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Interview with Willem Witteveen
December 6, 2011
Dear Liberal Arts and Sciences students,
As most of you will probably already know, Willem Witteveen will resign from his position as Dean from the Liberal Arts and Sciences program. During an interview accompanied by a cup a tea, Willem Witteveen informed me about his experiences as a dean:
When asked how he feels about resigning as a dean from Liberal Arts and Sciences, Willem Witteveen replied to have mixed feelings. The preparations for the program started already in 2004, and since then he has been putting much effort in making it work. It has become a real project of him and naturally it is hard to partly distance yourself from something which has been an important factor in your life for years. Luckily, Willem Witteveen will still be teaching courses for Liberal Arts and Sciences students in the future. What becomes clear during the interview, is that he is positive about the future. The program has had a good start, and now is the right time to start doing something else. He admits that it is part of his nature to be tempted to variation, and he looks forward to gain new experiences.
What he enjoyed most during the past years as a dean, is his contact with the students from Liberal Arts and Sciences. Before, he has taught many courses in law, for which he had to give lectures to large groups of students. He truly enjoys lecturing LAS students, since this gives him the opportunity to have a more personal contact with students. For this reason he is in favour of not expanding the amount of students too much. Before the program started in 2008, he hoped to welcome motivated, active students, who took personal initiative. It pleased him to notice that it were exactly those kind of students that took part in the LAS program. Another thing which Willem Witteveen enjoyed, was giving a Last Lecture, a concept with he truly likes.
The core staff of Liberal Arts and Sciences started off as a relatively small group of people. He has respect for these colleagues, for their constant hard work to make LAS at Tilburg University work. The professors attach much value to education, pay interest to research and strive for improvement. Willem Witteveen mentioned Petra Heck as an important spill behind the scenes; she plays an important role in creating different teaching strategies within the program. This is crucial since within LAS very new and unique courses are given, for which team teaching is often used. Willem Witteveen really enjoys this way of lecturing; it enables professors to think out of the box and stimulates a close cooperation between colleagues. However, he is disappointed and unsatisfied by the need to introduce four different majors in only two courses.
After the end of his position as dean, new challenges and experiences are in store for Willem Witteveen. He will be more involved in the faculty of Law again, in the areas of Public Law and encyclopaedia, and History of Law. A change is that he will be concentrating on research more. Moreover, he will be writing a book on the tradition of political philosophy from the ancient times until now. This will be the topic of one of his new courses as well.
Another thing which Willem Witteveen is highly excited about, is that he will be teaching on the University in Venice, during the first semester of next year. Since that semester will be the last period of exchange contact with Tilburg University, Witteveen hopes welcoming students from our University. Not simply for the lovely weather, but also because of the brilliant architecture. Willem Witteveen will make use of the Biennale of next year on architecture for his reading course in which students will explore Calvino’s book “invisible cities”. Architecture stands closely in relation to the world around us and problems that face us, which fascinates Witteveen. The second course he will be teaching in Venice, will be another Understanding Law course, but more concentrated on traditions. He is excited about teaching his courses in Venice, since it is a meeting place for cultures and there will be many international students. So not only can he teach students, students will be teaching each other, which is something we recognize within our own Liberal Arts and Sciences program as well.
A message to his teaching colleagues, is not to merely teach the content of courses, but also try to take into account the interests of students themselves. To students he wants to advise to truly profit from the changes and opportunities that are provided to them as LAS students. There is much freedom within the program and many things are possible, so make sure you take your chances!
Greetings,
The PubCom
