Blog: Green and diverse

Alma Schaafstal reflects on the growth of CreaTe and the importance of community, diversity and sustainability in Amsterdam.

Green and diverse

In the Ad Valvas of 24 August, I read that Rector Jeroen Geurts congratulated the three thousand new students at VU Amsterdam during the introduction days, celebrating their choice of VU Amsterdam as the "most diverse and greenest university". In the accompanying photo, I saw masses of students, and at that moment, I realised even more that next year, there will be Creative Technology students among them. And that brings responsibilities. A student entrusting their educational future to you: you must take good care of that. Next year may seem far off, but it's not. Students need to be able to register from 1 October, and you must know exactly what they’re signing up for.

This calls for a website. But one in the style of VU Amsterdam. Or should it reflect both universities? How did we envision that again, and is it a shared vision? Oh yes, the matching process also needs to be on that website. Hmm... we haven't figured that out yet, as we didn't approach it the same way with Mechanical Engineering.

As for images for the website: of course, we have plenty of great photos of CreaTe projects and students, but they’re often a bit too busy, not quite diverse enough, or not quite the right vibe. I want authentic images: our own students in their own environment.

Space, vacancies and Teamwork

Then, there’s the issue of suitable space. It’s a challenge to fit around 300 CreaTe students working together on projects. Our campus is spacious, but we don't necessarily have much unused lab space that would be ideal for CreaTe. Yes, new buildings are coming, but their timeline doesn't match ours. In a year, the students will be with us, and for that, we need all the support we can get.

And then there are the vacancies. Luckily, we have a few great candidates in mind, and it felt good to emphasise in the informational interviews that we are really looking for teaching champions who will also conduct research. We’ll certainly find them, but it’s going to be exciting. There are currently about ten similar positions open at Dutch universities. So, we need to make ourselves really attractive. Fortunately, CreaTe is indeed appealing 😊.

So, here we are, all working together as one big team, getting everything in place on time. Organising ourselves after the holiday, getting back up to speed with everything going on and where action is needed. And there’s a lot. But there’s plenty of dedication and drive. Misunderstandings certainly exist, but a lot of talking and comparing ideas really helps. It also helps enormously that we can draw on the experience of Mechanical Engineering at VU Amsterdam.

In the meantime, we also kicked off the year in Twente with a wonderful introductory week. It was diverse, and in terms of CreaTe, also green – the colour of Proto, CreaTe's student association.