Moreover, it is the first time that FASoS will be led by a former student. Versluis was part of one of the first cohorts of the Culture and Sciences programme (cultuur- en wetenschapssstudies) at the 1994-founded faculty. After graduating in 1998, North Holland-born Versluis moved to Utrecht to pursue her PhD, though she remained affiliated with FASoS during her PhD trajectory as a lecturer in the then-brand-new bachelor’s programme in European Studies.
In 2003, she was asked to return to Maastricht. “I hesitated for a long time,” Versluis told Observant years later. “Utrecht is a real city, centrally located. If I were to go back, it would be for the ‘real deal.’” And so it was: Versluis worked her way up to full professor (since 2015) and was, among other roles, programme director for the bachelor’s in European Studies and the master’s in European Public Affairs. Since 2019, she has been head of the Political Science department.
That last position appears to be fertile ground for FASoS deans anyway: her two immediate predecessors, Christine Neuhold and Sophie Vanhoonacker, also led this department prior to their appointments as deans. That’s partly a coincidence, Versluis said over the phone, “but it’s also the largest department, and given the field of research, there are many people here who have an affinity for governance and management.”
Versluis said the appointment is “a great honor. I have a lot of love for this faculty. It’s not like you dream of becoming a dean as a little girl, but in recent years—when it became clear that Christine would be stepping down this year—I started to get the itch. People regularly asked me if it was something for me, so you start to think about it.”
Under her leadership, she hopes to “further solidify the faculty’s position, both within the university and beyond, as a place for broad and interdisciplinary research. The region’s primary hub for socially relevant issues, for interpreting and solving complex problems. Internally, we know that very well, but to the outside world, it’s not always that clear.” It helps that she knows FASoS inside out. “I feel the philosophy on which the faculty was originally founded. I was ‘raised’ in an interdisciplinary environment, so I can more easily connect different disciplines and see the added value in doing so.”