Posts by nscholz

The following speech was given by Natalie Scholz at the demonstration De UvA kan niet terug naar normaal, Friday, 19 June 2020, Roeterseiland, UvA.   I am standing here in awe and in bottomless anger. I am in awe, because a group of former UvA students has refused to let themselves be silenced. Dear phenomenal […]

Between December 2012 and December 2019 UvA students of the MA Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage repeatedly addressed their experience of being intimidated and sexually harassed by one of their teachers. Despite several attempts, this initially did not lead to any reaction by the university system. Only in 2016 did the program director talk […]

Prologue I would love nothing more than to leave my past experiences in academia behind me. The problem is that my past experiences are other peoples’ painful present. With the echoes of these experiences still residing in my body, I cannot ignore any more what stays hidden beneath the surface in the world around me. […]

SpeakEasy Open Salon – SOS UvA — English below — 9 november: WERKDRUK IN DE ACADEMIE Het gesprek over hoge werkdruk is aan de orde van de dag. Er is tegenwoordig een helpdesk op de UvA (zie Folia artikel) die medewerkers adviseert om minder te whatsappen. Maar werkdruk is geen individueel probleem, het is iets […]

Ever since the Maagdenhuis occupation in March 2015, the main communication channel of the Rethink UvA community has been its email list. The list is meant to update each other about what’s going on in Dutch and international higher education politics, and at the UvA in particular. Regularly, there are also discussions. The traffic is […]

SpeakEasy Open Salon (SOS)   Date: Friday, 21 September 2018 Time: 16 hrs Place: VOX-POP, Binnengasthuisterrein, UvA   Let us talk! More than three years after the Maagdenhuis occupation the problems of higher education have not diminished, not in the Netherlands in general, nor at the UvA in particular. Ever ongoing budget cuts and increasing […]

Ongeveer drieënhalf jaar geleden verspreidde een intensief gevoel van angst zich razendsnel op mijn faculteit. Mensen konden niet meer goed slapen en keken elkaar onzeker aan op de wandelgangen. In sommige ogen was zelfs iets van terreur te zien en soms fluisterde iemand “heb je het gehoord” of “heb je het ook gelezen”. Onze decaan […]

The UvA Committee on Democratization and Decentralization has presented their report and their plans for a referendum in November. I would like to invite you all to stop for a short moment and breath in, and out. And then, I would like you to realize what this news means. Right here and right now we […]

Speech op de demonstratie “Stop de bezuinigingen”, Amsterdam 25 november 2015, georganiseerd door Humanities Rally Wat gebeurt op onze faculteit? 8 miljoen bezuinigen om – zoals het heet –“duurzaam” te worden voor de toekomst. We hebben alles geprobeerd: Brieven, petities, demonstraties, bezettingen. Wat is het resultaat? Iets minder top-down retoriek. En iets meer tijd om […]

Prologue The following text was written in November 2014. At that moment, the dean had just announced the heaviest budget cuts that the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam had to face in decades. After discussions in the faculty, the birth of Humanities Rally, petitions, rallies, the birth of De Nieuwe Universiteit, an […]

This Saturday morning I take a break from the sizzling activism that happens in and around the Maagdenhuis and that I, as so many others, have participated in intensively over the last three weeks. As I am sitting with my morning coffee, I know that I urgently need this break, though I am still kind […]