post - december 2011

The UCU Alumni Magazine

We shake things up from time to time, to turn our world upside down and look at it from a fresh angle. Sometimes the upshakings come looking for us instead, and make us see it all differently.

This edition of Post is filled with worlds gone topsy-turvy, in good ways and bad, but always with something new in store for their inhabitants.

Besides, as Yin once said to Yang: “There is a bad in every good.”

“And vice versa,” Yang added. “After all, if a French person steals your bread, aren’t they also taking away your pain?”

Yin nodded in agreement, and then they hugged.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Ama gonna Togo Ghana

Your medical career

Tokyo after-sway

Back to sea

President Romney

Cheers to a new nation!

From campus to campus

Word from the dean

Graduates 2011 1/2

Who, what, where?

About the artists

Photo (& cover photo) / Scenes from Barcelona / Vera Scepanovic (‘05)

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Post | the alumni magazine of

University College Utrecht

December 2011

04

The UCAA Board consists of:

Vice-Chair / Iris Otto (‘09)

Secretary / Kiran Coleman (‘05)

Treasurer / Sarah Carmichael (‘06)

ou’re holding the second

edition of Post of this year.

Magazines that appear once

a year are not magazines, wethinks, or

not very relevant ones anyway, so we’re

going to send you two Posts per year

from now on.

The UCAA is 10 years old this year and

we’ve come a long way since our estab-

lishment. There is, however, a lot more

we could be doing. We aim to maintain

a vibrant alumni network that will be of

value to alumni and students alike. Got

something to tell us or want to help out?

Get in touch!

With our alumni network ever-growing,

the possibilities for organizing local

groups of alumni (dubbed “hubs”) are

becoming more apparent. A group of

enthusiastic volunteers is currently in

the process of setting up the Amsterdam

hub, which will have its first event in

the spring of 2012. There are budding

hubs (we’re calling them “bubs”) in

other places as well. Would you like to

help a hub bud, or just dub a bub, bud?

Contact us!

Money. There’s no way around it: we

need some more of it. Wads of it in black

duffel bags would be nice, although

somewhat dodgy. A beautifully ornate

chest filled to the brim with a sparkly

loot would make us ‘ARRR!’ and gnash

our teeth in delight. But alumni who

did not go on to become pirates or bank

robbers can make electronic donations.

That’s why alumni received a form with

this Post, the one you glanced at and

put aside, perhaps so far aside that it’s

in your bin now. Please retrieve it, as

it contains vital information about how

to contribute to your alumni associa-

tion! Irretrievably buried under coffee

grounds? Drop us a line and we’ll tell

you more.

What, you ask, do we do with the money

you donate, apart from the obvious

throwing it up in the air, running around

in circles under it, and shouting “weee”?

Well, after sweeping it up again, we use

the money you contribute to sponsor a

wide variety of alumni activities in the

Netherlands and abroad, and to promote

alumni involvement in the regional hubs.

We also award an annual alumni prize to

a member of the graduating class and

invest in social media tools that will

keep the alumni network interactive.

We are confident that you might like

this edition of Post. We had such a good

time making it that we can’t imagine

you having a bad one reading it. Of

course, you already know we have a blog

with all these articles, plus a few online

exclusive ones, at www.talkingpost.org.

That’s also where you react to the ar-

ticles, or show us your love.

Oh, and if you didn’t receive this mag-

azine, in which case you’re also not

reading this, it probably means your

address isn’t updated in our database.

If that were the case, and you were

somehow miraculously reading this

anyway, then please note that you can

update your address by mailing us at

[email protected]. This is also your go-to

address for any of the other stuff men-

tioned above.

See you in 2012! (Twice!)

Sarah Carmichael

Kiran Coleman

Laurens Hebly

Thijs van Himbergen

Iris Otto

www.ucaa.nl

[email protected]

The title is a reference to a series of BBC radio programmes for children called Listen with mother, all of which begin with these two sentences.

Are you sitting

Then I’ll begin.

Post | December '11

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The UCAA Board consists of:

Vice-Chair / Iris Otto (‘09)

Secretary / Kiran Coleman (‘05)

Treasurer / Sarah Carmichael (‘06)Photos / Elitsa Mateva (‘09) & Bojan Opacak (’10)

December ‘11 | Post

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ight months ago, a huge wave of Afro-euphoria

washed me up on the shores of Ghana. I was cer-

tain this was where I needed to be. I had been in

Holland for long enough. I was born in Ghana, and grew

up there until I moved to Holland at age 13. Most people

discouraged me; they said it was too early, that it would be

too hard, that I needed more experience, more money, or

more of a plan. But since 2006 I had been sure I wanted

to go back. After all, I still had my friends from primary

school, my family, and a home in Accra, Ghana’s capital.

So I moved into my family’s house, where I now live with

about 20 other relatives, including my mother. The house

is filled with aunties, their children and some other cous-

ins. Sometimes family members from our village in Togo

pay us visits; long visits of about 2 months. They come in

large, rowdy delegations. Then the house is filled with a lot

of laughter and extremely loud snoring. My Ghanaian fam-

ily consists mostly of subsistence farmers, and while many

people stayed in the village, some young people have “tried

their luck” and migrated to the city. There is an entire

informal settlement of people from my village in Togo who

have been settling in Accra for decades; a community of

about 50 000 people that does not officially exist in Ghana.

The heat and humidity provide the perfect slow, syrupy

conditions for delicious daydreaming. No matter how busy

I get, I always seem to drift off. One afternoon, exactly

7 days after my baby cousin was born, I was cooling off

under the ceiling fan when I heard my little cousin Isaac

shouting.

“Auntie Ama, Aziz is stealing the meat!”

Isaac has a wild imagination, so I did not make much of

it at first. My aunties had been cooking for the last 3 days

in preparation for my new cousin’s naming ceremony,

and it generally caused a lot of ruckus. But I still got up

and made my way to the courtyard. Aziz, the neighbor-

hood drunk, had snuck in while my tired aunties were

resting in their rooms. He had brought a black plastic

bag, and had meticulously picked out all the meat from

the big pot of soup! My aunt Lucy, who had heard little

Isaac shouting, came out into the courtyard thundering

insults (“Heh Aziz! You dey craze?!”), walked up to him

and, in her rage, slapped his face so hard that he almost

fell to the ground. It must really have hurt because Aziz is

a very skinny man weakened by too much alcohol and too

little food; my aunt on the other hand is a very big, strong

woman. He turned around, started to hurl some insults

back at my aunt, but quickly scampered away when he saw

my cousin Kwame coming after him with a large wooden

Ama van Dantzig daydreams about a better Ghana.

Post | December '11

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ladle. My mother tried to soothe the situation and pleaded

with my angry aunties and cousins to leave the poor drunk

alone; after all, it was a special day, and she did not want

any trouble in the house. All my little cousins, aunties and

uncles watched Aziz run off, shouting on the streets: “I’m

going to call the police. You will see!” But the police never

showed up, Aziz got away with the meat, and the entire

household was left stupefied.

Despite this episode, we each dressed in the crispest,

whitest clothes we had and partied the day away while

the necessary rituals were done to name little Nana Kojo

Armeyaw. At night we all sat in the courtyard, reminisc-

ing about the naming ceremony and especially about the

meatless soup we had served our guests. While my aunties

were understandably angry, I had to wonder if Aziz could

really be held accountable for stealing the meat. We all

know he is a helpless drunk. We have each fished him

out of a gutter, cleaned him up and fed him on countless

occasions. It is clear the man is suffering. If a man like

Aziz had lived in the Netherlands, and had received the

same opportunities that the Dutch get, would he still be

the same? I started wondering what would have been done

to Aziz - or any other thief for that matter - in a country

like Holland, where there’s a legal system that works, and

where the police often follow up on a reported crime. Then

again, who in Holland would steal meat? And who would

report such a petty crime?

Reporting a crime in a country like Ghana is generally

seen as a lost cause. When my cell phone was stolen in the

first months of being in Ghana, everyone laughed at me

for reporting it at the police station. We have a thoroughly

understood and generally accepted system of corruption,

in which police officers are always “given something

small” for their efforts. Therefore, the police following

up on a reported crime for reasons of justice hardly ever

happens, but instead has to do with the person who can

offer the biggest “something small”. This leads to quite a

serious problem of impunity. If Aziz had had a little bit

of money, and had been sober, he could have successfully

called the police to beat up some people in our house.

Being here, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the

meaning of this thing we call international development,

and its value. Ghana is a country with a very strong histori-

cal link to Europe, specifically the Netherlands. In many

ways, the affluence enjoyed in the Netherlands is due to

the Dutch interaction with Ghanaians. Did you know that

there are many people walking around Ghana with last

names like “De Heer”, “Bartels”, or “Vanderpuye”?

The Dutch arrived in Ghana in the 1500s and built forts to

compete with the Portuguese, who had arrived on the coast

earlier. To oust the Portuguese, the Dutch strategically

forged alliances with local tribes. In later years, the Dutch

played an important role in tribal wars by supplying am-

munition to those tribes that could improve their position

in the trade in gold, and soon the relationship with them

evolved into one of exploitation and slavery. Warring tribes

sold millions of Africans to European slave traders, who

took the slaves across the Atlantic to work on plantations,

never to return again. Of course, as I hope most people

know, the Dutch were among the keenest of slave traders,

buying ship loads of human cargo to be exported to the

Caribbean and Latin America. There are descendants of

runaway slaves in Suriname and Jamaica that still speak

languages like Kormante, one of the aboriginal languages

in Ghana.

