Esther Op de Beek and Stijn Bussels begin as New Education and Scientific Directors of LUCAS: 'Communication with Staff is Paramount'
The LUCAS Institute has both a new Scientific Director and a new Education Director. Stijn Bussels and Esther Op de Beek both commenced their new roles at the start of the academic year.
'During the summer, we were already able to observe with the management team,' Bussels explains. 'That was helpful, as we have very little lead-in time due to the budget cuts.'
Like the rest of the faculty, LUCAS is facing a budget deficit for the coming years. In the initial planning, there are talks of cuts that will also impact LUCAS's educational programmes. 'As chair of Dutch Language and Culture, I already felt strongly connected to the institute,' says Op de Beek. 'The plans to make the educational portfolio more sustainable also meant that the Education Director would take on a more substantive role. I have extensive experience with policy agendas, particularly their human dimension, so I was pleased to commit to this task.'
Staff Communication
Both Bussels and Op de Beek emphasise that their focus in the coming years will be on LUCAS staff. 'Our primary work is to maintain open communication with our staff,' says Bussels. 'This means sharing what we know about the budget cuts, but also communicating to the Faculty Board what is important to our employees. Currently, we are engaging all existing bodies, from the institute and advisory council to management meetings.'
'I've started drop-in hours,' Op de Beek adds. 'These are beneficial for people who want to offload their concerns or ask questions, but also for me. Especially in these times, it's crucial to understand people's expertise and desires. I urge everyone to drop by. We are a large institute with a diverse educational portfolio that will require considerable problem-solving in the coming period. It's therefore especially important to know what everyone can and wants to do, even if it's not listed on the website.'
Societal Questions
The intertwining of education and research will remain crucial in this puzzle. Op de Beek: 'A sustainable educational portfolio also means a supported educational portfolio, and I believe opportunities lie in research: in what we collectively stand for at LUCAS. I want to work with staff to determine what we believe truly belongs in the educational programme. Not every individual staff member's research project can constitute an entire course, but the goal must remain to bring students into contact with the latest research developments. We have considerable expertise, from text comprehension to multimodal and digital literacy in the field of a major societal issue like low literacy, for instance. We could more unite more strongly around such a topic, and give ourselves a stronger profile.'
Institute's Values
'We're noticing a growing demand to clarify what we stand for,' says Bussels. Many cross-connections within the institute were established 'under my predecessor Sybille Lammes. For us, "classical" doesn't automatically mean classical, and "early modern" doesn't automatically mean early modern – our aim is to work innovatively from an interdisciplinary and methodological approach. Additionally, we are an incredibly warm institute, which Esther and I have already experienced through how we've been received by the management team and institute bureau. This warmth was also noted in our recent highly positive visitation. We naturally want to maintain this, but we will have to fight more than ever before for things we previously took for granted, such as the value of art and knowledge.
On the initiative of Geert Warnar and Christoph Pieper, we are therefore examining which core values from our vision we absolutely have to maintain. We are trying to facilitate this by keeping all staff informed and ensuring the Faculty Board hears this message clearly, so that the budget cuts truly solve the problems and we can start rebuilding as quickly as possible.'