interact with these pupils. I love education, but if you compare teaching students to that experience, well, UCM is a piece of cake.”
Louis Boon was your dean. In what way are you different?
“I don’t feel it is appropriate to compare myself to Louis, I mean, he was at the forefront of establishing liberal arts and sciences in Maastricht, in the Netherlands, and I'm the product of that, so necessarily we are different. But I think one of my strengths – depending on how you put it, it could also be a weakness – is that I understand where people are coming from, I'm able to understand various different perspectives. What I mean is that people bring forward their views on a certain topic and others don't share that or have a completely different interpretation. At that moment I'm able to see both sides and look for compromises: do they really mean a different thing or is it just different words they’re using here?”
"When it comes to sensitive items like identity, it might touch people on a personal level"
About exchanging perspectives: some students, especially from UCM and the faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, say they feel afraid to express their opinion on ‘hot’ issues like diversity and identity, because they immediately get cancelled by fellow students.
“That's not how problem-based learning should work. Communication needs to be respectful, of course, but you should open up yourself to criticism. You mustn’t forget that the whole idea of learning is to change your perspective and to do so, you need to be exposed to others. Afterwards you might say: ‘No, I stick to my opinion’, and that's okay too. It's all about intellectual arguments. Especially when it comes to sensitive items like identity, it might touch people on a personal level. And yes, then it is tricky to continue an open debate in the PBL spirit. You have to find a balance and that's a challenge.”
Do you think students face more difficulties in life nowadays?
“Students are exposed to many more stimuli than I was. I mean, back in 2005, we had e-mail, Facebook was on the horizon, but we were communicating via SMS. The current student generation has a harder time to filter. Not putting yourself under pressure is a challenge. Many students want to do all kinds of things, but not everything is possible in 24 hours. You need to set priorities. That is not always easy.”
"Characterizing college students as ‘kids with rich parents’ is not fair"
“An expensive creche for kids with rich parents” is what former Dutch education minister Ronald Plasterk once called liberal arts. And that image is not gone yet.
“We have extremely diverse nationalities. But in terms of socioeconomic background, I have to admit, we are a bit less diverse. We know that also from other Colleges in the Netherlands; it’s an ongoing point of discussion in our deans’ network. Nonetheless, characterizing college students as ‘kids with rich parents’ is not fair and overgeneralizing. A lot of them also struggle to make ends meet, need to have a close look at their finances, and have to work next to studying. The different recruitment offices are working on a website in Dutch to increase awareness amongst Dutch students for whom liberal arts and sciences indeed might feel a little bit elitist, even if it isn’t so.”
A couple of years ago, UCM had scholarships for non-EU students who couldn’t pay the tuition fees, but these scholarships have been abolished. Why?
“This was not allowed anymore. They were taken from UCM’s general budget and that’s legally tricky. Although I like the solidarity mechanism – from students to other students – I can very much understand that we couldn’t keep them. Besides, what is the effect? You can offer five scholarships for non-EU students per year (on 275 students in total), it's not the big bang that you want. It’s also difficult to check whether these students really have the economic need. On the other hand, I would love to make this place more accessible.”
More accessible also for first generation students or for locals, from small villages in Limburg, Brabant or Drenthe, who wouldn’t call themselves ‘world citizens’ as many UCM-students do?
Because of the international setting of UCM we do have quite some students with parents with ‘international’ jobs. They have been raised in different places. Someone is for example half Italian, half Canadian, has lived in Germany for two years and in Malaysia for a year and went afterwards to Bolivia, I can imagine that a fellow student from Gulpen [village near Maastricht, ed.] feels overwhelmed. But that's such a pity. This person also adds diversity. The one is not better or worse than the other.”
"I think I'm in a sweet spot in history"
With becoming dean, you also became associate professor, the next step in an academic career. But you’re not a professor like all former deans. Do you feel times are changing thanks to Recognition and Rewards?
“I think I'm in a sweet spot in history. Two, three years ago, a person like me, in a position like this one with my research profile, wouldn’t be a dean. If you look at what I've done after my PhD, you will be done looking very quickly over my research. I find many things highly interesting, but I'm not the classical academic who wants to become a well-established scholar in a field. I'm now having a dream position where I can be a high-level academic, mainly with managerial leadership and teaching functions and nobody will complain if my research is on the back burner.”
What are your plans for the upcoming years at UCM?
“I haven't made up a proactive agenda for strategic changes yet, because there's enough in the pipeline that will keep us busy: shortening the academic year may require curriculum changes, there is an accreditation coming up, the internationalization debate in the Netherlands [UCM has about 70 percent internationals, ed.], implications of artificial intelligence and what that means for higher education. Another thing I regard as necessary before strategic plans can be made is to have an explicit vision on UCM. I think we all have an idea what UCM is and what it should be like, but we seldom make it explicit. To change this, the entire team is invited for a reflection day where we jointly explore what UCM is and what it should be.”