University starts cultural investigation at ESHCC

The Executive Board (EB) starts an investigation into the culture within the Erasmus School of History, Culture & Communication (ESHCC). ‘Clear signals of tensions and division’ have been reported to the university board.

“We think it’s important that employees experience a safe working environment and that there is sufficient room for dialogue, even with differences of opinion”, the Executive Board writes in an e-mail to faculty employees.

An independent agency will conduct the investigation from the beginning of July. With the results, the university hopes to gain more insight into the current culture and how it can be improved.

On Friday, the Executive Board withdrew a plan to merge the faculty with the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (ESSB). After negative advice from the councils of both faculties and an open letter from a large part of the ESHCC staff and part of the ESSB, the Executive Board concluded that there is insufficient support to continue the plans. The merger plans and the discovery of plagiarism in pieces by the recently departed dean Dymph van den Boom, led to a public struggle between employees of the faculty.