Dossier
Report inspectorate
Social safety
At TU Delft, the care for employee social safety has been neglected to the point of ‘mismanagement’. The Dutch Inspectorate of Education recently concluded this after an investigation lasting almost 10 months. The harsh conclusion led to anger among the university board. TU Delft submitted a defense. Read more about the Inspection report and everything related to it in this dossier.
- Delta is looking for current and former TU Delft employees who are willing to share their experiences. This can be done anonymously if preferred. Email tudelta@protonmail.com.
Involve PhD candidates more in initiatives around improving social safety. The University PhD Council issued this call in a letter to the Executive Board on Friday 26 April. In the letter, the advocacy group shares its ideas on improving the social safety.
It is concerning that TU Delft hires so many consultants to solve its problems, writes Delta’s new student columnist Alex Nedelcu in his first piece. It hinders us from actually solving problems, he argues.
Staff members, students and alumni talked about problems around social safety at four meetings. The moderators hoped for solutions, but it appeared that they had difficulties with the process.
On Monday 15 April, the Executive Board sent a Delta reporter away from an open meeting with three internal trade unions. The public and a Berenschot advisor were welcome. Both the FNV Government trade union and the Nederlandse Vereniging van Journalisten condemn their action.
The Students and Staff for Safety pressure group does not believe that the current Executive Board can pick up the pieces and make good. The pressure group was specially set up in connection with the social safety issue, and it wrote this in a statement on Thursday.
Let us not allow our academic community to be forced into silence by lawyers, argues Professor Richard Goossens (Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering) in connection with the legal pressure put on Delta. Address the culture of fear and self-censorship by learning from our mistakes and restarting the open debate.
After TU Delft ordered Delta to take a critical article about the work culture at I&IC offline, the Executive Board Chair Tim van der Hagen today offered his apologies to Delta on behalf of the Executive Board. At the time of writing, it is not yet certain if the article can be put online again.
Monday morning Delta published an article entitled How confidentiality led to anxiety among I&IC staff and a loss of confidence in the Rector. Under protest, we removed it the same evening.
During an extra meeting, the Works Council and Student Council could question the Executive Board about the social safety plan of action. Reporting by Delta was also discussed.
Just over a month after the Education Inspectorate report came out, columnist Dap Hartmann gives the Executive Board some free advice: come clean, be accountable and quit window dressing.
In this letter to the editor, Mathematics Professor Jan van Neerven takes up columnist Bob van Vliet’s hashtag #NotMyExecutiveBoard. He wonders whether the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board will live up to their own words.
The ‘Social safety project team’ has set four dates on which TU Delft employees, students and alumni can share ideas about ‘a safer working and studying environment’. The Supervisory Board will attend one of the sessions and the Executive Board another.
Now that the Inspectorate report is published, TU Delft too quickly jumps into its traditional role of problem solver, turning its back on the past and closing its doors. If we really want a socially safe university, we should not let this happen, writes Saskia Bonger, Editor in Chief, in this opinion piece.
Tim van der Hagen, Rector Magnificus and Chair of the Executive Board at TU Delft, does not think he made a misjudgement by threatening the Inspectorate with a lawsuit. How does he justify this when it took three weeks of protest before he changed his mind?
Jan Schiereck, staff member at TU Delft’s Innovation & Impact Centre, is concerned about his ‘colleagues and our working conditions’, he writes in this letter.
The Student Council’s monthly consultation meeting had to proceed without the Executive Board, while both should have discussed the Inspectorate’s report publicly for the first time.
TU Delft employees could share their ideas about a safer working environment in a meeting organised by the Works Council. “Don’t say that you want everyone to enjoy a good working environment, but say that it is your responsibility to create a good working environment.”
The Executive Board will not file a case against the Inspectorate of Education. This was stated in email to all staff on Wednesday morning, 20 March. Delta talked to Rector Tim van der Hagen about it.
The internal trade unions at TU Delft pose ‘serious questions about the continuity of the change processes required by the Inspectorate of Education’. Two Board members will only be in office for a relatively short period to come, while the unions believe that changing a culture needs long-term stable leadership.
All TU Delft staff members can share their ideas about creating a safer working environment with the Works Council (OR). The OR has invited all staff to a meeting on Wednesday 20 March. The OR will share the ideas with the Executive Board, that is planning to submit its plan of action to the Inspectorate of Education on 19 May at the latest.
The central and local representation councils at TU Delft are not in agreement with the ‘highly unempathetic’ way in which the Executive Board responded to the Inspectorate’s report. ‘We expected more self-reflection’, writes the Works Council.
An anonymous group of people from TU Delft, the Students and Staff for Safety, started a petition against the plan of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board to bring the Inspectorate of Education to court. Delta interviewed them by email.
Let us stop acting as though the reports made to the Inspectorate of Education are exceptions in an otherwise pleasant community, writes Assistant Professor Marieke Kootte. “Correct anyone that says that ‘women are like numbers, they are pretty to play with’.”
Executive Board member Marien van der Meer has ‘the fullest confidence’ that TU Delft can take ‘steps forward’ to ‘also become a top university in social safety’. She said this during her first public appearance since the Inspectorate of Education’s crushing report on social safety was published.
The four unions affiliated with TU Delft do not want the Executive Board to take the Education Inspectorate to court. In a statement to its members, the unions write that many TU Delft employees do not support the board’s view.
A group of TU Delft employees is calling on the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board in a petition not to file a lawsuit against the Inspectorate of Education.
TU Delft is ‘determined’ to bring the Inspectorate of Education to court for its ‘defective investigation’. The Inspectorate is confident that its report will survive this test. In the meantime, the outgoing Minister of Education Dijkgraaf has informed the House of Representatives of his plan of action.
The Inspectorate of Education’s investigative report covers transgressive behaviour and finances. While the financial management is in order, the Inspectorate still sees ‘room for improvement’.
The court proceedings TU Delft is considering in response to the Inspectorate of Education report seem more an attempt to put their own house in order than to address the underlying causes of the reports. You do not restore TU Delft’s good name in court, but by being an excellent employer, Dap Hartmann believes.
TU Delft accidentally put confidential information online while defending itself against the Inspectorate of Education’s report. Passages that had been blacked out were still legible. These passages suggest that TU Delft is mostly fearful about damage to the reputation of its administrators.
After an investigation into possible transgressive behaviour on the work floor at TU Delft, the Inspectorate of Education concludes that there was mismanagement. It says that TU Delft failed at the highest level to ensure social safety. TU Delft calls this investigation ‘flawed’ and a ‘big steps fast home report’ and plans to go to court.
The Inspectorate of Education’s examination into transgressive behaviour at TU Delft is in the analysis phase. The latter’s finances are also being examined.
The Inspectorate of Education is receiving responses to its call for TU Delft staff to report inappropriate behaviour on the workfloor. Enquiries show that the call is wider.
The Inspectorate of Education calls on TU Delft employees to report any transgressive behaviour on the workfloor. The reason for this is multiple reports received.
