Last Friday the statistician and sociologist Manfred te Grotenhuis died after a short period of severe illness. A portrait of an ‘unconventional’ professor and music lover. ‘He drew students into statistics via music’.

On 9 June Manfred te Grotenhuis heard the terrible news that he had an advanced stage of cancer and that the only available option was palliative treatment focusing on the quality of life.

Unconventional

Manfred te Grotenhuis began his professional career in 1995 as a researcher at Radboud University, even though he had not always envisioned a university career. He went to a pre-vocational secondary school, and at a young age, he occupied himself with repairing radios and televisions. Manfred completed the first year of a degree programme at the Social Academy before he began to study sociology in Nijmegen.

Because of his own unusual route, the professor of statistics enjoyed teaching the more rebellious students, the ones who didn’t always do all of the assignments. Sociology professor Peer Scheepers: “Manfred was very unconventional. He wore a suit only at PhD ceremonies, but he preferred to walk around in his old togs.”

As a researcher Te Grotenhuis wrote many interesting articles in a variety of areas, both related and unrelated to sociology. He was extremely productive and often worked deep into the night while listening to music. Scheepers: “Just before he died, he heard that the thesis of his last PhD candidate, Paula Thijs, had been approved for her defence. That made him very happy.”

YouTube

In the first place, however, Te Grotenhuis will be remembered by his students as a teacher of subjects that they were never very enthusiastic about – until they took his classes. “Manfred taught relatively difficult subjects in a didactically responsible way,” said Scheepers. “He knew exactly what the starting level of his students was and he adjusted his lectures accordingly. Students had the feeling that statistics couldn’t be all that difficult. Manfred enjoyed this approach and the satisfaction of seeing his students begin to understand.”

Te Grotenhuis broke with conventions in order to make students enthusiastic about a subject that they assumed to be boring. Former student of his, Pieter Zwart, still remembers his first lecture with Te Grotenhuis. As a founder of Catenaccio and editor-in-chief of Voetbal International he often draws on Te Grotenhuis’ lectures.

“Everyone thought: here comes a boring lecture on statistics, but he played all sorts of music that he loved. He geared himself to the students’ world, and then he drew us into statistics.”

The professor from the Achterhoek shared his scientific knowledge in a variety of ways. One of these was via his own YouTube channel where he tried to explain difficult material, such as the relations between ordinal and nominal variables, in an easily accessible way. His ingenious methods won him not only the faculty teaching award in 2009 but also the university teaching award in 2010. In 2018 students chose Te Grotenhuis as teacher of the year.

DJ

At a later age, Te Grotenhuis bought a racing bike and cycled to campus daily from Westervoort, where he lived with his wife and two children. But he went further. Te Grotenhuis began to train fanatically and took part in amateur races in the weekends, where he often won prizes.

Te Grotenhuis was a music lover throughout his life. He was a star DJ at the annual Professors’ Night party. And Manfred continued to listen to music during his illness, up until his final hours.

On Thursday Manfred te Grotenhuis will be cremated in a private service in Arnhem.