'Every day should be internationalisation day', said Daniël Wigboldus yesterday, in his first speech as university president. According to him, yesterday was 'internationalisation day extra', where it became clear that the faculties will play a big role in our internationalisation future.

Radboud Internationalisation Day is part of the International Staff Training Week, this week at our university. People from all over the world visit Nijmegen and engage in workshops, the celebration of our university’s 94th birthday and the beer-drinking during Radboud Rocks, the festival on campus tomorrow. Daniël Wigboldus and Wessel Meijer, who is head of the Radboud International Office, gave speeches about Radboud’s new strategy when it comes to internationalisation.

‘We need to prepare students for an international future’, says Wigboldus. ‘Going abroad opened my eyes during my studies, I hope it will open yours now.’ Wessel Meijer speaks about the end of our current internationalisation strategy, that runs from 2014 to 2018. ‘We have achieved most objectives that we had in that strategy. Now, we need to think about where we want to be in 2025. To decide that, we want to work intensively with faculties and other stakeholders.’

Minimum

‘The point we are now is the minimum, we will not move backwards’, says Meijer. ‘But we are curious what the ambitions within the faculties are. Do we want to stay where we are now, Radboud on the Waal, strong, local, but internationalising in favor of our education quality? Or do we want to move to be Groningen, Glasgow or even Harvard on the Waal?’

Radboud recently became a member of The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, and its Secretary General, Jan Palmowski, came to speak about the benefits of coming together as universities, for example in the battle against cuts in funding. After that, the crowd broke up into groups and talked about several internationalisation issues.

Angry students

In the room for international study advisors, speaker Charissa van Mourik speaks about two Chinese students who walked into her room together, and who found it normal to share answers, because studying is a common goal to them. ‘There are many differences between Dutch students and international students. That can be hard for the latter group. I once had a very angry Russian student in my office, who said that all the Dutch students were so rude, because they spoke up to their teacher all the time.’

The advisors exchanged ideas about how to approach these cultural differences and offer solutions. André Baars, educational psychologist, and Froukien Smith from the student chaplaincy explained about the programs they have for students.