In 1957, Ghana proudly became the first African country

to gain its independence from the ruling colonial power,

the British. It is important to realize that before the arrival

of the Europeans, there was no Ghana, there were many


08

different tribes. What was it that these numerous tribes

on this small piece of land shared? Dr. Kwame Nkrumah,

who spearheaded the independence movement in Ghana,

invested heavily in culture and arts as a way to search for

the answer to this question, and to create a country that

was “unified in diversity”. Though there was some resist-

ance because a united Ghana could mean a change in

power relations between the tribes, the population gener-

ally received his ideas with great enthusiasm. A new nation

was conceived, one that had “the Ghanaian identity” – a

mixture of various disciplines and cultural practices – as

its centerpiece. Nkrumah sent cultural groups across the

country to show whom the new Ghanaian was. Despite the

momentum and enthusiasm of being a new nation and a

new people, the independence of Ghana did not mean the

end of foreign influence, or of imperialism. In many ways,

Kwame Nkrumah pasted Ghanaian attributes over the

existing British institutions. This is probably why, despite

the stifling heat, Ghanaian lawyers and judges wear white

wigs - just as the British do.

Aside from European influence, I believe there are also

issues with the diaspora. At independence, Ghana was

happy to welcome home its black brothers and sisters of

the diaspora, and even became a Mecca for many civil

rights activists in the United states: Malcolm X, Muham-

mad Ali, W.E.B. Du Bois, Maya Angelou, and so on.

People were excited to come to this free nation, some

even settled here. But today, we are still wondering who

‘the Ghanaian’ is. Some “conscious African Americans”

come to Ghana and are shocked and disappointed to find

that Ghanaians do not necessarily welcome them back

with open arms. Ghanaians have an interesting relation-

ship with the diaspora - especially with the descendants of

slaves. Many of them come to Ghana with high emotional

expectations, searching for a sense of belonging, hoping to

discover where they come from, expecting to find evidence

of their roots, expecting a warm, welcoming embrace into

society. Instead they find themselves confronted with

a country where people cannot afford to focus on such

emotions because they are busy surviving and dealing with

the uncertainty of fulfilling their basic needs of tomorrow;

Ghanaians are quite pragmatically struggling to improve

their lives without much support from the government.

There is also a small group of African Americans who

come to Ghana thinking it is a country waiting to be con-

quered. Somehow, they are able to overlook the history of

extraction and exploitation, and even claim to be more Af-

rican than modern Africans because they were taken away

and therefore “protected the original African identity”.

There is one thing at which the African American visitors

have been very successful and that is conquering the history

of slavery in Ghana. Ghana has the largest number of slave

forts and castles dotted along the coast, built there by the

Portuguese, the Dutch, the Danish, the Brandenburgs; eve-

ryone was here. The people most interested in these struc-

tures seem to be the African Americans, so the stories that

are told there are the stories that they want to hear; about

slavery and torture, and sometimes quite explicitly about

“the evil white men”. This way, the role of the Africans

themselves in the slave trade is often overlooked. So while

Post | December '11

09

the Ghanaian is busy surviving, African Americans are re-

telling Ghanaian history from their perspective, as descend-

ants of slaves, often leaving out the nuances of centuries

of interaction, resistance and conquest. Not to mention the

fact that when the Europeans arrived in Ghana, the Africans

were too well organized for them to just take over (as they

were able to do in places like Congo). It is forgotten that for

over 3 centuries, the people living in the place we call Ghana

today traded resources with the Europeans on a relatively

equal footing, mostly in gold, ammunition and slaves. So

whether you were “good” or “bad” is not dependent on your

skin color, but on who you are, what you want and what

you are willing to do to achieve it. In fact, many local coastal

chiefs were very quick to recognize the advantage of having

different European countries competing for resources. To-

day, though the nature of trade and interaction has changed,

those relationships remain.

The ancient bond between Ghana and the Netherlands

also lives on. Ghana is now one of the 15 partner countries

receiving Dutch development aid, and hosts many Dutch

business people who are attracted by the prospect of large

profits in a country with poor leadership, very attractive tax

laws and no strong systems for tax revenues. It is heaven.

While African countries like Ghana are stereotypically seen

as corrupt, we often overlook the role non-Africans play in

the corrupt or criminal circuits. There are Dutch business-

men/criminals who are very active in Ghana, working

with some of the biggest Ghanaian criminals, and making

millions. By capturing the imagination of the people with

wild stories, and by cultivating preposterously decadent

lifestyles, they are able to get away with almost anything.

An example is that of an eccentric Dutchman - a business-

man and self-made millionaire - who claims to be a tribal

chief. He supposedly owns a luxury hotel in Accra, which

is managed by a well-known drug baron. He also claims

to have played a key role in the return of the head of Nana

Bonsu II, an Ashanti King, which was taken to Leiden by

the Dutch in the 1830s and preserved there for cultural

and scientific purposes.

On the other hand, the Dutch have been investing in

various sectors, trying to help Ghana develop and work

towards achieving the UN’s Millennium Development

Goals (among which are eradicating hunger, developing

education and stabilizing incomes). The ‘Ghana School

Feeding Program’ is an example with huge potential. This

program supports farmers to grow more food, which they

can sell to schools, thus encouraging parents to send their

children to school. The idea is innovative, sustainable, and

great! However, human beings with different incentives

always seem to ruin a good idea, and the project was rid-

dled with corruption. Rather than investing in farmers, the

coordinator of the project bought cheap, expired Chinese

food and supplied that to the schools, and the remaining

money mysteriously disappeared. Many of these problems

have now been dealt with because the Dutch refused to

continue the project unless drastic changes were made.

The program is still ongoing and, luckily, the people in

power are now being watched – and know that they are.

Education faces more challenges in Ghana. Despite all

the good intentions to send children to school, there are

still some children whose parents do not prioritize formal

education. Last week, when all my little monstrous cousins

went to school, one of my cousins stayed home. His

mother works on the streets selling “Ice Kenkey” (a local

maize-based drink), and does not earn much. Sometimes

she leaves my cousin at our house for months. He is a

hilarious little boy. Actually, he is a big man, stuck in a

boy’s body. I attempt to teach him based on what he might

know, but he seems to come from a completely different

world.

“Toni, turn the page,” I tell him. He turns the page upside

down. Later, we are going over his ABCs.

“Toni, A is for...?” Toni responds: “Pay ATTENTION”.

“And B is for...?”

“Beat my Buttocks.”

“And C is for...?”

“Cane! Pay Attention or else I will Beat your Buttocks with

a Cane!”

He laughs, and then adds: “Ok, C is also for Capoeira.”

We are both laughing when his mother walks in, drunk.

She is happy to see us enjoying ourselves, and to see me

teaching him. I feel fulfilled at the idea of being able to help

out. But suddenly a thought occurs to me; she might not be

“Toni, A is for..?” Toni responds: “Pay ATTENTION”. “And B is for..?” “Beat my Buttocks.”


10

sending him to school any time soon. She is happy to see

that he can also be taught at home. The thought scares me.

Toni’s favorite letter is F, because it stands for ‘Friends’.

You may be wondering why his mother does not send him

to school with his friends, and there could be many rea-

sons for this. It is possible that she simply cannot afford to

send him to school; because even though primary school is

free, there are still costs involved. It could also be because

she does not believe he will learn anything worthwhile in

school. Teachers’ salaries are so low, that many teachers

have turned their classrooms into market places. They

sell candy and anything else that can get them a few extra

Cedis at the end of the month to make ends meet.

At the end of my little cousin’s naming ceremony, after

all the guests had gone home and we were sitting in the

courtyard reflecting on our meatless soup, we started talk-

ing about how everything is possible in Ghana. There is a

saying about New York: “If you can make it there, you can

make it anywhere”. But times have changed and Ghana is

now that place - if you can make it in here, you can make

it anywhere. It is all about learning to hustle. We need to

be creative and innovative in our approach and we need to

be patient to see the results. A drunk like Aziz has to take

risks to survive, and to find some enjoyment in his life.

And since the government is weak and seems unable or

unwilling to enforce any rules, another saying is true here:

“Money talks and bullshit walks”.

But is it a hopeless situation? If I thought so, I would not

be living here. There are an increasing number of people

like myself who are returning to Ghana. We see opportuni-

ties here, and not only do we want to bear witness to the

changes taking place, and learn from them, we also want

to be a part of the developments by adding our own posi-

tive twist and discovering new challenges for our ideals

and ourselves. Being in Ghana is about fulfilling a deep-

rooted need to make a difference and contribute positively

to the Ghana-Netherlands connection. Absolutely anything

is possible, both the good and the bad. There is peace

and a relatively stable democracy, and there are resources

and few rules. It may be a playground for the corrupt,

the opportunist, the shortsighted and the self-centered,

but we idealists have our place in Ghana too. This is why

Lynn Zebeda (UCU class of ‘06) and I started our own

company, ‘Dr. Monk’. We’re an international collective of

young, creative and driven global citizens who work on the

socio-cultural side of sustainability by offering innova-

tive perspectives. We work to make a positive difference,

searching for an authentic connection and dialogue with

people, cross-pollinating between disciplines and cultures,

and searching for the right mix for a sustainable future.

There is a lot to learn from Ghanaians who have a strong

entrepreneurial spirit and have never received any support

from their government. For a child like Toni this means

that, although he may not receive the best education to

help him fulfill his potential, being in Ghana teaches him

to be a survivor. With only 5 years of life experience, he

is already a strong and resilient boy who can take care of

himself.

