"How is the University Community doing?"

Although the idea of the university as a community has currently been pushed a little further to the horizon, it is among the basic principles of the institution. But just like with a democracy: you do not get it just like that and it requires maintenance.

Taking care of each other

The medieval term to designate a university was universitas magistrorum et scholarium: the community of lecturers and students. Universitas literally means ‘guild’ and the principle of a guild was that its members were educated and provided care to each other.

That idea of a community – and especially also the need for it – has rarely been as strong and as pronounced as in the ten years after the Second World War. That makes sense, considering the situation. The university came out of the war as a torn institution. Cleansing commissions were founded and punishments were issued. The students felt quite abandoned by their lecturers and left with little support under difficult circumstances.

Together less susceptible to extreme political ideas

The solution that was found was described as the civitas academica, the academic community. This striving for community was based various thoughts and there was a political side to it as well.

By progressing through the university together, it was believed, students would become less susceptible to extreme political choices and less sensitive to totalitarian ideas such as fascism and communism. In order to achieve that, students were not to be prepared to become narrow Subject Librarians, but instead be sent into the world with a wide view.

Wally van Lanschot discovered there was an entire group which was directionless, had psychological issues and was barely studying.

Too busy for the Studium Generale

The instrument created for this was the Studium Generale. In it, students from natural sciences and medicine would then have to attend some law and humanities classes, and in return, theology and literature students would have to learn a thing or two about the principles of natural sciences.

An entire programme was founded, which quickly turned out to be impractical because it had consequences for the curriculum. Professor X said he believed it was very important, but it happened to not fit into his series of classes. Professor Y thought it would be better if a colleague surrendered some periods, because his own subject was a key subject which could not spare a single period. And the students themselves also turned to not be very enthusiastic because they already had such busy curricula.

Idea of a broad curriculum lives on

In the end, the Studium Generale as an official part of the university curriculum died a quiet death in the late 1950s. In his transferral address in 1954, the psychiatrist H.C. Rümke asked: “How is the University Community doing?” He had to confess that the Studium Generale had “not passed the experimental stage yet.”

It did continue to exist as an optional evening programme with lectures and cultural activities which still has a useful function today. And the spirit of the broad study programme returned in the 1980s, in degree programmes such as Interdisciplinary Humanities and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. Later, the palette was broadened even more with Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the University College.

‘Auntie Wally’ and the babies

The idea of a civitas academica involved more than just the Studium Generale; for the first time, the university was also seriously concerned about students' well-being. In 1951, someone was even appointed to look into what was needed.

This Wally van Lanschot had students find their way to her very quickly and she became known by the somewhat corny, but at the same time also affectionate name of “Auntie Wally”. There had always been individual professors who were concerned about their students, but she discovered there was an entire group which was directionless, had psychological issues and was barely studying. That even escalated to the point that she was confronted with “the babies. The birth-control pill wasn't around until 1960, so I spent ten years here without it,” she later said in an interview.

Student well-being takes serious shape

Her findings also resulted in the founding of SSH Student Housing and Bureau Studentenbelangen (Student Services), and an organised university healthcare system came about. In the academic year 1957-1958 alone, 2000 students already contacted the bureau with questions about finance, military service and similar matters.

The crowning achievement of all of this was an actual ‘University House’ at the Lepelenburg, where all these service departments found a home, including a student employment agency. And where a cafeteria was established too. I ate there a few times: a few guilders for a meal. That was a steal, even though it meant the taste of beans on Monday was very much like the cauliflower on Thursday. But you did have the feeling you belonged somewhere.