On Wednesday evening, the Blauwe Zaal in the Auditorium is slowly filling up with almost one hundred working students; they’re here for a final briefing on MomenTUm. To kick things off, last year’s after-movie is shown on the big screen. “We do the same thing during the first meeting in April with all the organizing parties every year,” says organizer and CEC employee Liesbeth Castelijns. “That way, we can get in the mood.”

Together with event agency Artishock, working students and a group of staff from her service, she has been preparing for the event for months. “In the beginning, I do this in addition to my other duties, but then from July, I really work on MomenTUm full-time.”

So many components

Thast's because there is a lot of work to be done, she explains. “It’s a big event because it consists of so many different components. For the graduation ceremonies, we make arrangements for the halls and their decoration and set-up. We coordinate with student administrations when we can invite students and where they can register. We organize the event around the Academic Awards and the awarding of the Best Teacher Awards and also handle communications for both. And then, of course, there’s the MomenTUm ceremony: we decide upon the content, the number of stands and the setting. It's always more or less the same, but still, something is different every time.”

There are steering group meetings every month, which include Rector Frank Baaijens, campus manager Safety & Security Gijs Spiele and Patrick Groothuis, director of ESA, among others. “They contribute their thoughts.” And other than that, it is just a matter of arranging a whole lot of things, according to Castelijns. “Ordering things, making sure people know what to do, making roadmaps, cleaning, catering: enough to keep me busy.” It is a lot of balls to keep in the air, but the organizer does not appear stressed. That is because this year, everything – at least up to now – is under control, she says Thursday morning during the first general rehearsal.