Ghana is now that place - if you can make it in here, you can make it anywhere. It is all about learning to hustle.

Ama van Dantzig (’05) went on to do an International Development Studies MSc and became a public advocate of thoughtful development work. She lives in Ghana and is the co-founder of her own development agency, Dr. Monk.

Post | December '11

Impression of a slave fort near Accra, Ghana

For information about Dr. Monk check: www.drmonk.org

11

inally, after six years you have graduated from high

school. Over the past two years, you went to the open

days of several universities, where you were enticed

by colourful stands, inspiring professors and overenthusiastic

university students promoting their specific fields of interest.

As all these fields were very interesting, your high school pre-

exams took up all your time in the fifth year, your final year

was even busier still, and since your social life expanded to

include weekend binges and the like, you decided to postpone

the more concrete decisions to a more suitable time: later.

However, you are not entirely devoid of ambition and have

worked hard in order to pass with reasonable grades. All in

all, you achieved a 7.7 average grade (you flunked history).

Now that you have the time to properly reflect on matters,

you realize that you excelled in biology and chemistry (and

actually liked the subjects), that you are a very sociable

person who wants to “do good”, that you like House and

ER, and that, accordingly, you are pretty darn good doctor

material. In fact, come to think of it, becoming a doctor

has been your vocation your entire life.

So, you download the brochures and decide to apply.

However, as in most countries, the number of appli-

cants far exceeds the number of available places.

Consequently, a number of selection systems

has been put in place. If your average grade had

been 8.0 or higher you would have been accepted

straight away to an institution of your choosing.

Apparently, you should have paid more attention

to your (stupor inducing) history teacher, but you

cannot help but wonder why this prevents you from

becoming a doctor. In any case, you still have two

options. Medical schools are allowed to select half

of their students according to their own selection

procedure (your first option), while the other half

will be chosen by nationwide lottery (your last option).

Dutch medical schools either require high scores on multi-

ple choice aptitude tests comparable to the American MCAT

(medical college admission test), experience in the care

sector (i.e. working in a nursing home), board or organisa-

tional experience (i.e. running the high school newspaper),

exceptional efforts in art, literature, science, music or sports

(at least at a national level), or a diploma from the two

year scientific program for which you should have been pre-

selected in the fourth grade (but you had no idea). The large

variety in selection criteria gives the feeling Dutch medical

schools are very keen on selecting their own students, but

do not really know what criteria to apply. In fact, this is a

worldwide problem. While many of these selection criteria

excellently predict adequate academic performance in med

school, no evidence exists to show that medical students

who do well academically will actually become good doctors.

In part one of this two-part story, Teun van der Bom recounts the trials and tribulations of a quasi-fictional, semi-autobiographical alter ego who is trying to become a good doctor.


F

For information about Dr. Monk check: www.drmonk.org

Back to you. Sadly, you are too late to apply directly to

medical school to avoid the lottery system, the deadline

having been in May before graduation. And anyways, while

you did want to take on the multiple choice exam, you did

not work in a nursing home, your organisational experience

is limited to throwing parties, you did bash in the brains of

half the online world, but doubt that this will be interpreted

as an exceptional effort in sport, and as mentioned before

you knew nothing about the two year scientific program, as

it is only offered at certain pilot high schools and not yours.

Consequently, only your last option remains. You apply for

med school through the national lottery procedure and hope

for the best. As your average grade is close to the required

8 you are in category B (8 or higher being category A) and

have between a 40 and 60 percent change of being accepted,

depending on the total number of applicants. If you grades

had been lower, your chances would drop proportionally. For

example, students in category E (6 to 6.5, 6 being the lowest

pass-grade) have a 15 to 20 percent chance of acceptance,

and are often precluded from directly applying to a medical

school, as an average grade of 7.0 or higher is required.

While basking in the sun in beautiful Tuscany on a well-de-

served vacation you receive a call from your parents. In your

category, 257 applicants were accepted. You were number

302. It looks like you’ve earned yourself a gap year.

Apart from your rejection letter, the envelope that awaits back

home contains an invitation to the “Rejected, then what?-day”,

where less popular but slightly related programmes - though

obviously not full-fledged medical ones – try to take advantage

of your rejection-induced weakness. In the end you decide

to improve your resume with a year of medical biology, while

working in a nursing home and trying to reach a national level

in something, failing miserably in the latter.

Whereas in previous years too much was going on to think

properly about your future, this year you are obsessed with

getting into medical school. Based on a combination of

experience in the care sector, confabulating how much you

really liked it in your application letter, reasonable aptitude

test results, and - probably most importantly - better tim-

ing, you obtain your letter of acceptance.

Remembering the selection criteria, you expect many of your

colleagues to have secret lives as superheroes, and indeed,

you are very impressed but also slightly concerned for the

girl who wants to combine medicine with the conservatory,

while doing law on the side. On the other hand, remember-

ing your time at the nursing home, you get really annoyed

with anyone who chose medicine because his average grade

was higher then the required 8.0, and “just wanted to see

if they liked it.” During a laboratory practical, you stare

incredulously at your very capable looking lab partner, when

he tells you he has been studying medicine for five years,

but recently had to start again in the first year because the

old curriculum was replaced by a new one (and okay, maybe

he should have worked a little harder). All in all, it’s quite

the diverse lot.

Your first four years of medical school are pretty much

what you expected from university. You go to lectures and

workgroups, hand in assignments, give presentations, stare

morosely through microscopes, and miss an exam or two

because you are hung over and consequently need to stay

home during your family’s ski vacation to retake the exam.

The only thing that really stands out compared to other

studies is the anatomy practical, in which you study the hu-

man anatomy by dissecting real cadavers. At your first prac-

tical you feel a mix of excitement, fascination and revulsion.

However, all emotions are rapidly dissolved in formaldehyde

fumes that make you utterly incapable of any mental activity

apart from following the instructions in your workbook.

While you study vigorously at times, you are still able to

enjoy a rich student life with several activities of your

choosing. Some of your colleagues choose to spend

their free time in voluntary research projects,

claiming that it improves their résumés and

that one cannot become a specialist without

scientific publications. You dismiss this as ten-

dentious rumours, as similar stories about the

lengths you should have gone through always

pop up at times of deadlines and exams, and

are usually not true. Moreover, if something

should distinguish future specialists it should

be that they are good doctors (which you

intend to be).

After four years, it is time to put

your acquired knowledge into

12 Post | December '11

practise. It is time for your rotations. You will gain experience

in many medical fields, often under supervision of an intern

(a physician who just finished med school and is working in a

hospital for experience) or a resident (a physician in training

to become a medical specialist). During your rotations you are

kept busy interviewing and examining patients who are sub-

mitted to the hospital for treatment or a procedure, attending

morning reports and interdisciplinary meetings, performing

small tasks such as drawing blood, inserting IVs or doing

sutures, assisting during surgery and providing your supervisor

with enough coffee to get through the day.

What you have seen from the medical world so far has led

you to believe that apart from (resident) psychiatrists and

the occasional researcher, physicians are not the hipster

type. In fact, all the doctors in your university hospital

are friendly, sociable, quick-witted, apparently extremely

busy, and oozing copious amounts of intelligence, but never

“cool”. It seems that it is up to you to fill the obviously

overlooked niche of the cool doctor. However, after being

1) screamed at by a random surgical resident in scrubs for

wearing a hoodie under your lab coat, 2) overhearing two

elderly physicians loudly complaining about “running shoes”,

while casting disapproving looks at your All Stars, and 3)

accidentally being taken for the food cart delivery guy by

the nursing staff despite your lab coat - all in one day - you

decide your life during your clinical rotations will be much

easier if you go with the flow.

In your final year of rotations you get to choose your senior

rotation, which is sort of a dress rehearsal. You will function

as a graduated physician for three months, including all

responsibilities, though with fewer patients. For you, this

is the time to choose what you want to be doing once you

have graduated. As you really liked your neurology rotation,

you see yourself as a future neurologist and apply for a

senior rotation in neurology. As with any beginning doctor,

your first weeks are chaos and require long hours to make

ends meet. However, with time, you start to get the hang of

running your part of the neurology ward. After you’ve made

several smart remarks while discussing a patient with your

supervising neurologist, you decide to ask her how to apply

for the neurology residency.

Instead of getting the enthusiastic response with a couple

of handy pointers that you were hoping for, she directs you

to the professor in charge of the residency program. After

mailing your résumé, you make an official appointment with

the professor through his secretary and secretly hope all this

fuss is an attempt to offer you a residency without upsetting

your colleagues. The professor receives you in his cupboard-

sized office (and he is lucky to have an office; shortage

of space being a chronic problem in university medical

centres), and greets you with the expression of a doctor

who is about to give you bad news. You realize that since he

actually is a doctor, indeed the news must not be good. He

tells you that he is glad that you are interested in neurol-

ogy, but in order to be considered for the specialist training,

two things are important. First of all: experience, which you

lack, not even having graduated. Second of all, verifiable

scientific interest, with ‘verifiable’ being a euphemism for

“published scientific articles to your name, or a PhD”, both

of which you lack. When you talk to the residents on your

ward, you learn every one of them has a PhD and that in the

past couple of years no one has been accepted who did not,

not even those with experience. You wonder why residency

programs are so bent on scientific interest, a quality that, as

opposed to compassion, medical knowledge and basically be-

ing a good doctor, does not seem absolutely necessary once

you are a practicing physician.

You decide you want to be a good doctor, not necessarily a

good scientist, and apply for a job as an intern to gain some

experience. You write every hospital within a reasonable dis-

tance if there will be any openings once you graduate. You

get invited by six, of which four ask if you can start right

away, which is weird considering that you will only receive

your diploma after two more months of rotations. But this is

good news.

