Maastricht University is absolutely not changing its profile, Letschert affirms. It will still be ‘the European university of the Netherlands’, with an international classroom and problem-based learning. However, with regards to the considerable information provided to Dutch prospective students in English, UM has gone too far, acknowledges the president, “without gauging whether English works for everybody”. In response to information gleaned from secondary school pupils and parent-teacher meetings which shows that Dutch-speaking fifth and sixth years are not always happy with a fully English open day (“it can be hard to understand the English information provided for certain study programmes”), UM wants to change direction. At the most recent open day in October, visitors could opt for information sessions in either Dutch or English.
Mile
A special recruitment campaign for Dutch prospective students isn’t new. In the first half of 2016, the university launched the slogan ‘Go the extra mile’. After all, for many Dutch people Maastricht is a long way away. The idea was that anybody willing to come to the south was prepared to do that little bit more.
The new Dutch slogan ‘Echte antwoorden vinden we samen’ (Finding answers together) will be combined with the Dutch name for the university: ‘Universiteit Maastricht’.
But the primary UM logo (two triangles plus Maastricht University) will remain as it is, in English, says the Marketing & Communications department on the intranet. “We will continue to use that in all other forms of communication outside the campaign.”
Cabinet
This (modest) change of course is not entirely unexpected, of course. The last cabinet under Prime Minister Rutte was already working to limit the internationalisation in higher education through the ‘Internationalisation in Balance’ Act: fewer English-language programmes, fewer international students, and more Dutch in academia. Since about two years ago, all universities have also been forbidden from actively recruiting students abroad. The current right-wing cabinet has increased on previous efforts. Letschert emphasises that the new UM recruitment campaign had already been created before the Schoof cabinet’s plans were shared over the summer.
Staff
The campaign isn’t aimed solely at prospective students, but also at new members of staff, says Letschert. Due to a tighter labour market, it is getting harder to recruit academic – and especially non-academic – staff from the Netherlands, she explains. Additionally, the campaign has to reach working professionals who wish to follow post-academic education at UM. “That’s why we have an Academy for Lifelong Learning and Development.
Critical
Not everybody is happy with the new direction. Mark Kawakami, assistant professor at the Faculty of Law, recently wrote an opinion article for Observant in which he was critical about the new campaign. He had attended an event for the new strategy and concluded that UM was experiencing a midlife crisis. What he was missing was a more substantive vision to complement the new look.
Letschert is disappointed the message has not been well “positioned and communicated. I can imagine that it might cause our international staff members, already heavily affected by the political debates, to rethink things. Like, ‘Oh, so my university is setting off down a different path’.” But the vision for the future is unchanged, she says. “We are still the university with a prominent international profile in the Euregion. That’s what we’re known for and that’s what we’ll build on.”