{"id":6266,"date":"2015-10-28T12:45:02","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T11:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=41867"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:21","slug":"kees-van-paridon-new-chair-of-the-university-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2015\/10\/28\/kees-van-paridon-new-chair-of-the-university-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Kees van Paridon new Chair of the University Council"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kees van Paridon<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>

Kees van Paridon is the new Chair of the University Council. He succeeds Ren\u00e9 Karens, who has stepped down after presiding over the Council for more than two years.<\/p>\n

Van Paridon, who has worked as Professor of Economics at the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSW) since 1999, already served on EUR\u2019s University Council between 1976 and 1978 as a student of Spatial Economics. \u201cI thought it was a very valuable institution at the time. And also nowadays you see a lot of attention to the quality of education and research and EUR\u2019s strategic development.\u201d<\/p>\n

'Uraad used to be more political' <\/h3>

\u201cI remember meetings that started at 4 in the afternoon and lasted until 2 in the morning,\u201d Van Paridon reminisces. \u201cThe University Council was a lot more politicised at the time. You had different factions \u2013 left wing and right wing. Today\u2019s Council is made up of faculty representatives.\u201d Van Paridon, who until recently served as the Chair of the Public Administration capacity group, remembers that in the late 70s, everyone was still getting used to the concept of participation. \u201cThis was not that long after the first Maagdenhuis occupation. On top of that, the recent merger of the Faculty of Medicine and the NEH [In 1973, Nederlandse Economische Hogeschool and Medische Faculteit Rotterdam merged to form Erasmus University Rotterdam, eds.] played a role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliemannetje<\/h3>

Forty years on \u2013 and a fair number of Maagdenhuis occupations later \u2013 Van Paridon will once again be sitting on the participation council. \u201cI\u2019m pretty familiar with this body, I studied here myself and I\u2019ve spent years working at EUR. I recently stepped down as Chairman of the Public Administration group and I have two years left until my retirement. So I hope to still contribute as the Chair of the University Council.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Paridon doesn\u2019t have a substantive agenda. \u201cAs the Chair of the University Council, you mainly preside over technical matters, as well as smooth over the differences a bit between the Executive Board\u2019s wishes and the preferences of the Council.\u201d Van Paridon does not yet know how he will proceed with the strengthening of the participation council (one of the projects launched by Ren\u00e9 Karens in partnership with Executive Board Chair Pauline van der Meer Mohr. \u201cAfter all, we\u2019ll be getting a new Chair for the Executive Board soon too. So as far as I\u2019m concerned, we need to redetermine where we\u2019ll be going from here. What does the new Chair want? Which scope do we have? Can we chart a joint course? Right now, I\u2019m unable to say: this is how we\u2019ll be doing it. That would be discourteous to the new Chair. Soon, there will be a progress report on \u2018het goede gesprek\u2019 (\u2018A good conversation\u2019). That could be a good starting point, it seems to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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