It seems that you are well on your way in your medical

career.

13

Teun van der Bom (’01) finished UCU with a degree in Science. He has since pursued a degree in medicine and is now a research fellow in cardiology at the Amsterdam Medical Centre.

It looks like you’ve earned yourself

a gap year.


To be continued on

14

t was dark outside when I finally

decided to try and make my way

across town. There were people

everywhere. The three layers of Tokyo

had merged to one. Metro and train

systems were down and taxi’s stood

silent in the jam of traffic. There was

no honking of horns. Black suits filled

the sidewalks, as the millions of salary

men and women speedily walked in the

direction of their homes. They weren’t

able to reach their families due to the

phone lines being down but they didn’t

seem to be questioning if and when

they would get home, most of which

were probably tens of miles outside the

city center. It was as if I were amidst a

live colony of ants, busily and orderly

hurrying from A to B without question.

I stood still for a moment, with my

little green bike in hand – observing in

awe how silent panic was in Japan.

When I walked into my friend’s office

across town it was anything but silent.

iPhones, iPads and MacBooks gave us

unlimited access to the outside world

– and the outside world to us. Constant

bleeps from Skype, pop-ups on Twitter

and Facebook messages of concerned

families and friends ‘back home’ could

be heard throughout the office. News

agencies from all over the globe were

dialing in via Skype to get the news as

fast they could.

Japanese TV news anchors wore helmets

as they updated us on the earthquake

(magnitude, effects, etc.) and bits and

pieces of information rolled in on the

tsunami that had struck the northern

coast of Japan. Whitewashed faces at

the office of those with family in those

coastal areas. Phone lines were down

and information was hard to get.

The earth provided us with constant re-

minders of the jolt we had felt around

2.46pm that day, with roughly 180 af-

tershocks recorded within the first 12

hours. The aftershocks were still so

strong it seemed as if we were out at

sea with bad weather. We took turns

holding on to lamps, bookshelves and

other equipment that was not fixed.

And as we duck-taped the new presen-

tation-beamer for extra support, I re-

membered sitting under the tiny desk at

my office, one leg sticking out, drawers

opening and closing to the swaying

of the building and archive cupboards

falling over. What was going on?

The shelves at the convenience stores

were first wiped clean of product by the

quake at 2.46pm, then filled again by

the staff in the hours following, only

to be cleared again 9 hours later by

the people following protocol. “Assure

a decent supply of water and foods,

though not more than necessary as to

leave enough for others”.

*Ping* – finally another message from

my friend Anaïs (UCU class of ‘02).

She had been on the KLM flight that

was scheduled to land at 2.50pm, 4

minutes after the earthquake, and was

now finally heading towards Osaka.

The plane had had to interrupt its

descent and divert to a military base

50km out of Tokyo. Bits and pieces of

her whereabouts I was able to gather

through Facebook and e-mail. But, as

phone lines were still down late that

night, the internet was our only com-

munication tool. Later, as Anaïs told

me the tales of that flight, I again was

amazed. The people on that flight had

remained calm, although the doors of

the airplane had not been opened for

22 hours and limited information had

been given. I cannot imagine how the

Japanese people on board must have

felt. Not knowing what had happened

and what the magnitude of effects

were for them and their families, only

knowing that it was one of the largest

earthquakes to hit Japan. Again the

main source of information was internet

and social media.

As surreal as the situation seemed

to me then, joining an ant trail and

dodging flying cupboards now seems

so benign in comparison to what was

going on up north.

TOKyO AfTEr-SwAywendelien Hebly remembers the 2011 Japan earthquake, and how the social media were a mixed blessing in the aftermath.

Post | December '11

I

15

Wendelien Hebly (’03) completed her MSc in Neuroscience and is now working in Tokyo as corporate strategist for Tommy Hilfiger Japan.

We spent the next day in an apartment

on the 24th floor of a new building.

These buildings are specially designed

to withstand shocks up to 8 on the

Richter scale – some are built on rollers

and thus roll from side to side as a

whole. Others are built to sway from

side to side – so the higher up one is

the more seasick one gets. Up in the

top we could not quite make out when

we were actually swaying as a result of

an aftershock and when we were expe-

riencing after-swaying as a result of

shock. The TV displayed images of the

tsunami that had struck coastal regions

and videos of chaotic scenes of offices

and supermarkets in Tokyo.

And then we saw the explosions in the

nuclear plant. We used bilingual Twitter

sites to try and understand what was

“My company is pulling all foreigners out – I advise

you to do the same.”

being said about the explosions. Every-

one was instructed to “close all windows

and doors, not to go outside if not nec-

essary and to fill the bath with water”.

And as we sought to find more informa-

tion on possible scenarios, reading up on

Chernobyl, Facebook messages started

rolling in. “My company is pulling all

foreigners out – I advise you to do the

same,” and a second: “the Mongolian

embassy is evacuating all its people,”

and so on. The overload of tweets on a

nuclear explosion just 300km north of

Tokyo and the lack of reliable informa-

tion (or trust in the communication of

the Japanese government to its people)

led to restlessness within our apartment.

What do you do when you have limited

access to information and the informa-

tion you have is contradictory? Social

media provided a great platform for ev-

eryone to share all the information, true

or not, and we tended to believe this

information more than that which was

provided by the government. Of course,

they cannot tell 33 million people that a

huge nuclear catastrophe may be around

the corner because the infrastructure

would not support such an exodus – so

the conclusion of a lot of Twitterers was

the government could not be trusted.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle,

and the acts of the Japanese govern-

ment in this case and in many others

is a significant but separate discussion.

What was fascinating about this par-

ticular aspect of the catastrophic events

surrounding March 11, 2011, was to see

the difference in reactions between the

Japanese and the foreigners. The Japa-

nese stayed calm and collected, followed

protocol and awaited orders. We, on the

other hand, pro-actively got involved

in telling stories we knew little about,

spreading words that could be misinter-

preted and snowball into chaos.

In that sense, the social media were

both a blessing and a curse in this di-

saster. The widespread availability of

videos, tweets and messages allowed us

to communicate with loved ones in and

out of Japan and to acquire information

on what was happening in the north

and around the Fukushima plants. It

enabled the world to follow closely and

take part in providing their opinions

from a distance, especially with respect

to the nuclear threat. But this transpar-

ent insight into countless opinions also

fed panic in many on and beyond the

island, because it was now up to the

individual to decide what to do - stay

or go?


16

severed horse’s head, tickled

by a swarm of flies lies in the

muddy grass of Talcahuano,

a fishing town in Chile on March 3rd

2010. Less than a week ago it was cut

off by electrical cables as it was pro-

pelled forward by the tsunami that fol-

lowed the 6th largest recorded earth-

quake in history.

Large fishing ships stranded in the

middle of residential inland neighbor-

hoods make for a bizarre spectacle and

the smell of rotting fish perforates any

wall still standing. A week earlier the

8.8 magnitude tremor on February 27th

at 3:34am woke me inside a bus on the

way to Santiago. Stuck only a few ki-

lometers from the epicenter, the driver

had only barely avoided the nearby

bridge that collapsed. The locals inside

their homes hadn’t been able to even

stand on their feet when it happened.

It lasted 3 full minutes and devastated

large parts of Chile and, in the most

affected area, displaced 20% of the

population.

I spent that day stranded in Chillan, 60

km from the epicenter. I saw a collapsed

wheat factory and people sitting outside

of their crumbled houses. The coun-

try’s phone lines were down and most

roads had been wrecked. The town was

unknown to me. The people behaved in

an otherworldly manner as they united

in euphoria, while filling large bags

and containers with the wheat that had

poured onto the street. Perhaps reality

had not yet set in. Or in a more likely

scenario these people were so poor that

they had lost less than they could gain

by stealing from fallen buildings.

I found a driver whom I paid to take me

north, and as we made our way through

villages with unpaved roads and houses

of adobe I was glued to the window

through which I saw families huddled

over a radio, children carrying water

from the river and women sweeping

bricks and dust into mounds of what

was once a house. These confronting

spectacles were combined with the fear

I felt knowing that several escapees

from a nearby prison were sitting in the

seats behind me.

A few days later, after having checked

up on my friends in Santiago, where

damage was limited I went back to

the disaster’s ‘Ground Zero’. Contracted

by NRC Handelsblad I set out to find

stories. With roads ruined and chaos

ensuing all over Chile I arrived by plane

with Chile’s air force.

Large shipping containers lay empty on

the shore, as if thrown around like toys.

The locals took whatever produce was

inside. The chaos that had been in the

news had visibly engulfed this town.

Besides the mud and destruction after

the tsunami, many shops, even those

still standing, were ransacked. From

bread and milk to an entire fridge, Chil-

eans carried what they could as they

emptied the city’s stores.

Nobody I knew had predicted that

middle class Chileans with no criminal

record would be reduced to thievery.

“We were making use of the situation,”

says a woman living in villa Alto Palo-

mares, a neighborhood of Concepción.

And that is what 90% of her neighbor-

hood did as well.

The government’s response to the loot-

ings was a city wide curfew. People

were not allowed on the streets before

12pm and after 6pm. To enforce this,

BACK TO

SEALoretta van der Horst was traveling through Chile when one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history shook the country.

Post | December '11

A

17

10.000 soldiers were dispatched in the

most affected regions.

