{"id":107393,"date":"2019-12-18T15:51:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T14:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=107393"},"modified":"2026-02-10T16:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T15:47:17","slug":"new-euc-dean-gabriele-jacobs-young-women-struggle-with-the-same-problems-as-i-did-twenty-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2019\/12\/18\/new-euc-dean-gabriele-jacobs-young-women-struggle-with-the-same-problems-as-i-did-twenty-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"New EUC dean Gabriele Jacobs: \u2018Young women struggle with the same problems as I did twenty years ago\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the central hall of the historic building on Nieuwemarkt, EUC students are busy preparing a poster presentation. So they don\u2019t notice that the woman who\u2019s just come in is also on a TV on the wall. Their new dean: Gabriele Jacobs. Jacobs looks uncomfortably at her own portrait on the screen. \u201cI see myself everywhere here,\u201d she laughs, before she enters the stately room with its wooden panels, stained glass windows and a chimneypiece where the interview is taking place.<\/p>\n

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Gabriele Jacobs with her parrot Happy and her dog Snoopy.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAysha Gasanova<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Throughout her academic career, she has been very socially engaged and is a keen promoter of minority rights. She was a member of the EUR diversity council and obtained a PhD from the University of M\u00fcnster in 1998 with a thesis on Conflicts in the context of social and cultural diversity\u201d, <\/em>at a time when the word diversity was rarely heard in Dutch political debate.<\/p>\n\t

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Gabriele Jacobs<\/strong> (1967) has been appointed the new dean of Erasmus University College (EUC) as of 1 January 2020. The Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Culture obtained her PhD from the University of M\u00fcnster in 1998, after which she spent a year as visiting professor at the international business school HEC Paris. In 2000 she joined Rotterdam School of Management, where she stayed until 2019. Jacobs specialises in public security and has worked on various research projects funded by the EU, also in collaboration with the police.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

\u201cI think that my German background has a lot to do with my academic passions,\u201d says Jacobs. \u201cI feel an obligation to contribute to peace. In fact, this was also due to my school years.\u201d She grew up in Stolberg, a small town near Aachen. \u201cI\u2019m from a generation that, from the age of thirteen or fourteen, was shown lots of films at school about Auschwitz, antisemitism and the Second World War.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacobs comes from a Catholic family that has some Dutch roots. \u201cMy Dutch grandmother married a German just before the war. He died as a prisoner after the war.\u201d Both her parents were young children during the war and spent much of the time fleeing from the bombing on the German town of Aachen. \u201cHearing stories from my parents and family, I learned about the traumas of war. That has an impact on you and on how you live.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cold War<\/h2>

At school, Cold War tensions made a huge impression on Jacobs. It was the reason why Jacobs decided to study psychology and sociology in Cologne. \u201cI wanted to know: what is the origin of the horrors of war? I definitely don\u2019t think it\u2019s about where you come from, so I feel that you have a responsibility to study social systems and do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

To promote peace, cooperation, getting to know each other and helping each other are the key things, she feels. \u201cHow do people find themselves pitted against each other and starting wars? Very simple: if you know each other, that will become less likely. At school, we went on student exchanges to a school in France. Germany and France, they were archenemies<\/em> until the 1960s. The EU has helped forge a deep friendship between our two countries.\u201d After secondary school, she worked as a volunteer in Israel, on a kibbutz for mentally disabled people, and was also a volunteer in Nicaragua at the beginning of her studies. \u201cI\u2019m also a strong believer in cooperation between countries in the European Union. For me, it was a logical step in my career to focus on EU projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

