New ISO and LSVb board members want to fight for equal opportunity

The Dutch National Students’ Association (ISO) and the Dutch Student Union (LSVb) have elected new boards. Nijmegen-based Maaike Krom will be leading LSVb. Sarah Evers, from Groningen, will become chair of ISO.

Each year, five new students take over the baton in the organisations. As of July, the board of LSVb will consist of three Nijmegen-based and two Utrecht-based students. At ISO, the students making up the new board hail from all over the country.

ISO

The soon-to-be chair of ISO, Sarah Evers, recently completed a Bachelor’s programme in European Languages and Cultures at the University of Groningen. She also chaired the student body of one of the university’s faculty councils.

Her fellow board members in the year ahead will be Emma van Straten (who studies governance and policy at Utrecht University), Kevin Borges (communication student at Inholland in Rotterdam), Sam de Jong (applied mathematics at Delft University of Technology) and Olmer Tutein Nolthenius, who just completed a Bachelor’s programme in business and consumer studies at Wageningen University & Research.

LSVb

The new chair of LSVb, Maaike Krom, is in the final phase of her teacher education in history programme at HAN University of Applied Sciences. She’s also active for political party PvdA in the province of Gelderland and a member of her institution’s participation council.

She will be joined on the board by two fellow historians. Luuk Bruijnen studies history at Utrecht University and Mo Quirijnen at Radboud University Nijmegen. Ties van den Boogaard studies philosophy at the latter institution, while Enora Segeren is a student of conflict studies and human rights at Utrecht University.

Both organisations say that equal opportunity is one of their priority areas. Do young people with equal talent also have equal access to higher education? They’re also worried about the mental health of students and about the cutbacks.