Though a press pass I had been given

exempted me from the curfew, it wasn’t

of much use, as the only people I came

by were patrolling soldiers, many not

older than 19, who all needed to see

my pass. While a young man, padded by

a bullet proof vest and a machine gun

hanging from his neck bowed to see the

pass I thought it an eerie phenomenon

that police authorities were now second

to these newly trained military men,

prepared to do whatever necessary to

keep the order.

Many of the older Chileans were re-

minded of the right wing military dic-

tatorship of Pinochet, during which

thousands were killed and many more

tortured. The opposition blamed the

pillaging after the quake on then

president Michelle Bachelet, as she had

waited two days to dispatch the mili-

tary. Though it was clear to me the mil-

itary was necessary, Bachelet, having

been tortured by that same institution

herself, was understandably apprehen-

sive at the prospect of occupying the

streets of Chile.

Luis Aguilar’s story proved the neces-

sity of the curfew to me once more. I

met him as he guards his family home

from thieves with a fire at the entrance

of his street. Luis’ butcher shop was set

on fire despite his prevention efforts. “I

opened the shop for them so that maybe

they wouldn’t damage it,” he said. He

was scared like many others and with

his neighbors has invented a system of

whistles while patrolling the surround-

ings to warn of potential thieves.

Chile was not struck by just one disaster,

the earthquake. It wasn’t even struck by

two, including the tsunami. The loot-

ings were so widespread and thorough,

nobody was adequately prepared to

prevent them or deal with them as they

swept over Chile’s cities. Deputy Jorge

Ulloa says the chaos that ensued after

the earthquake and tsunami, “brought

forward, the worst and the best in

people. While some looted the shops,

others came to the disaster zone to help

their fellow countrymen.”

In those days fresh after the disaster

I saw a lot of hardship and sadness.

It showed me humanity in its purest

form; people at their most vulnerable,

trying to get back on their feet amidst

the worst possible conditions. And it is

those people whom I kept following in

the months after I left. I kept in touch

with a handful of individuals who are

still in an everyday struggle to regain

what they have lost and went back to

Talcahuano over the summer of 2011 to

film a documentary with the working

title ‘Back to Sea’, which will premiere

in February 2012 in New York, almost 2

years after that fateful day.

Loretta van der Horst (’09) went on to work at the Santiago Times in Chile, where she experienced and documented the 2010 earthquake. She is currently finishing her MA in Documentary Journalism at NYU.

while some looted the shops, others came to the disaster zone to help their fellow countrymen.

For information about Loretta’s documentary: www.backtoseafilm.com December ‘11 | Post

The Photographeron Archimedean spirals

The continuous expanding or contractingmotion around a fixed point.

We are the only fixed point in this world: everything else spirals either towards or away from us. Our inner experience of the outside world

restricts us to seeing things as being around us: nothing or nobody can ever truly and fully connect with us.

The Academicon ‘Bewegungskontrast’

The illusory motion of a stationary object due to thecounter-directional motion of a nearby object.

When the outer circle is slowly rotated clockwise, the inner circle - which is fixed on the plate -

seems to move counter-clockwise, and vice versa.

By Roeland Verhallen (‘10)

20

Photos / Elitsa Mateva (‘09) & Bojan Opacak (’10)

Post | December '11

21

country is in, all signs are pointing to

Romney. Not convinced? Let me take

you through why:

Why Romney will be picked over the rest of the Republican fieldFirst of all, Republicans have a habit of

granting the nomination to whoever’s

due for getting it. Of all the Republican

nominees from the past 40 years, McCain,

Dole, George H.W. Bush, Reagan and

Nixon all had ran presidential campaigns

in previous elections before they were

granted the nomination, with only Gerald

Ford and George W. Bush being nominat-

e might as well face it

now, Mitt Romney, the

Republican ex-governor of

Massachusetts, is going to be the next

president of the United States of Amer-

ica. I know, voting hasn’t even started

yet, there are still months of primaries

before we even know who Obama’s

opponent will be, and the seemingly

endless presidential campaigns leading

up to the actual election in November

haven’t even begun. However, there are

only so many ways that these elections

typically go, and this election cycle,

looking at the history and the state the

ed the first time they ran (and Ford had

already been president for two years at

that point1). Romney not only has run for

president before, he, like George W. Bush,

is the son of a well-known and seasoned

politician who also ran for president. A

figure like Obama, who rises from rela-

tive obscurity to sweep the Democrats

off their feet, is incredibly rare on the

conservative side. Republicans may like

to flirt with a new and exciting candidate

every once in a while, but when it comes

to actually granting the nomination,

they tend to go for the establishment

candidate and this cycle, that candidate

is undoubtedly Romney.

Another element working in favour of

Romney is that the Republican primaries

are starting very early this year, and the

earlier the primaries, the better it works

out for the best prepared candidate. This

election, Iowa (traditionally the first

state to vote) is holding its caucus on

January 3rd already and, out of every-

one in the GOP field, Romney is clearly

the best prepared. In terms of connec-

tions, fundraising, and organizational

matters like having campaign staff and

headquarters in the places where voters

need to be reached, Romney’s campaign

has had more time and experience set-

ting these up than those of any of his

rivals. Other candidates will take care of

or learn to do these things as they go

along, but with Romney already off to

1 Ford, incidentally, is the only US president to have never been elected, rising to the office only by first being appointed vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned over tax evasion and corruption, and then president when Nixon also resigned.

Kiran Coleman tells you why Mitt romney will beat Barack Obama in 2012’s race for the office of U.S. president.


W

22

a head start, it may well be too late for

the rest of them.

Perhaps most importantly, Romney,

unlike the other candidates, has

been battle tested. All the personally

and politically sensitive information

that can come out about a candidate

(and which could hurt them), already

emerged during his previous run for

the presidency. His hiring of a garden-

ing company that employed illegal

immigrants and the 12 hour road trip

he took with his dog strapped to the

roof of his car made for political fodder

against him then, but bringing them

up again now runs the risk of coming

off as petty. Plus, being the seasoned

politician that he is, Romney will have

the answers to these matters prepared

and be ready to respond. The new can-

didates don’t have this luxury. Any time

a new woman comes forward to accuse

Herman Cain of sexual harassment or

when we find out that the Perry family

hunting grounds used to be called ‘Nig-

gerhead’, not only do their campaigns

have to deal with dispelling such nega-

tive information, they also run the very

real risk of fumbling the response and

making themselves look unprepared and

unable to handle unexpected situations

(an important quality when it comes to

being president).

Unlike the other contenders, whose

numbers have either remained negligi-

bly low or tend to shoot up and down,

the polls have shown Romney has had

not only a very sizable, but a steady

and stable support base ever since he

announced he would run. Other can-

didates have seen their poll numbers

surge, but also saw that support waver

again once the spotlight was turned on

them. Romney’s supporters have never

left his side and as soon as Romney’s

steady support starts being translated

into actual primary votes, Romney will

have the momentum on his side and, in

so far as he isn’t already, will begin to

exude an air of inevitability (and voters

like picking a winner).

Why Romney will beat Obama in the general electionRomney’s victory over Obama won’t be

as easy as his win over the rest of the

Republican field. Regardless of your

opinion on how he’s doing as president,

Obama has proven himself to be an

excellent campaigner, a gifted debater,

able to give a great speech and having

charisma to spare. Romney would have

a hard time besting, or even matching,

Obama on any of those fronts, but,

luckily for him, Romney doesn’t have

to be the darling of the right. The GOP

doesn’t need to run an exciting candi-

date that instantly bowls over everyone

who could ever be tempted to vote Re-

publican, because the Republican can-

didate won’t be the one that will drive

conservatives to vote, it will be Obama.

Ever since Obama got into office there

has been a significant and palpable ani-

mosity towards his administration and

person, which has come to the front for

instance in the many Tea Party rallies or

some of the 2009 town hall meetings

dealing with healthcare. All Romney

would have to do is get those riled up

voters to reconcile with him and he can

tap into a fired up and highly motivated

base of supporters that has no signifi-

cant equivalent on Obama’s side.

This base is fired up because, perhaps

on more than any other issue, this

election will hinge on the state of the

economy. And the economy, in case you

need to be told, isn’t doing so well. The

Consumer Confidence index is tradition-

ally one of the bellwether indicators of

whether the American people think the

country is heading in the right direc-

tion, and it has rarely been this low.

These things always have the ability to

(slowly) turn around, of course, but to

give you an indication of how long a

way it has to go: The average Consumer

Confidence index on the day a president

was re-elected has been 95, the lowest

it’s ever been when a president was re-

elected is 75, when Carter’s re-election

campaign managed to win only 49 of

the 538 electoral votes in 1980 the

index was at 64, right now, one year

before the election, it’s at 55. With

numbers that low, people are unhappy

and when they get the chance to vote,

they will want to vote for change. This

time around, that’s no longer Obama.

Now, it’s not that Obama has been a

total failure as president; in fact, I’d

argue that he’s been far from that. He

has booked some substantial victories

when it comes to foreign policy (like

taking out Osama Bin Laden and aiding

the Libyans in ousting Gaddafi), but

the policies that led to those victories

largely haven’t been that different

People are unhappy and when

they get the chance to vote,

they will want to vote for

change. This time around, that’s

no longer Obama.

Post | December '11

23

from what a lot of Republicans have

been advocating. Barring any major

international events, this election

isn’t shaping up to be one where the

policies of Obama and his (Republican)

Secretary of Defence will be a point

of much contention. On the domestic

level he passed legislation that helped

stave off the demise of the automotive

industry and a stimulus package that

many independent economists will tell

you prevented the economy from fall-

ing into a full blown depression, and he

has passed a bill that provides health

care to many previously uninsured

Americans. The thing about those ac-

complishments is that it’s very hard

to campaign on them. Claiming you

prevented something from happening is

a much tougher sell than presenting to

the voters something you made happen.