'No anti-German jokes'<\/h2>

She is still regularly confronted with prejudices towards Germans. \u201cIn Paris, for example, I was once sitting in a restaurant chatting to a German friend. People asked the waiter if they could move because hearing German made their food taste bad.\u201d A similar incident happened to her after her arrival in Rotterdam when she went to a concert by the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest. People went to sit somewhere else saying that they couldn\u2019t enjoy the music if they had to listen to German. And then there were two irritating students during a seminar in Paris. \u201cWhen I separated them, one of them said: \u2018So have the deportations started already?\u2019 When I applied to work at the RSM, I made one condition: I don\u2019t want to hear any anti-German jokes. And particularly no silly jokes about the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is a psychologist whose studies were ideologically based doing at a business school like the RSM?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFollow the money<\/em>! The private sector offers very many responsibilities and very many possibilities. Business is a very important player in the field of sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the private sector is also about compromising, because ultimately, business is about profit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right. At the same time, businesses recognise that you can\u2019t place all the social responsibility with the government, but that this is a shared responsibility. As a researcher in the field of public security, I see a lot of innovative strength in the private sector, because it can manoeuvre more easily and transcend national borders.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how do you view the criticism at the RSM, for example about the ties with companies like Shell?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that as a university, we make ourselves more vulnerable for ethical issues the more socially relevant we want to be. That\u2019s a learning process. Ultimately we need to become smarter in that. And we\u2019re getting better at it. You can see that in the increasing alertness with respect to ethical issues. Compare it with the diversity discussion: that\u2019s taught me that I also have a racist and sexist bias. It\u2019s important to create an environment in which you can say to each other: \u2018I don\u2019t like what you\u2019re saying or doing.\u2019 It\u2019s not nice to hear, but you learn from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the last couple of years, EUR has had a Chief Diversity Officer with a team and office, but the number of women professors is still low compared with other universities. What do you feel about the current diversity policy at Erasmus University?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m delighted that diversity is on the agenda at least. When I arrived here twenty years ago, you couldn\u2019t have a discussion about having more women at the top. So we are making great progress, but we need to be even braver. What I find interesting is that people grumble a lot about the lack of diversity. That\u2019s because we can finally discuss these subjects. People dare to broach the subject. I hope that the discussion will soon become broader, so not just based on gender but also culture and orientation. Not just sexual and religious, but also about ways of looking at science. It must be possible for people to be themselves at work. Ultimately, that\u2019s the best way to excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018Not being able to be yourself makes people ill\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Is EUR doing the right things, despite it lagging behind?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jacobs laughs: \u201cI notice that the older I get the more impatient I am. I see that young women struggle with exactly the same problems as I did twenty years ago: can I get pregnant? Can I breastfeed? What does that mean for my career? Will I get a research voucher? Can I say certain things out loud? It makes me really angry; it shouldn\u2019t be like that anymore. At the time, I often thought: never mind. But when I see these problems, I think: this just isn\u2019t right anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

What exactly do they experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, during their maternity leave colleagues saying: \u2018Oh, you\u2019ve been off for a long time, couldn\u2019t you just help set up this course?\u2019 Hello! You\u2019re at home looking after a baby. I also worry about the number of burn-outs, among women and men. There are lots of reasons for that. Not being able to be yourself makes people ill. The only way in which everyone can be themselves is by creating more diversity. But you can\u2019t become a diverse organisation whilst staying exactly the same. So that\u2019s a painful process.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Jacobs, it\u2019s important to facilitate dialogue. \u201cI really worry about increasing polarisation in society. Because in a polarised environment, you can no longer make mistakes. Then people just shout and you can no longer learn, think or develop.\u201d<\/p>\n

For that reason, she likes to seek connection, also with people she wouldn\u2019t normally connect with. For example in Delfshaven, where she lives with her family and has a boat. \u201cWhen we moved there, we noticed that many people who work in the harbour have a boat there. We weren\u2019t boat people <\/em>at all, but we felt that buying a boat was a good way to integrate into the community.\u201d They got their boat five years ago, a fifty-year-old motor boat, ten metres long and with six bunks. \u201cAnd that worked very well! It immediately generates really nice conversations. Most people there are very handy, and we aren\u2019t really,\u201d says Jacobs enthusiastically.<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018When you arrive in Brielle or Haarlem by boat, you see how these cities are built in such a way that you can reach them by water\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n
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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAysha Gasanova<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The boat has introduced her \u2018typical German migrant family\u2019, as Jacobs describes it, to the Netherlands. The family regularly travels around the country. \u201cWhen you arrive in Brielle or Haarlem by boat, you see how these cities are built in such a way that you can reach them by water. We loved this new way of discovering the Netherlands.\u201d The children, now 10, 14 and 17, still love travelling on the boat, as do parrot Happy and dog Snoopy.<\/p>\n\n\t

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