At the time of publication of this item (Tuesday afternoon), the donation campaign has already brought in over 17,000 euros. And every hour this amount is growing significantly. Sumya Mobder, who enrolled in the pre-Master’s program at the Department of the Built Environment at the start of this academic year after graduating from HAN University of Applied Sciences, can hardly believe how fast it all went over the past days. “It’s insane, because when I started I figured we’d raise about a thousand euros in a week for Gert. But the money just keeps coming in and I don’t know where it will end. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hit fifty thousand.”

Stuck

She herself benefited greatly from Gert Regterschot’s tutoring, after it looked like she might get stuck with Calculus right at the beginning of the academic year. “The group of pre-Master’s students I started with had a lot of people who hadn’t done much with math for a long time. Many were lacking the basics and everyone was at a different level, knowledge-wise. As the lecturer didn’t really care, many of the students were soon left in a haze of confusion. But then someone pointed me in the direction of Gert. I had already seen him sitting under the staircase in Luna, where I rent a room, and now I knew who he was. I was told he’d be able to help me out.”

Which turned out to be true: it didn’t take long for Mobder to join Gert under the staircase several times a week, giving her basic knowledge a much-needed boost. “That’s the nice thing about Gert: he’s super patient, he doesn’t mind explaining something for the tenth time, and it doesn’t matter what level you have when you start out with him.” The lecturer knew about Regterschot, but Mobder reports he seemed to want to ignore his existence. “But without Gert’s tutoring, many people from my group would’ve had a big problem. As was the case for many years, I was told.”

Unsafe

One of the things the university said in its statement of Friday 9 June, following the publication of an extensive feature on Regterschot in NRC, is that he is no longer allowed to use classrooms because he was reported to be a nuisance and, as a result, caused feelings of unsafety with students and employees. Mobder says she can’t relate to this at all. “Gert is a nice, soft-spoken guy. I feel very comfortable around him and I talk to him outside of his tutoring as well. Which is why I thought something needed to be done about the difficult financial situation he’s gotten into by not charging anything for his tutoring. He sometimes gets a present or a gift coupon, but that’s not going to cut it.”

The donation campaign has also sparked a lot of reactions from former students that benefited from Regterschot’s tutoring in the past. “To this day people are grateful to him. They asked me if they can come to campus to visit him and express their gratitude by making a donation.” Mobder couldn’t suppress a chuckle when a donation came in under the name of Minister of Education Robbert Dijkgraaf. “But I do think the university has to do something about the matter. This man is worth his weight in gold as a teacher, so use him as such. I think a lot of other institutions would be happy to hire him.”

What’s going to happen to the donations in the end? “For now I’m leaving the campaign open, as people are still jumping on board through a whole range of channels. We can just hand over the final amount, as it will be tax-free because it consists of a collection of many individual donations, every single one of them below the 2,400 euro threshold.” Whatever the final tally, Mobder expects it will provide Regterschot with financial breathing space for quite some time.

When asked how she’s doing with her studies, Mobder answers: “I started the Master’s program of Structural Engineering & Design at the beginning of this quarter, which fits me to a tee. And I often find myself wondering where I’d be if it wasn’t for Gert.”