After all, “it could’ve been so much

worse” doesn’t make for a very good

bumper sticker. Add to that that the

health care bill (currently under review

by the Supreme Court to determine

whether certain elements of it are even

constitutional) is a complicated piece

of legislation of which few Americans

will have noticed the concrete, real life

benefits by the time they step into the

voting booth. Plus, it isn’t very popular

with a lot of people on the left, who

had hoped it would include more than

it did (like the Single-Payer universal

health care system).

This, in turn, is indicative of another

problem, namely that Obama’s base is

much less fired up than it was during

the last election cycle. When the people

had had eight years of George W. Bush

and the very real prospect of Sarah Palin

being one heartbeat away from the pres-

idency, those who could be persuaded

to vote Democrat were very eager to do

so. However, some of those same core

constituencies that drove voter turnout

last time, have been disappointed. As

much as he has tried to temper them,

expectations for the Obama presidency

were extremely high and he hasn’t been

able to live up to them. A lot of liberals

are dissatisfied with his failure to close

down Guantanamo Bay, that his foreign

policy has largely been a continuation

of Bush’s policies, and that he hasn’t

been able to get Single-Payer health

care through. Gays might be glad about

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” being repealed

but could be disappointed that Obama

won’t come out in support of federal

recognition of same-sex marriage (which

a majority of Americans now support).

African Americans have, proportionally,

been hit much harder by the current

economic woes and his support amongst

Jewish Americans has also waned, which

would spell trouble for him in the crucial

swing state of Florida. If he wants to

keep Jewish Americans happy, he might


24

Kiran Coleman (’05) went on to study International Law at the University of Amsterdam and is the current Secretary of the UCAA Board.

After all, ‘it could’ve been so

much worse’ doesn’t make for a

very good bumper sticker.

be forced to side with Netanyahu’s

right-wing government more often than

he would feel comfortable doing. This

might not get all these people who

voted for Obama last time to switch their

vote to Romney, but it does make them

much less likely to knock on doors and

campaign for him and also much more

likely to not vote at all on election day.

And those non-votes could prove ex-

tremely important, because in the end,

getting elected in the US is a numbers

game and all a candidate needs to

become president is 365 Electoral Col-

lege votes. The days when a Reagan

or Nixon could get elected by carrying

more than 40 states are long gone. In

2012 Texas and Alaska will go to the Re-

publicans, New York and California will

go to the Democrats. It’s only a handful

of states that are really up for grabs,

which explains why candidates spend

a vastly disproportionate amount of

their time there where the votes can be

got. A lot of the current swing states,

like Ohio and Pennsylvania, are states

that have lost a lot of industrial jobs

and where the economic downturn is

being felt harder than in a lot of other

places. Additionally, if Romney is smart

in picking a vice-presidential running

mate, like, say, a Marco Rubio, he has a

good chance of firing up the Tea Party

constituency that has not been as ex-

cited about Romney, of winning Rubio’s

home state of Florida (the largest and

most crucial swing state) and he could

snatch up a few other swing states with

high Latino populations, like Nevada.

Obama on the other hand will most

likely be stuck with Joe Biden, a very

capable administrator but also an ex-

tremely gaff-prone campaigner from a

very small state that would have voted

Democratic anyway.

During any election there are many

factors at play, but the crunch is: The

economy is bad, unemployment is high

and the president’s poll numbers are

low. And that’s as true now as it will be

next November. Regardless of the roles

Greece, Goldman Sachs, or George Bush

may have played, after four years it will

always be the incumbent party that

is held responsible for the state the

country is in. That’s bad news if you’re

a Democrat, but if you’re Mitt Romney,

it’s what will get you your next job.

Post | December '11

For more information about advertising in Post contact us: [email protected]

25

climb into the passenger seat of the old, beat-up

white Land Cruiser next to my favourite driver Em-

manuel and set out for a drive into town. It takes us

about 10 minutes to start the car, with a lot of team effort

from all other staff on the compound. After informing the

security guard of our destination we exit the barb wired,

concrete jungle of a compound. I take preventive action

against hitting my head or damaging any other body part

by tightly hanging on to the handle as we splash through

one massive puddle after another. A giant billboard on the

side of the main road advertises Tusker, the ever popular

Kenyan beer brewer: “Cheers to a New Nation”, it reads. It

is one of the many reminders of the upcoming independ-

ence of South Sudan seen throughout town. We fight

ourselves through traffic and onto the main paved road, a

Cheers to

a New Nation!

novelty here in South Sudan, as the entire country has a

grand total of 60 kilometres of tarmac road. I notice a myr-

iad of women along the side of the road, sweeping with

locally made bamboo brooms. Other women are planting

purple flowers down the middle of the road; I imagine all

in preparation for the big Independence Day. I think about

all the changes that are happening around the city. The

paved road is now lined with solar-powered streetlights,

the first streetlights in South Sudan. As we weave through

the mass of motorcycles and matatus (local transportation

mini buses) on another bumpy road, I ponder the vibrant,

energetic chaos that dominates the city today. A large

group of women in full traditional dress are running down

the road and chanting their tribal songs of happiness.

There are countless street vendors selling the new flag. In

The Birth of The Republic o

f South Sudan

Bodil Dronkers is hesitantly optimistic about the future of the republic of South Sudan.

Photos / People celebrating the independence

of South Sudan / Arsenie Coseac (‘04)


I

the midst of all the chaos, Emmanuel explains to me that

all problems will be over once independence rolls around.

His children will have better education and more wealth.

“No more problem, madam”, he assures me.

We make all planned stops in town without ending up in

an accident. On the last stretch home I notice fake roses

have been planted in between all the purple flowers.

A few days later I am battling my way through the back

roads of Juba (the main roads were closed for non-VIP cars

and lined with rocket launchers for security purposes), and

pass Emmanuel, whose entire face is covered with painted

South Sudanese flags. He is dancing in the middle of the

road with a large group of people from his tribe, celebrat-

ing this very special day, July 9th 2011. Independence

Day has finally come and he is not the only one celebrat-

ing. I am struck by my inability to describe the sights,

sounds, and feelings generated from the enthusiasm on

this day. I could fill an entire book with descriptions and

still wouldn’t do it justice. There is a sense of ecstasy and

energy beyond anything I have experienced before; people

just let their bodies and minds go. There was no limit to

where or how people celebrate – some in the bars, many

on the streets, others in the stadium at the official celebra-

tion. Everyone is together, regardless of tribe, history,

gender, or age. True solidarity.

At the famous John Garang Stadium VIPs from around

the world, together with the press and other invited guests,

engage in the official ceremony to declare The Republic

of South Sudan an independent nation. Among the VIPs

26

are Ban Ki-moon and Omar al-Bashir, now the president

of North Sudan. He came to South Sudan to officially

endorse the independence and hand over full leadership to

Salva Kiir. Thousands stream into the stadium to witness

the moment, and millions more are watching from their

TV screens across the world.

Meanwhile, up in the northern parts of South Sudan,

in the Abyei region, conflict has never ceased. Abyei is a

disputed border area between North and South Sudan, and

contributes to a quarter of crude oil outputs. A separate

referendum is to be held to decide its fate; a referendum

which has been postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing

conflict between North and South over the area. At the end

of May 2011, just a little over a month before independ-

ence, the North violently invaded Abyei under order of

al-Bashir, with over 5000 troops and aerial bombardment

and shelling, forcing more than 150.000 residents to flee

their homes. At the time of Omar al-Bashir’s endorsement

of the independence in the John Garang Stadium, 150.000

people are without any prospect of peace.

Post | December '11

27

Last week, as part of my job, I went on a field visit to a

village 2 hours from Juba. As we travel down one of the

few dirt roads that lead to the rural areas of the state, I

begin to see a massive compound. I ask the project officer

what monstrosity lies ahead and why it’s so horrendously

massive. It must be the size of all the ministries in Juba

combined. He informs me that these are the headquarters

for the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army).

We turn into what looks like a hiking path. Lucky for us,

we just bushwhack our way through with our colossal

Land Cruiser. I quickly pull my arm in from the window

before it gets mangled by the bushes. The project officer

tells me that we are the only NGO that comes out to this

community because it is too remote for other organiza-

tions. Up ahead, I see a stream with a very steep and rocky

path heading down and another steep and rocky path head-

ing up. It’s clear to me: we are going to either get stuck or

ruin the car. The only option would be to reverse out. The

driver sees things differently and just continues straight

down the steep slope and into the stream. Our four-wheel

drive is in full gear and I cringe at every big rock we hit in

the stream. We make it through the stream and over the

hill and continue on our merry way. As we roll into the

main community meeting place, a group of representatives

greet us with big smiles and waves. The school children

march towards me with songs and dance, welcoming the

first khawaja (white person) to their village.

I am eager to visit the only primary school in the entire

community, which spans over 100 square kilometres.

As we approach the school, I am slightly confused by the

empty classrooms and children hanging around here,

there, and everywhere. Two men approach us, and are

introduced by my Field Officer as the teachers and facilita-

tors of our activities. Standing across the two men, I am

met with the stench of alcohol and a list of problems,

including the fact that they have not been paid in months.

I catch myself wondering if it was Tusker beer that they

have been drinking.

