Maastricht University's birthday celebrations kicked off on Friday with the Dies Natalis. The party was made even more special by the presence of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.
Fifty years of UM is a very good reason to celebrate, and of course I didn't want to miss it. So, not yet knowing that the king would also be present, I registered on time and arrived at the entrance to Sint Servaas Basilica well in advance and in good spirits. After passing through the ID check, I was directed to my seat based on the colour of the wristband I had been given.
That place, where in times gone by many an altar boy may have learned about another side of the Roman Catholic Church, turned out to offer an excellent view of the side of the enormous stage where André Rieu and his orchestra, among others, would later put their best foot forward. This would have been difficult or impossible to follow from the folding chairs, but fortunately, a small screen had been set up for the crowd on the side (the “hoi polloi”). The approximately 70 to 80 colleagues around me all appeared to have received a white wristband based on their ticket classification.
I was assigned to category 12, which triggered my curiosity about how many categories there actually were, who was responsible for this fleet review, and who thought it was a good idea to place colleagues out of sight of all the dignitaries present in a remote corner of this beautiful church on this joyful day. Almost all of my colleagues sitting around me in the “coal shed” belonged to the support staff, with, to my surprise, a few stray academic staff members (category 7) thrown in.
Of course, UM is not about me; I am obviously not that important, but the apparent ease with which my colleagues and I have been placed in an irrelevant category and thus literally sidelined perhaps says something about this university. The awards for the support staff, which are normally presented at the New Year's reception that was cancelled this year, were ultimately omitted altogether on this anniversary.
I decided to leave; after all, the party was sure to go on without me. Leaving the church turned out to be a bit of a problem, but when I promised not to come back, I was allowed to go after all. I got home in time (after submitting a proper two-hour leave request via Successfactors, of course) to watch the live stream. It was a beautiful ceremony and a celebration as a celebration should be, and one I would have loved to be part of.
It's a shame that I deprived the King of the opportunity to take a selfie with me. But that's a minor disappointment, especially in light of the honorary doctorate awarded to Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, whose impressive, or should I say chilling, speech was my personal highlight of this Dies Natalis.
Roy van Kessel, category 12 (and UM building manager)