It is therefore not surprising that our campus is full of what would be literally translated from Dutch as elephant’s trails. This wonderful word describes the place where people do not continue their way on the walkway or road, but they spot a quicker solution by cutting off and in doing so creating a new unpaved path. The real campus expert will immediately recognize a couple of them. Before the redesign of the Groene Loper, the lawn in front of the Auditorium was full of them .

For me, the nicest example of an elephant’s trail is the track between Potentiaal and the small bridge over the Dommel towards the SSC. Or was, rather, because just before the holidays I was shocked when I discovered that a paved path was constructed, where before there had been only a muddy track. A sad moment in the history of our campus.

But no worries. Just like in technology, where a standard is after some time replaced by another innovation, new laid out paths on our campus will become redundant by the emergence of new elephant’s trails. Let us not limit ourselves to the already existing walkways. Again, let’s challenge the paved paths and walk on the grass, through bushes, completely off-track. Let’s be innovators. Happy new year!