The university board also responded to our letter and last Thursday, November 2, the authors of the letter had a good discussion with the chair and freshly installed vice-chair of the Executive Board and a number of deans.

Naturally, there was room in that conversation to express dissatisfaction with the course of events, but overall, the conversation was constructive. Initially, there was a slightly negative atmosphere, but one of our deans managed to turn this around very skillfully: “the fact that we can talk about this is already a sign of progress, because ten years ago that would absolutely not have been possible.” Thanks for that.

As a result of our meeting, follow-up steps have been agreed upon. The authors of the letter are going to continue meeting with several administrators to produce concrete proposals to improve social safety and transparency at TU/e. And since none of those present pretended to represent the entire TU/e community, we agreed that a broader audience will be included in these proposals.

Finally, together, we are also going to try to answer the question: “what kind of university do we want to be?” and again, the broader TU/e community will be invited to join that discussion.

All those present understood that all this takes time, but we will keep Cursor’s readers informed.