Lecturer Jurgen Damen, killed in shooting, a ‘pivotal figure in our education’

Jurgen Damen, the 43-year-old lecturer who was killed in the shooting at Erasmus MC on Thursday, was ‘a standard bearer for education in Rotterdam’, dean and board chairman Stefan Sleijfer told NOS.

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.