The heat is getting to me and the one bottle of water I

brought from Juba is empty, so I ask a community mem-

ber where I could possibly get some water. He informs me

that, with no shops around, the community has big water

problems. Only two water pumps service the community

members, and the closest one is five miles away. As we

make our way to the borehole in our Land Cruiser, Paul

27

Despite the conflict in certain areas, Juba and its surround-

ing peaceful areas plough forth to make changes in con-

firmation of independence. In the course of a few months

the national currency is changed, a new international

phone code chosen, a national football team formed, and

dialogue with the UN on the creation of a new seat in the

General Assembly initiated. I had never put much thought

into what factors come into play with the creation of a

brand new state. While some changes seem trivial, they are

still key aspects of creating an independent identity. These

changes are a testament to the fact that people have some

reason to be optimistic – things move fast, and apparently

it is possible to make big changes quickly. Where there is a

will, there is a way.

Apparently it is

possible to make big

changes quickly. where

there is a will, there

is a way.


28

Simon serenading us, and with the air conditioning on full

blast, we pass children carrying big 20 litre jerry cans on

their head in 40 degree heat.

As we drive back into the outskirts of Juba, I observe and

ponder all the changes that have happened so quickly in

Juba and how starkly these changes contrast with the type

of community I just visited. In the past months hotels,

business centres, restaurants, and car showrooms have

popped up like mushrooms. In the villages, on the other

hand, nothing has changed at all. Juba is developing,

superficially, every day. Months ago, it was an anomaly

to see a Hummer driving on the roads of Juba, now it’s a

game for NGO workers to count how many we can spot on

the road in a short trip to the supermarket. On the other

hand, some things are not developing at all: power is still

irregular (with up to two weeks of power cuts), water is

transported by trucks, and infrastructure is still limited to

less than 60 kilometres of tarmac roads. Independence

has brought with it an array of changes that will make our

lives in the city better, but a stark difference still remains

between the changes happening for the rich, urban popu-

lation and the poor, rural population.

I recently read on the front cover of the South Sudan

Business magazine that western businessmen had come

to invest in the Republic of South Sudan. Good news, I

thought, because South Sudan needs investments to help

it develop. Later, when talking to some journalists who

had reported on this, it became clear that ‘investment’ was

maybe not the right word to use, as it could imply develop-

mental aims. Van Vliet, a prominent Dutch businessman

dealing in cars, made a deal in South Sudan for the sale

of 200 GM Hummers. This while 73% of the population

is illiterate, 82% live in rural communities (South Sudan

National Bureau of Statistics), and it’s more likely for a

15-year-old girl to die from childbirth than it is for her to

complete her education (IRC).

The Republic of South Sudan is an infant and the road

to development is best compared with a labyrinth that it

must crawl its way through. When I specifically think of

what needs to be done, I am overwhelmed. All problems

are related to one another and they are all happening on

different levels, from national to state to county-level gov-

ernment. Education is a disaster, there are very few jobs,

and very few meaningful investments. To top it all off,

there is severe corruption at the top levels of government.

Perhaps this is the biggest problem of all, because in order

to address any of these issues one thing has to change:

government budget allocations.

When looking at the current government structure and

national budgets, the armed forces receive a whopping

60% of the budget, while the Ministry of Education and

the Ministry of Social Development each receive less that

5% of the national budget. When visiting the Ministry of

Social Development at the state level, I was faced with a

meeting room filled by the smell of urine and several of-

ficers crammed into one office. The skill set of the people

employed, save the Minister and her Directors, is limited,

Post | December '11

Independence has brought

hope and freedom. It has given

people a new chance to shine.

Photos / Aerial photography of rural communities, a dried-up river and cattle on the road in South Sudan / Arsenie Coseac (‘04)

South Sudan government, (International) Non-govern-

mental Organizations, and other institutions must take

advantage of this hope and build sustainable skills that will

lead people to start believing in, and thinking in terms of,

long term success. But the people have to realise that hope

is not enough, and that only hard work and dedication

can lead them there. In this sense, it is a two-way street

and that is often where the problems in aid lie – differing

expectations from all stakeholders.

Although it is easy to get pulled down into all the misery

of a post-war country, there is a light in the euphoria and

hope of a people that have just been freed. After years of

war with the Sudan, South Sudan is now a free nation.

Freedom is something that most of us take for granted,

but for the people of South Sudan freedom is priceless.

Still, the road to development is a long one, with lots of

potholes, dust, and puddles. The government and agen-

cies need to capitulate on the euphoria that comes with

independence with some urgency. It is only a matter of

time before the population realises that the desired change

has not happened and becomes frustrated. That frustra-

tion, the loss of hope that follows it, the lack of sustain-

able development and the ever-remaining tribal tensions

obscuring what the common enemy is can be a recipe

for disaster. Without swift and critical action, it is more

than possible that another conflict will arise within the

country, and that the road to development will once again

be blocked.

But for now, there are many NGOs, governments, and

motivated people driving on that road to change. Hope-

fully, with those essential structural changes and targeted

interventions, we will slowly be able to make our way to

the end.

So, in the words of the Tusker billboard, cheers to a new

nation indeed!

29

Bodil Dronkers (’05) followed her bachelor’s in International Law and Psychology with a master’s in International Development Studies. She spent almost three years work-ing in Thailand for international NGO Right to Play before moving to South Sudan in 2010 to work for War Child Holland as a Field Location Manager.

especially with regard to expertise in social development.

There is a lack of critical thinking and problem solving

skills. Without an adequate budget, how can the minis-

tries ever evolve into working institutions that can provide

appropriate services to their vulnerable population? The

government must invest in the development of basic and

essential services, such as education, health, and infra-

structure for the people. Without these, the country and its

people will not develop.

Another essential factor for the successful development

is the people of South Sudan. Up until independence,

very few people felt true hope for the future, especially the

youth. They have no jobs, no education, many of them are

illiterate, and most have become alcoholics to forget their

boredom. Independence has brought hope and freedom.

It has given people a new chance to shine, from within

themselves, in their communities, and to the world. The


The road to development is a long one, with lots of potholes, dust, and puddles.

30

niversity life was over and the transition into working

life promised to be a demanding one. At least, that is

what the others who had already joined the rat race

had told us. They spoke of early mornings, long days and late

nights. The recruiter had promised us that Google was different.

There was only one way to find out and before we knew it we

found ourselves wandering the Google campus in Dublin. The

campus was different from the one at University College, but

some of the faces were not. There are currently four UCU alumni

working at Google in Dublin. Naomi and Derk discuss Google: the

company, the culture and the work.

So why are the Google headquarters in Dublin? There seem to be a couple of reasons. Firstly, Dublin is

culturally close to a large part of Europe, English is the main

language, and the culture is easy to relate to. These factors

make sense if you realise that Google is serving and driving

business in 56 markets using 56 different languages and

recruits most of its employees (about 75%) from abroad.

With the global headquarters being in Mountain View, the

fact that there is only a five-hour time difference with the US

east coast may also have played a role. But perhaps the most

important reason is that Ireland offers a 12.5% corporate tax

rate, which is about half of what companies in London pay.

Possibly also a reason why other internet giants like Facebook,

LinkedIn and Twitter followed suit?

You refer to the Google offices as the campus, why is this?

You can compare it to the University College campus: there

are four main buildings and there is a constant flow of people

between these buildings. Everywhere you go you bump into

people that you know or recognize. Instead of one, there are

four Dining Halls (serving sushi instead of kroketten) and

there are plenty of social committees and sports teams to

choose from. The only thing that is missing is a bar, but no

man overboard: the Irish love their pints and there is always

an Irish pub just around the corner. And of course, how could

we forget: the usual Friday beers with our colleagues, with

free beer in the office.

Everyone knows Google for its search engine, but the com-pany also has a wide range of other products such as Gmail, Maps and Google Plus. What is Google’s focus?

Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and

Naomi Becht and Derk van der woude are in Dublin, Ireland, working for Google, a big company that started as a “search engine” on the “internet”.

Post | December '11

U

So, what do you guys do all day after all?

With Google operating globally, almost every major country is

represented in an Online Sales team. Thus, while the overall

environment is internationally oriented, within your own team

you deal with customers from your own country. With the

Dublin office being largely Sales focused, most employees give

advice to advertisers who use Google for their company. In

the Dutch team, we check and optimize their accounts, make

our occasional phone calls and deliver pitches - we essentially

try to make their business as successful as possible through

the use of Google products. So, as an endnote, if you are

interested: Google is hiring!1

31

Naomi Becht (‘10) continued to study Social Anthropology at Oxford University, where she was recruited by Google. She currently resides in Dublin, where the company’s headquarters are located, working as an Online Sales Account Strategist.

Derk van der Woude (‘09) co-founded the UCWorld Foundation and obtained his MSc in International Management at King’s College, London. He currently works as a Strategic Account Manager at Google in Dublin.

make it universally accessible and useful”. In addition to the

more well-known products such as Search and Gmail, this

mission also translates into some very cool features such as

Google Books, Google Sky and the Google Art Project (just

Google them!). Google is not afraid to take a risk. Even when

a project may not necessarily be profitable in the short run or,

at times, even the long run, they go ahead with it anyways.

It’s like testing products by throwing them against the wall

to see which ones will stick. This way, many projects that in

other companies would never see the daylight get a chance.

Nevertheless, the main focus of Google is and for the foresee-

able future will be Search.

Google is famed for its open culture; do you really sit on Skippy balls and eat cupcakes all day long?

