Fred Toppen receives Utrecht University silver medal

For the occasion of his goodbye as President of the Central Electoral Office, Fred Toppen has received the medal of Utrecht University.

“Fred Toppen has put his heart and soul into the representative bodies of the university,” Executive Board President Anton Pijpers explained during the presentation. He did this in his faculty (Geography, later Geosciences), but mostly at a university level. He was elected as a Member of the University Council in 2008, and was President of the University Council between 2011-2019. “Fred was a fully independent President, who gave space to the voices of all representative bodies,” Pijpers says. “He spent much attention on the training of new Council Members. The collaboration between the representative bodies at the central level with the faculty and service-department councils was also very important to him. He really made an effort for better visibility of the work of the University Council.”

Besides that, he was a champion of democracy and good relations in his Social Geography Department. Besides his work as a lecturer, he has been active as an administrator and a coordinator for years. “Without complaining, anticipating and also somewhat impatiently, he naturally handled everything that was at risk of being left behind,” Pijpers says. “Very often without publicly receiving the credits for it. But nobody ever called on him in vain, and he doesn't differentiate between students and professors in his efforts for others. Honest, incorruptible and with much dedication.”

From 30 January 2020 until 1 September 2021, Toppen was the President of the Central Electoral Office. After the unexpected fast departure of his successor, he was immediately willing to help out the Central Electoral Office once again, from 1 March to 30 June of this year. All the more reason to laud him at his goodbye. The text on the medal is: ‘Fred Toppen: verbinder en voorvechter van de medezeggenschap’ ('Fred Toppen: uniter and champion of the representative bodies).