Featured: Coffee with new Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl

Free coffee with the new Rector: some 100 TU Delft staff members were up for that last Thursday morning. Hester Bijl had a coffee cart brought to the Aula for the occasion, something she had already announced when she was inaugurated at the Dies Natalis a week earlier.

On LinkedIn, she writes that while drinking coffee, she was asked many questions about her first days as Rector and heard stories ‘about everyone’s work, motivations and passions. About what is going well, and also where people see room for improvement or where they see challenges’. Bijl writes that she mainly tried to listen, because she prefers to get to know TU Delft ‘through the people who shape it every day’.

Not done getting acquainted yet

Bijl is no stranger to TU Delft, however. Before serving as a an Executive Board member at Leiden University for nine years, she was a researcher and Dean of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. During the Dies, however, she said she did not want to fall into the trap of thinking she already knows everything.

On LinkedIn, she writes that the coffee moment is worth repeating. “After these first encounters, I am really looking forward to getting to know and talk to more and more people. That won’t be possible all at once, but I am committed to doing so.”