Drukker began his career in Groningen where he studied quantitative economy. `I thought that was a bit boring,' he says, `so I took economic history as a minor. My professor sent me to the United States to Purdue University to complete the main part of my masters in economic history. I got my first job there as a student assistant making punch cards on the data of American slaves for a research project for Robert William Fogel who went on to win the Nobel prize for economics in 1993.' When Drukker returned to Groningen he took a job teaching economic history and statistics. He went on to become professor of design history and eventually taught in both Delft and Groningen at the same time.
As a classical guitar player, Drukker wears artificial fingernails on one hand. He laughs about the reaction this provokes, `When people here see my nails they think I'm some kind of sadomasochist. But when I'm in Spain, they say, oh, you play the guitar.' Drukker played with a colleague in Delft for many years and is now looking for a replacement on campus. `Preferably someone more virtuoso than I am,' he says.
Drukker received his award at the opening of the academic year, and has strong views on the speech given by minister Plasterk. `You don't have to be prophetic to see that he was fooling the academic community. He said we have to change the whole system. Well, the Netherlands used to be in the top of the European Community (EC) for the expenditure per head of population for higher education. Now we have dropped down to the middle of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). So the money has gone to other priorities, and now they want to change the system. I don't understand why the universities don't say to the government, first see that the level of expenditure is back on a normal EC level, not in the middle of the OECD and then we can talk about changing the system. But now the universities are being fooled. It's very disappointing from a man who was a really good scientific researcher. We would expect a man like him to stop the downward trend in the financing of higher education.'
Drukker explained that in the current system, universities are paid per student and everyone is welcome. While the number of students has enormously increased, the number of teachers has remained the same. `The extra money generated by the students,' he says, `went to the bureaucrats. There has been an enormous growth in facility and support services while the number of people teaching has remained constant. What has actually increased is bureaucracy. Twente is paradise compared to larger organizations, because it's small scale. There are very short control lines. If I need to speak to the dean I can normally walk straight into his office. I don't have to make an appointment with the secretary of the dean's secretary in order to make an appointment to see the dean.'
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| Drukker says he loves the University of Twente. `Here, I am a very old and reactionary gentleman, but it is fun, oh the stories I could tell you. |
