The Supervisory Board needs to ‘keep an eye on the administrative relationships’ during the process of improving social safety at TU Delft. Minister of Education Dijkgraaf wrote this in a letter to the Supervisory Board that was made public this week.
The CNV, FNV, AOb and FBZ trade unions are ‘livid about the lack of social safety at TU Delft’. They note that there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the action plan that is intended to improve the situation. They also say that they are receiving dozens of comments from concerned employees after an investigative article appeared in the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper.
Delta was awarded two prizes for the best journalistic work within higher education media on 6 June. Delta received the so-called Kring Awards for an investigative story on social unsafety at the Innovation & Impact Centre (I&IC) that caused much controversy in April and an interview with planetary researcher Daphne Stam, who left TU Delft out of discontent.
TU Delft does not comply with the Work and Care Act. It does take measures to address heavy workload and undesirable behaviour, but these are rarely based on an analysis of the problems. There is also no information on their effectiveness. In the meantime, 37% of the employees are at a higher risk of a burnout. The time in which to deal with these issues systematically is coming to an end.
Delft is number 11 on the Dutch Student Union (LSVb) ranking of student room cities. That is down four places from a year earlier. According to the student union, Delft has dropped mainly due to the relatively large price increases for student rooms in Delft. According to the LSVb, the average rent was 504.49 euros,
TU Delft has reached the top three in Sustainabul’s sustainability ranking for the first time. TU Delft is ranked second after the Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences and this makes it the highest ranking university.
Professor of Mathematics Jan van Neerven is one of three TU Delft academics who have joined the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). As he states, he teaches the only course at TU Delft whose learning objective is that students know less afterwards than they did before. What motivates Van Neerven, and how does he feel about improving social safety six weeks after his critical letter in Delta?
The Netherlands Labour Authority concludes that universities have only taken ‘minimal’ action in dealing with excessive workloads and undesirable behaviour since 2020. If they do not demonstrate improvement by 2025, the Authority will start enforcement procedures. What have the universities done and not done, and what does the Netherlands Labour Authority suggest that they do now?
The Executive Board submitted the so-called ‘Plan for change: social safety TU Delft’ to the Dutch Inspectorate of Education on 15 May. The latter will later give its first reaction. In its damning report on social safety at TU Delft, the inspectorate demanded that the Executive Board submit a plan of action by mid-May. Earlier,
A high proportion of teaching and academic personnel at universities in the Netherlands suffer from a heavy workload and undesirable behaviour. Universities have not been able to improve things over the last few years. This is the conclusion of the Netherlands Labour Authority in a damning report. Universities are given until 2025 to comply with their legal obligations for staff welfare. Should they not do so, the Labour Authority will enforce it.
