in favour of radical transparency’

During Guus Schreiber’s time as dean, ‘his’ Faculty of Science expanded to 10,000 students, a two-fold increase in five years. Add to this the close shave of a merger with the University of Amsterdam’s science faculty, the Covid pandemic, the merger between the faculties of Sciences and Life Sciences, plus the relocation to new buildings and you will understand that Schreiber’s time as dean was eventful to say the least.

“But it is a great community to work with”, Schreiber says of the faculty. “The atmosphere is good. There is mutual understanding. People aren’t always trying to beat each other to the punch.” He is proud of the way the faculty has operated in recent years. “During the pandemic, the first lockdown was announced on a Thursday. We were able to provide the first online lectures the following Monday, and two weeks later almost the entire programme was up and running. There was a real sense of ‘we’re all in this together’.”

BY WELMOED VISSER PHOTO YVONNE COMPIER

The immense growth in student numbers – which made the Faculty of Science by far the largest faculty within VU Amsterdam and the largest science faculty in the country –posed another challenge that was well met by the staff. “In 2018, we were assigned to a new building that was already too small by the time we moved in”, Schreiber recounts. “Some programmes have grown so quickly; it’s been almost impossible to keep up. There are now six hundred first-year Computer Science students. Biomedical Sciences has grown tremendously, and so has Health and Life Sciences. We offer a total of forty programmes and they’re all expanding. This is tough work for everyone. We reached the limits of our growth some time ago.”

As an executive, Schreiber values transparency above all else. One of his early priorities as dean was to strive for a clear and unambiguous financing model. “Since there used to be two faculties, the approach to financing was not consistent across the board. At the former Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, the model was lacking in transparency. In my view, that’s detrimental because it can easily lead to conflicts between departments, with each one thinking that the other is receiving too much money.”

The new financing model, which the Faculty Board worked on in collaboration with department heads, was public from the start. “I’m in favour of radical transparency. The documents that we as Faculty Board are working on