Jan Roelof has been working towards retirement for a while now. He was previously asked by the Supervisory Board to postpone his retirement for while longer, and has been delegating various portfolios (including finances and HR) to fellow board member Angelien Sanderman, says Roelof, who had never intended to become a board member.

‘I am not the right person for external relations. I am more of an internally oriented, introvert person that performs best in small groups. But twelve years ago, there was one very specific reason for asking me: the poor management information available, a topic that I knew a lot about. The university did not know how long students actually take to complete their study programmes, and management knew too little about funding. Moreover, there was an ongoing discussion about the definitions and reliability of numbers. These matters have since improved significantly. We are able to make proper analyses with a large degree of reliability. I am also very proud of the success of the RAC and the fact that we offer only accredited study programmes. Of course, these things are not accomplished by a single executive, on their own…’ He laughs. ‘University presidents tend to think that that’s the case…’

President Ron Bormans has mentioned to me that he sometimes has to be held back a bit…

‘Ron can be too quick-tempered, and he knows it. That is why he sometimes asks me for feedback, such as after a meeting. If I indicate that he went a bit too far, he will then seek out the relevant person and make it right. Whether I also tell him such things of my own accord? Of course! Ron is an excellent sparring partner by the way, he does not mind when people disagree with him, and if your arguments are particularly convincing, he will change his mind. But you have to have proper arguments, no mere nonsense.’

What is the difference between Ron and his predecessor, Jasper Tuytel?

‘Jasper started out as a teacher; people who work in education often consider matters such as regulation to be burdensome. Jasper did a lot of work profiling HR. Ron has a ministry background and tends to think in terms of responsibilities a lot more, and he is better at communicating. He has greatly improved our HR department’s governance. For example, take the matter of the Willem de Kooning Academy between 2003 and 2008, when 33 media design and communication master’s degrees had been given out that unjustifiably bore the title of Master of Arts.’

Jasper would think, ‘How do we solve that within the HR department?’ Ron would say, ‘We made a mistake, but we are going to solve it and communicate openly about it.’

‘They are both quite the character, but that is a good thing for a university president to be; the face of the university has to have a considerable presence.’

You also have a background in education…

‘Yes, in heart and soul. But while I was working at HES, an executive became overworked, so they asked me. ‘Jan is a calm, balanced man, we’re sure he can do the job,’ they said. On top of that, I do have a natural knack for organisation. I have had a wonderful time here, and when I think back on the time I spent teaching, the idea of graduation ceremonies always makes me happy. You work with these young people for a few years, and then to top it all off, you get to see them graduate. I have made sure to always remember that this is what it is all about in the education sector.’

As an executive, you are mostly required to step up when things are not going so well. What kinds of things come to mind?

‘The lack of knowledge sharing within the university. It is so strange that some study programmes do well, whereas other programmes that are part of the same school do not, and that they communicate insufficiently. We are also still having trouble with scheduling. It is bad for most classes to be taught between 10:00am and 3:00pm, instead of earlier and later in the day, when there is plenty of time and room available. It creates an unnecessary problem. As such, if a study programme comes knocking, asking for more room to manoeuvre, our first step is to tell them to examine the room that is already available to them.’

The reorganisation of the various services was also rather problematic.

‘Switching from nine to four services is no small feat. In hindsight, I know I provided too little support for the managers who were in charge of putting together teams and working with support offices. More support was necessarily, particularly at the start. FIT, EaD, and AIC are nor doing well. The situation within CcS is still very fluid; there is a lot of unrest there due to the many management changes and the fact that many people were initially not deployed to the positions that would be most suitable to them. Therefore, the situation is taking some more time to stabilise.’

What are you going to be doing, after this summer?

‘I will probably become superintendent somewhere, I will be playing more golf, and visiting more cities. There are many beautiful cities in the Netherlands and I do not know most of them, so my plan is to do a walking tour of a different city each weekend. I also enjoy reading and investing and I am planning to learn Danish. My son married a Danish girl and lives in Denmark. He speaks Dutch to our grandson, but I am afraid we eventually won’t be able to understand the little guy anymore, because he goes to school in Denmark…’

Original text in Dutch: Jos van Nierop
Photo: Levien Willemse