Mindlab

To improve social safety at TU Delft, the Executive Board submitted a plan for change (in Dutch) to the Inspectorate of Education. A laughable, below par document that would fail miserably as a secondary school thesis. It’s not a plan at all because it contains no concrete measures. Instead, it consists of 23 pages of empty promises and 13 pages of appendices with 228 (!) suggestions from employees who attended the juvenile busywork therapy sessions, three word clouds generated by the Dementiameter, and a pie chart of ideas from the suggestion box. Unsurprisingly, the Inspectorate of Education Inspectorate ruled it inadequate.

Now there is a new plan (in Dutch) that is supposed to be ‘more concrete’. It contains numerous ‘good intentions’ such as courses, training sessions, work conferences, a revision of the Result and Development cycle, complaints committees, and even a theatre performance. What it does not contain, not even under the Share & Care and Aftercare section, is any form of compensation for victims of the current regime. The plan only mentions ‘listening to those affected’ and offering ‘counselling, coaching, medical, and psychological assistance’. So, if – just to give an example – your academic career has been systematically blocked for 20 years, you get a shoulder to cry on, you get a carton of Seroxat, and you have to trust that it won’t happen again in the future. Oh, and you’re invited to a play: Mindlab.

So, I signed up for Mindlab. To my astonishment, four days before the performance, I received an email from the Integrity Office saying ‘We would like to know if you will be attending in your role as a columnist/journalist and whether you intend to publish anything about the performance. In that case, there are certain conditions we would like to share with you in advance’.
Seriously? The department responsible for integrity and social safety at TU Delft is scanning the attendance list for a performance on social safety for suspicious individuals? What kind of Stasi-like practices are these?

The email from the Integrity Office was a shocking example of socially unsafe behaviour

I responded that, as a victim of the abuse of power at TU Delft myself, I found this a shocking example of socially unsafe behaviour. They immediately wanted to speak to me ‘to clear up the misunderstanding’. I replied that, in my view, there is no misunderstanding but outright intimidation.

The play itself was excellent. Everyone recognised the misbehaviour depicted on stage. But it is precisely the abusive bastards and those protecting them who need to see this performance. That’s why I suggested inviting the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board to attend the performance together and subsequently engage in a discussion about what they had just witnessed, in the presence of interested observers. I am very curious about what would be said.

At the end of the event, some attendees were asked to share their thoughts on camera. Naturally, I gladly did so. The result can be seen here. Predictably, my critical comments were edited out, leaving only my praise. This isn’t the first time I’ve been asked by the Communications Department for feedback, only to see my critical comments discarded. After all, we must maintain the illusion that the sun is always shining. L’enfer, c’est les autres.