Van Vught thought the UT's future was looking dim. There was a lack of focus, mass and cohesion in the research, an international attitude was nowhere to be found and the number of students was dropping at an alarming rate. In 1997 he warned against the fragmentation in UT research and has since then repeated that warning regularly; it will not be missing from the Founder's Day speech he will give on November 26. Universities have to take care not to become a bundle of non-communicating hyperspecialisms. A culture of islands, like the one he found when he took office and which he has been fighting vigorously.
Reflecting on his tenure at the UT, van Vught says that his biggest disappointment came from `the resistance from inside the university to our course. That has really gotten to me emotionally and I still feel it. I was quite sur-prised by the fierce criticism to our plans. I didn't really understand it and didn't feel it was justified. For example, our idea to form one faculty was taken as a coup d'état by the Executive Board.'
`Looking back, I understand what happened. Several steps were done in too short a time and in too high a tempo, which cost us the support for our plans. At the time, some people warned me about this, but I didn't heed their warn-ings. After a while, plans collapsed.'
`Still, there is not a university in the country that has changed so much over the past few years as the University of Twente. The Universities of Delft and Eindhoven are taking similar steps, but they don't go as far in changing their institutional structure. No one wants major institutional changes. On top of that, universities are the most conservative institutes that exist.'
Van Vught survived the crisis and a change was visible in his performance as rector/chairman over the next period. There was less friction between him and the university council and management team. More and more people started support-ing his ideas. It brought his role as ambassador and advocate of the UT to the fore-ground. As a talented net-worker and an authority on higher education and research, his access to national bodies increased. He was even a member of the National Innovation Platform, chaired by Prime Minister Balkenende himself.
Internally, Van Vught's reign saw - despite vicious discussions - the conversion of the existing ten faculties into five new ones, as well as a policy change for UT research, which was housed in a limit-ed number of research institutes with their own authority and funds.
Van Vught is clear about his hopes for the legacy he leaves at the UT: `The choices faced by the UT will have to be made by people who are in-trinsically responsible: the deans and managers of the scientific institutes. That's the way it should be. Over the past few years we've been working on a management structure that facilitates this. I would be disappointed if this structure were to lead to reverting the changes that we have effected. Without a doubt, that would lead back to research fragmentation and decreased external visibility.'
Among aspects of the UT that van Vught will miss is his friendly rapport with students. `Especially getting drunk with students in the Pakkerij! I have always liked the contact with students. They are a very important part of the academic community and I think it's important that they take their own responsibility: in the Bastille - their own building - and with the Student Union as their own management. That fits the campus and that fits the UT. I truly think the foundation of the Union has done the University a great service. Of course, students were active before the Union was founded, but that was more focused on their own association or research group, and less on the university as a whole. The introduction of the Union has increased cohesion in student activism and increased the community feeling for the university as a whole.'
Trans. Jeroen Latour
Bert Groenman en Menno van Duuren
