{"id":172909,"date":"2024-10-31T09:17:26","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T08:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=172909"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:33","slug":"new-rector-at-a-time-of-budget-cuts-its-important-that-board-and-deans-stick-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2024\/10\/31\/new-rector-at-a-time-of-budget-cuts-its-important-that-board-and-deans-stick-together\/","title":{"rendered":"New rector: \u2018At a time of budget cuts, it\u2019s important that board and deans stick together\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

With tough budget cuts in prospect in an unsettled world, it\u2019s not an easy time for the new rector magnificus, Jantine Schuit, to take up her new role on 1 November. Based on questions taken from the famous questionnaire of writer Marcel Proust, she introduces herself to Erasmus University.<\/p>\n

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Jantine Schuit during a visit to the campus before she started as rector.<\/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\tRonald van den Heerik<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

What is your current state of mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just about to leave Tilburg University and I know I\u2019m really going to miss the people there. I\u2019m delighted to be going where I\u2019m going, but it\u2019s also quite sad.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, I feel angry about the cuts that are in prospect. And it\u2019s not just about the extent of the cuts, it\u2019s also about how they\u2019ll be implemented. For example, cuts to starting grants will start in 2025. We\u2019re dealing with a government that isn\u2019t trustworthy and that presents administrators with a huge dilemma. This is because we\u2019re forced to behave unfairly towards people we\u2019ve just awarded a permanent contract to, who we now can no longer actually pay.<\/p>\n\t

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CV<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jantine Schuit (1964) will be the new rector magnificus of Erasmus University Rotterdam from 1 November 2024.<\/p>\n

Schuit studied Health Education as well as Household and Consumer Sciences at Wageningen University, where she also obtained a PhD. From 1997 to 2017 she worked at RIVM, among other things as head of the Centre for Nutrition, Prevention and Health Services, and from 2005 she was an endowed professor of Health Promotion and Policy at VU University Amsterdam. Between 2017 and 2020, she was dean of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences and, since 2020, she has been vice-rector at Tilburg University.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018I think that we maybe tow the line too often and assume that people are reasonable\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

\u201cBut I also look critically at myself: were we sufficiently alert? Could we have prevented this? I don\u2019t think we could, but I do think that we have a challenge ahead of us. We\u2019re not farmers who drive their tractors onto the motorway and demonstrate in a disruptive way. That\u2019s not the sort of thing we do. However, I think that we maybe tow the line too often and assume that people are reasonable. On the contrary, it\u2019s apparent that we don\u2019t have many friends. Clearly, the government doesn\u2019t realise that we contribute to the earning capacity of the Netherlands, too.\u201d<\/p>

What is your greatest quality?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m good at is bringing people together. At Tilburg University, I was a dean at first. Later on, I joined the Executive Board and helped ensure that the deans and the administrators made a really good team. Because I know how things work within a faculty, I have a better understanding as an Executive Board member of how different faculties have different research cultures.\u00a0In Rotterdam, I expect things to be the same: economists work differently from philosophers, who in turn work differently from behavioural scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve worked hard on at Tilburg University is encouraging interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research cooperation. It\u2019s something I really believe in. When I started out as an epidemiologist, I kept realising that you have to change human behaviour if you want to make people healthier. But to change people\u2019s behaviour, you have to change the environment. As a consequence, I\u2019ve always tried to connect with other disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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