Meetings in English instead of Dutch; it almost became reality for the EUR’s advisory board, after international students Mikus Krams and Alexandru Cogut put themselves forward as candidates for the Rotterdam School of Management.
Unfortunately for them, but not so unfortunately for the board, the internationals did not get enough votes. The board had said they were ‘not ready’ for a language transition. When asked, Krams said he wasn’t ‘exactly surprised’ by his failure to get in. “I did not work enough on marketing.” Krams also believes local students have a network advantage if they are involved in things like fraternities or sororities. “Being knowledgeable about the local customs could prove decisive in these cases”, he added.
Krams collected 58 votes in the election, where only 526 of 5512 potential voters participated. Cogut trailed by 6 votes. Wieger Verberne and Robin Vossen, the two Dutch students who did get elected as representatives of the Rotterdam School of Managament, received 191 and 106 votes respectively.
Members of the various faculties were only able to cast their ballots for ‘local’ faculty candidates. As in previous elections, the total number of participants was disappointingly low. The most active election was held at the Erasmus Medical Center, with 602 of 2594 potential voters (23 percent) participating. With only nine percent of the eligible voters casting their ballots, the Social Science elections proved to be the most lackluster. GH
The full advisory board election results can be found online at http://www.eur.nl/uraad/verkiezingen/.
