The student lounge in the new building of the Nijmegen School of Management bears the name of former student Elif Yavuz, who was killed in a terrorist attack in Kenya five years ago. 'We hope she’ll continue to inspire our new students.'

Yavuz studied Political Science in Nijmegen from 1998 to 2002. ‘One year before she enrolled, we’d had a really bad external audit. Student numbers had dropped dramatically. In Elif’s first year, we only had fourteen students’, says Professor of Political Science Marcel Wissenburg. He remembers his former student Elif Yavuz as a cheerful, socially engaged young woman. She stood out within the small student group, and together with two other female students, formed its kernel. ‘Elif was not the kind of person who just dropped by when convenient and went home as soon as the lecture was over. We had good reasons to name the lounge after her.’

Terrorist attack

Former student Elif Yavuz, born in Brabant the child of a Turkish father and a Dutch mother, is still vividly remembered by her lecturers. ‘Just yesterday I was taking a shirt out of my closet and it struck me: this was the shirt I wore when I heard.’ Wissenburg got a phone call from a journalist following the fatal day in September 2013 when Elif Yavuz, pregnant with her first child, and her Australian boyfriend were killed in a terrorist attack in Nairobi.

‘You just knew she was destined to lead one of our UN organisations’

She’d graduated a decade earlier, but Wissenburg and his colleague Bertjan Verbeek, who’d supervised her thesis, were still following her career with much interest. An internship at the World Bank, a research project at John Hopkins University, a PhD from the University of Harvard, time spent working at the Clinton Foundation: how many students can boast of such an impressive CV in such a short time?

Wissenburg: ‘You just knew she was destined to lead one of our UN organisations. Or in any case occupy an important international position.’ Via Facebook – they were Facebook friends – Wissenburg and Verbeek followed her through the United States, Uganda, and Tanzania. ‘We’d known for a while that she was pregnant.’

And then there was that fateful phone call from a journalist. Wissenburg, in Zwolle for a meeting, couldn’t believe it. It was only when journalists began to call him asking about his former student that the news started to really sink in. ‘I never drink before lunchtime, but that day I poured myself a big glass of cognac.’

Next Thursday is the official opening of the new building of the Nijmegen School of Management, the Elinor Ostrom Building. For Elif’s Student Lounge a separate official opening is planned later this spring. ‘The 8th of February is a festive occasion; it wouldn’t be right to combine it with the opening of this lounge.’

Inspiring

The decoration of the lounge is still in progress. The photograph of Elif shaking hands with former President Bill Clinton would look great here, says Wissenburg as he points to one of the walls. Clinton praised her in an emotional speech for her commitment to his Foundation: ‘I’m very grateful that this young woman gave so much of her life in working with our Foundation.’

Her former fellow students say they’re happy with this commemorative space. But Wissenburg hopes that in years to come Elif’s Student Lounge will grow to be more than a tribute to a student dear to him and his colleagues. ‘Her story illustrates how far you can come in life when you put your mind to it. How much potential we all have. We hope that in this way she’ll continue to inspire our new students.’