Apart from being a lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine, Damen was also a doctor at a health centre in Katendrecht. There, colleagues and patients laid flowers. At Erasmus MC, he taught the course Practicum Clinical Skills, which brought him into contact with many students.
Vice-dean Maarten Frens called Damen ‘a pivotal figure in our education’. “He was very competent and put his heart and passion into teaching.” Sleijfer describes the lecturer at NOS as a ‘highly valued employee’ who was much involved in educational innovations. “He was a standard bearer for education in Rotterdam.”
The university reacted to the events with shock. “It has become a pitch-black day for the university now that it has become known that the perpetrator of the shooting was a student of Erasmus University Rotterdam”, the website reads. “Besides taking the life of a 39-year-old woman and her 14-year-old daughter, he also fatally shot a lecturer from our university.”
On Friday afternoon, there will be a memorial service for students and at Woudestein, student psychologists will be ready at 14.00 in the Living Room in the Langeveld building.
