‘Laatste’ studentenprotest verplaatst

Medio april zal de Tweede Kamer de langstudeerwet behandelen. Eerder dacht men nog dat dit deze week zou gebeuren. Het protest was aangekondigd als laatste demonstratie tegen de langstudeerboete en de bezuinigingen op het hoger onderwijs. De organisatoren schrijven op de site dat 12 april de definitieve protestdatum is.
‘Studenten in actie’ verzet zich tegen het ‘asociale en kortzichtige beleid’ van staatssecretaris Zijlstra. Ze roepen studenten en docenten op om de straat op te gaan voor ‘goed en betaalbaar onderwijs’.

Memorial service
On Tuesday, May 4, a memorial service will be held in the Aula to commemorate the TU Delft (formerly TH Delft) staff and students who died during the Second World War. A wreath will be laid at the commemorative plaque in the foyer of the Aula building on behalf of the Executive Board and the Delft University Fund/Alumni Association. The university invites all those who wish to remember the fallen to do so on this day.

Alcohol
The TU Delft student world is not concerned about a new amendment to the national Drink & Catering Law (Drank- en Horecawet) currently being proposed by the government. The amendment would make it easier for municipal authorities to force student associations to report in advance when they plan to serve alcoholic beverages and to whom. Stip, the student political party, which has a seat on the newly formed city council, has not yet taken a formal position on the issue.

Tuition fees
As of the 2011/12 academic year, students who are not from EU and EFTA (Lichtenstein, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) countries will pay substantially higher tuition fees, the university’s Executive Board announced this week. For non-EU/EFTA MSc students, tuition fees will rise to 12,500 euro, compared to the present annual tuition fee of 8,600 euro. As of 2010/2011, tuition fees will rise to 8,818 euros per year. BSc students from non-EU/EFTA countries will pay 8,000 euros per year for tuition as of 2011/2012, which is one and a half times more than the 5,311 euro they will pay for the 2010/2011 academic year. At present these students pay 5,180 euro. The reason for the price hike is that the current tuition fees are no longer high enough to cover costs. A final decision on these measures will be taken in mid May 2010. The new measures will affect approximately 500 students. If the price increases go ahead, the TU will earn approximately 1.8 million euros more in revenue in 2011/2012 than it did in 2010/2011.

Rubicon winners
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has been allocating grants as part of the Rubicon programme since 2005. Rubicon enables Dutch scientists recently conferred with a PhD to gain work experience abroad. In the latest round of funding applications, 33 of the 144 applications were honoured. Two of the winning recipients were from TU Delft: Rami Barends from the faculty of Applied Science and Roland Tóth from the Delft Center for Systems and Control (DCSC). Dr. Tóth will now spend eight months at the University of California, Berkeley (USA) carrying out research into ‘Automated data-driven modelling of linear parameter-varying systems’. Dr. Rami will spend two years conducting research at the University of California in Santa Barbara (USA). Dr. Rami was awarded the Rubicon on account of his research: ‘Resolving memory loss in superconducting quantum circuits’. 

www.nwo.nl/rubicon

Innovation award
Although a squint (strabismus) is said to be one of the ‘seven signs of beauty’, it is still a condition that should be corrected, preferably at an early age. The main problem with young children, however, is that they seldom sit still long enough to enable a doctor to make the proper measurements needed to carry out corrective eye surgery. That was until Daisy (the ‘Delft Assessment Instrument for Strabismus in Young children’), a fast and accurate method for measuring the angle of a squint in young children. On 15 April 2010, it was announced that Team Daisy, which is the name used by TU Delft students Elsbeth Geukers and Nicole de Bakker, had won the Philips Innovation Award. Some four percent of children have a squint. If left untreated, it can lead to problems with their sight. DAISY will mean a considerable reduction in the number of second operations, thereby cutting the costs and preventing unnecessary anxiety for children and their parents. The assessment itself will also be more child-friendly.