Site Visit

On 20 June 2024, our class spent four hours learning the history, current learning processes, and decolonizing future of Vrije Universteit. When we arrived, we met Curator of Academic Heritage, Eline Bos, who gave us a brief history of the university’s founding. She then led a historical object learning exercise by giving groups of two to five objects from the university’s archives to bring us closer to the place in time the objects first existed.

A coin collection box. As part of the historical object exercise, we learned wives of the faculty dispersed these boxes across the Netherlands for families to financially contribute to building a medical faculty. 

Afterwards, Michèle Meijer, the Subject Librarian Religion & Theology and Humanities: Philosophy at Vrije Universteit, addressed the Dutch colonial past and Vrije Universteit’s role by presenting what decolonization means in European libraries and how to accomplish this thoughtfully. We were then taken on a library tour where we explore the Mindful Library and the Pride Library in the main library building and the separate Art Science Library. It should be noted that we received coffee,  tea, and cranberry cookies. Heavily noted.

The Mindful Library entrance.

Part of a collection of different artists on a gallery wall in the Art Science Library.  The display is a metaphor for the place artists hold in society both physically and socially. The collection was put together by the Faculty of Humanities and Ton Kruse. 

What is Vrije Universteit?

Simply put, the university name translates to “Free University” representing its intention to be free from church and state. Although the university did not want its education to reflect the church’s goals, the founder of the university identified as Protestant and its demographic consisted of only Protestant students, staff, and faculty until 1970. Despite supporting a Protestant demographic, the university does not receive funding from the church and is not subject to its authoritative decisions in higher education.

Alternatively, Vrije Universteit was an active collaborator with actors perpetuating colonization for the Netherlands and apartheid in South Africa. Today, the university is concerned with addressing this dark past and working to decolonize its future.

Decolonizing Efforts

Through the library, they are beginning by changing the description of materials. Using OCLC’s local subject re-mapping template, the library is addressing racist and offensive subject headings and cataloging practices. Using the Words Matter language guide and Belgium’s VRT, the university is working on improving its cataloging practices. While searching for older, offensive terms on the library catalog, the website will bring the user to the page they are searching for with the new subject heading in place. The library includes an accountability statement on their website inviting users to inform the library staff of any offensive terms they would like addressed.

The library staff is engaging in meaningful conversations across university departments and is involved with the Decolonization Lab project which is a space for these conversations and actions.

Public Service

In From Being about Something to Being for Somebody: The Ongoing Transformation of the American Museum, Stephen E. Weil argues public institutions have standards of accountability and transparency (Weil, 1999, p. 230). Vrije Universteit adheres to this expectation through its transparency of its dark, colonial past and making the information and objects from this period available to researchers. Through its decolonization efforts such as the Decolonization Lab or the art exhibits challenging difficult histories at the Art Science Library, the university is addressing the social expectation for public services and entities to, “make a positive difference in the quality of individual and communal lives” (Weil, 1999, p.243). While the university is practicing the actions expected from public services, it is not clear who the university free from church and state responds to. Did the student body call for the decolonization efforts? Did they begin from a group of determined staff members? Are expectations placed on public institutions funded by tax-payers appropriate to place on institutions that exist between private and public? Dearest snoopers, I do not have the answer for y’all. I hope to get a bit closer to the answer soon. Don’t wait up but keep a plate of leftovers in the fridge, please.

Ando Dutch Cat Watch Count

At a whopping 8.

This distinguished gentleman had a collar so he was probably on his way home from work.