500 additional study spots being created in Polak, Sanders and V Buildings

While the Dutch Cabinet didn’t have a lot of good news in store at the press conference on the coronavirus restrictions on Monday evening, the Erasmus University does have some good news for its students: starting from next week, the number of study spots available on campus will double.

A total of five hundred additional spots are being created, which will ‘hopefully’ become available on 15 March. “The Crisis Management Team (CMT) asked us if it wouldn’t be possible for us to offer more spots on campus, even if the restrictions are not relaxed,” says Sandra Klarenbeek of EUR’s Real Estate & Facilities unit. “The CMT had been told that there weren’t enough spots. So we checked whether we could create more, either on campus or off campus.”

Reservations

Klarenbeek’s team then checked how much space was available on campus. The University Library at present offers four hundred study spots for students who are unable to study properly at home, but Klarenbeek says that these are all booked ‘before you can even blink your eyes three times’. As long as no in-person classes are taught, there will be enough room to create study spots in the V Building (120 spots), the Polak Building (316) and the study environment at the Sanders Building (70).

A reservation system will be created for these study spots, as well, to prevent the various buildings on campus from becoming too busy. “I don’t want students to roam the campus, looking for a spot.”

In other words, the total number of study spots available on campus will rise to approximately one thousand. The number may increase even further in early April, when the rapid testing pilot study is supposed to kick off. Klarenbeek says that the university is currently looking at some five hundred spots in the Tinbergen Building, which will then be allocated to the participants in the pilot study. The participants have yet to be selected. The university will discuss potential selection methods with a group of students this week.

Study spots at Ahoy?

The university is still in talks to arrange study spots off campus, e.g. at the Ahoy Conference Centre or the Oude Luxor Theatre. “We’d reached an advanced stage in those negotiations, but then the current lockdown spoiled everything,” says Klarenbeek. EUR has resumed its negotiations with the municipal government, but whether they will assign the available spots to EUR is anyone’s guess. “There are more interested parties, particularly now that secondary schools have reopened. They are also looking for places where they can have entire forms work together while socially distancing.”