Jorg Huijding appointed professor of Community Engagement in Higher Education

As of 1 June 2023, Jorg Huijding has been appointed professor of Community Engagement in Higher Education. Huijding wants to strengthen the triangle between education, research and society. "I hope to stimulate dialogue and interaction between students, social partners and lecturer/researchers, and to facilitate their long-term embeddingin curricula."

Jorg Huijding
Jorg Huijding

The university has a social role in solving complex social issues. That is not a one-way street. According to Huijding, there is a broad awareness that close contact and cooperation with parties from society are necessary to connect education and research to social issues. "This is important for the education and training of our students and can be of great benefit to the partners and lecturers/researchers involved. Such collaborations help all stakeholders to share different perspectives and types of knowledge, and to use them to arrive at better solutions."

Challenge

Huijding calls it a challenge to embed these kinds of collaborations sustainably in education and to make them independent of the enthusiasm of individuals or temporary funding. "That is exactly where the importance of my chair lies; to be able to work from here on knowledge sharing, facilitating policy and creating support networks. The chair offers a clearly recognisable place where opportunities and challenges arising from community engagement are addressed, and from which new initiatives can be set out and facilitated."

Stimulating community engagement has now become even more at the heart of my work.

Broad experience

The new professor was already a Community Engaged Learning (CEL) ambassador for the faculty. "Stimulating community engagement has now become even more at the heart of my work. For me, this is a great way to be meaningful. I have always been interested in different topics and perspectives. For that reason, I have also developed in breadth. I think that this broad experience and open mind will come in handy in the development of my teaching assignment. I'm really looking forward to it!"