Yes and no. The cupcakes and Skippy balls, as well as ping-

pong tables, X-boxes and massage chairs are most definitely

there. Google is a very young company and this is reflected

in its employees. Most are somewhere in their twenties and

wear sneakers to work. At the same time, Google says it only

hires people that are “smarter than us”, so most employees

are high-potentials and ambitious. In such an environment,

people aim to work hard and ultimately they are of course

responsible for meeting their targets and their team’s needs.

1 Google will be represented at the 2012 UCU Career Day on February 28th; all alumni are welcome. Send an email to [email protected] if you want to attend.


ontrasts, oppositions, contra-

dictions – they can be found

everywhere on the pages of

this edition of Post. I would like to

update you on what may look like con-

trasting approaches in UCU’s interna-

tional collaboration.

On the one hand, we have invested

substantially over the last few years in

international partnerships for student

exchange, with prestigious partners who

offer excellent education. Our UCU stu-

dents can now study (for a semester) at

the University Scholars Program (honors

program) of the National University of

Singapore, at one of the Colleges of the

very high-ranking Chinese University of

Hong Kong, at Boston College, or at Sci-

encesPo in Paris, just to mention a few.

On the other hand, we collaborate

wholeheartedly with institutions that

you will not find high in the interna-

tional rankings. One of them is Wollega

University in western Ethiopia, one of

the country’s new universities, an insti-

tution of great ambition, with excellent

leadership, but obviously with limited

resources. We believe that if you en-

courage students to engage in com-

munity service (as we do nowadays),

you should also give the right example

as a school. We support Wollega Uni-

versity in many ways, such as capacity

building. There is reciprocity in the re-

lationship as well: Wollega offers us a

lot in terms of student project options,

widening experience for our faculty and

staff, and the like.

University College Utrecht has built up

prestige and reputation over the years

as the best undergraduate program

in the country, and as exemplary for a

“new way” of undergraduate education

in Europe. It is only normal that we offer

our students the best possible options

for study abroad, hence the collabora-

tion with prestigious partners. But “no-

blesse oblige”: we believe that it should

be our mission also to reach out, help

others to improve their education, on

the basis of our experience and exper-

tise. This is what we do in Ethiopia, but

also in our support to some European

universities that intend to start Liberal

Arts and Sciences programs.

If you are interested in UCU’s position-

ing and collaboration internationally

and would like to know more about it,

then please tell the UCAA Board! I am

most willing to come to any of your

local gatherings, either in the Nether-

lands or abroad, and discuss the issue

with you. I am sure that such a meeting

would generate new ideas, based on

your experiences.

I hope to see some of you soon, some-

where!

Prof. Dr. Rob van der Vaart has a doctorate in human geography from the University of Utrecht and has been the dean of UCU since 2008.

Contrasts in UCU’s international collaboration

32

UCU’s dean, rob van der Vaart, updates you on UCU’s international collaboration and invites you to join him in a strategic dialogue.

Post | December '11

C

33

Aneta Bankova, Quirine Boertje, Katherine Bolger, Anna Bornemisza, Andrea Bos, Banta-Eric Dram,

Ania Fiksinski, Philipp Friemann, Cathy Granneman, Ted Greijer, Jesse Groenewegen, Julian Keuzenkamp,

Kariuki Kirigia, Salomea Krobath, Ralph van der Maat, Iva Mechkunova, Marieke van Nuenen,

Naomi Peters-Rit, Thu Thuy Phan, Yuval Preiss, Sophie Reddering, Laura Round, Michelle Sachtler,

Steven Smits, Charlotte Swart, Gerard van Vugt, James Wangu, Sarah Wells, Joris Zantvoort, Anna Zenka

December ‘11 | Post Illustration by Anna Denise van der Reijden (‘05)

CoNGRATuLATIoNS, CLASS oF 2011 1/2 !

34

Who,

artistsRoeland Verhallen (‘10) is currently doing an M.Phil at the University of Cambridge. You can find more of his photography at:www.roelandverhallen.com

Vera Scepanovic (’05) continued her studies in political science at the Central European University in Budapest. She is currently a PhD stu-dent at the CEU studying industrial development in East and Southern Europe under the influence of foreign direct investment.

Elitsa Mateva (‘09) completed a masters in Conflict Studies and Hu-man Rights. She currently interns at the Hague Centre for Strategic Stud-ies as a Strategic Policy Analyst.

Bojan Opacak (’10) went on to work at Paprenjak as a Marketing Consult-ant/Brand manager. Bojan and Elitsa took the photos that appear through-out this edition of Post during a holiday in Croatia using a double exposure effect.

Anna Denise van der Reijden (’05) has a master’s degree in art history of the low countries as well as one in arts management and policy. She’s currently working as a program officer at the Flemish-Dutch cultural house deBuren in Brussels, does freelance illustration work, blogs at annadenise.nl and theyellowumbrel-lablog.com, and occasionally teaches courses and workshops on art journ-aling and creative living.

Read more articles from

Adine Rooyackers(‘08),

Gerard van Vugt (‘12),

Lotte van Weerd (‘13) &

Bas Heerma van Voss (‘12) at:

Arsenie Coseac (‘04) completed an LLM in International Law at Utrecht University in 2006, following which he worked as a volunteer with refu-gees and returnees in Sudan. More of his photos can be seen at:www.flickr.com/sidelife

Post | December '11

Albert Joosse (‘04) defended his PhD dissertation “Why a philoso-pher needs others: Platonic and Stoic models of friendship and self-understanding” at the Univer-sity of Utrecht on June 17th 2011.

Irina Buga (‘08) and Jennifer Speirs (‘06) were both awarded NWO Mozaïek-subsidies for doing PhD research. Irina will research the evolution of international treaties and Jennifer will be doing work to aid the treatment and prevention of cystic-fibrosis.

Dominique Snel (‘10), Nienke de Pauw (‘09) and Bram Eidhof (‘08) were all selected to participate in the Nationale Denktank 2011, this year themed around innovation in the job market.

Lynn Zedeba (‘06) and Ama van Dantzig (‘04) both made it onto Viva’s Viva400 list of young, suc-cessful women in the Netherlands for their work with Dr. Monk, the company they founded which focuses on innovation in international co-operation.

Rebecca Noorderhaven (‘11) won

the second annual Student Research Award on the basis of her bachelor the-sis, entitled ‘The Plasterk Effect - Ex-periencing Stereotype Threat Increases the Ingroup Trust Bias’.

Frederique Schut (‘08) completed the Mongol Derby this summer and was the first Dutch person to do so! She rode 1035km on horseback across Mongolia and is writing a book about it. Julia Zamorska (’01) was named Executive of the Year at the 8th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business for her work as VP of Corporate Com-munications at iolo technologies. Nicole Grether (‘02) was awarded the 2011 National Edward R. Murrow Award for Use of Video in her coverage of the Chili mine rescue for the Associated Press. Ingmar Vriesema (‘03) published the non-fiction book “Het Beroemde Broer & Zus Boek” at Thomas Rap publishers (an imprint of De Bezige Bij). Sarah Carmichael (‘06) published her first article in the journal The History of the Family: “Marriage and Power: An examination of age at first marriage and

spousal age gap in LDC’s, and the vari-ables that explain its variations.”

Annelies Vredeveldt (’07) got the paper “Eyeclosure helps memory by reducing cognitive load and enhancing visualisation” published in the journal Memory & Cognition, together with Graham Hitch and Alan Baddeley.

Roel van Lanen (‘01) and his fiancée Maria Witte had their first baby, a boy named Danyo, on September 22, 2011. Everybody’s healthy and happy and it looks like Danyo will be a singer, just like his daddy (he’s got the lungs for it anyway). Chris van Hemert (‘02) and his part-ner Kim welcomed a baby daughter, Ella Johanna van Hemert, into the world. Myrthe Welberg (‘05) married Brian Geurts in June of this year. Alexandra de Shazo (‘05) married Eitan Konigsburg in August of this year.

Tim Nicolaye (‘05) and Maaike de Boer (‘07) got married on the 5th of June, 2009.

Annika Greup (‘07) will marry Richard Fawcett on the 22nd of September 2012.

where?

About the

what,

Editorial Board Sarah Carmichael (’06) Kiran Coleman (’05) Laurens Hebly (’01) Thijs van Himbergen (’03) Iris Otto (’09) Layout, design & illustration Laurens Hebly (’01) Thijs van Himbergen (’03)cargocollective.com/vanhimbergenhebly Contributors Naomi Becht (’10) Teun van der Bom (’01) Kiran Coleman (‘05) Arsenie Coseac (‘04) Ama van Dantzig (’05)

Bodil Dronkers (‘05) Wendelien Hebly (’03)Bas Heerma van Voss (‘12) Loretta van der Horst (’09) Elitsa Mateva (‘09) Bojan Opacak (’10) Anna Denise van der Reijden (’05) Adine Rooyackers (’08) Vera Scepanovic (’05) Rob van der Vaart Roeland Verhallen (’10)Gerard van Vugt (‘12)Lotte van Weerd (‘13) Derk van der Woude (’09) Many thanks to Sebastiaan Cassé (‘03)Derek Coleman

Bas DefizeJochem Floor (‘04) Manon van Gijtenbeek (‘00) Fried Keesen Noortje van ’t Klooster (’09) Roel van Lanen (‘01) Bettina NelemansRob van der Vaart Annelies Vredeveldt (‘07) Marijt Witteman (‘06) Printed by Drukkerij ZuidamUithof

A very special thanks to all UCAA contributors and to the UCU adminis-tration for believing in this magazine and for making the many UCAA events possible.

Colophon

Photo / Scene from Barcelona / Vera Scepanovic (‘05)

University College Alumni Association

post - december 2011

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