Merger plans ESHCC-ESSB delayed

Faculties ESHCC and ESSB will not merge on 1 August, as the Executive Board wanted the two faculties to do, because the Board failed to meet a crucial deadline.

More about the merger plans

• ESSB employees also speak out against merger with ESHCC
• ESHCC-ESSB merger: ‘This is not the way to do it’
• Executive Board also wants ESHCC and ESSB merger

The Executive Board was supposed to submit certain documents to the University Council by last Tuesday at the latest, thus allowing the council to discuss the merger before the summer recess. The Board failed to do so. As a result, the merger will not be able to be discussed in the committee’s meeting of 18 June, which serves as a preparation for the Council’s major meeting on 2 July. The latter will be the final meeting before the summer recess, i.e., before 1 August. The merger requires the University Council’s authorisation.

A spokesperson for the university was unable to tell EM why the Executive Board failed to meet the deadline and what exactly it will mean for the merger.

Radio silence

Last week it was announced that ESSB’s faculty council, like ESHCC’s faculty council, opposes the merger plan. Jacko van Ast, the chairman of the council, has not heard from the Executive Board since Tuesday. “There’s been complete radio silence. But I suspect the Executive Board understands that there is too little support for a merger right now. I think we won’t continue down that track for a while.” The chairwoman of ESHCC’s faculty council, Ana Uribe Sandoval, assumes that the discussions on the future of her faculty will continue, particularly as regards the appointment of a new dean or interim dean.

Many people at ESHCC and ESSB oppose the proposed merger. In addition to the two faculty councils, many employees have expressed their disapproval of the plan. At the same time, the architect of the merger plan, the newly departed interim dean Dymph van den Boom, is coming under fire because of alleged plagiarism. She is said to have copied passages verbatim without attribution in several speeches, her PhD dissertation, one scholarly article and even the merger plan itself.