Are you our next campus columnist?

The campus columnist is a student or employee of Utrecht University who writes about striking topics related to the university or student life. The columns are critical or entertaining, always making readers think.

Campus columnists can write about all kinds of topics. How do you experience UU's education as a student? Is student life still fun if you don't have much money to spend? Are you willing to admit ChatGPT helped you score an 8.0 for that paper?

Employees will soon have to deal with major cutbacks. What does that mean for their jobs? Are colleagues supportive of each other in this context? How could things be different or better at UU? And how to catch those students trying to get an 8.0 with ChatGPT?

To participate in our contest, you must be a student or employee of Utrecht University in January 2025. It is okay if you graduate that same year. You must send two columns in either Dutch or English (participants must choose one of the two languages). There will be two winners, one for the English page and one for the Dutch page, and they will both receive the Erik Hardemans stipend (1,000 euros for each columnist). They will start writing columns for DUB every three weeks from January 2025 onwards.

The jury is looking for two campus columnists who share their points of view on life at UU in an amusing yet sharp way. Columns should be entertaining while hitting the nail on the head. The panel of judges appreciates writers who play with language and add a pinch of humour to their pieces. A good columnist shouldn't be afraid to take a stand and strive to surprise readers.

The columns will be anonymised before being presented to the panel of judges. This means that the jury will not know who wrote each column, and whether the author is a student or an employee.

Serious accident
The winners will succeed student Emma Ravenhorst and employee Monica van de Ridder, who won the contest last year in the Dutch and English categories, respectively.  Emma is a Master's student in Legal Research. Before that, she completed a Bachelor's degree at University College Utrecht and a Bachelor's degree in Law. She spent six months in Cambridge earlier this year and wrote several columns comparing student life in the Netherlands to student life in England. While in Utrecht she would often stay awake for poker nights with her roommates, in Cambridge students go to bed early and get up early. However, when they get drunk, they do it hard and you never know if they're about to start a fine or embrace each other.

Now, Emma is back in Utrecht. She reflected on her Master's degree in a recent column. "It felt like I was a fresher again." The introduction round was a horror element.

Monica van de Ridder works as a consultant at the Education Development & Training Centre of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Before that, she spent a long time in Michigan, where she was a lecturer at the College of Human Medicine. Unfortunately, Monica hasn't been able to write much as a campus columnist. She had a serious accident in the spring and needs time to recover. In her first column, she wrote about how receptionists in the Langeveld building made her feel welcome.

Three finalists
There will be three finalists for each category and the winners will be announced at DUB's New Year reception. 

The 1,000-euro stipend is named after Erik Hardeman, who published a weekly column for U-blad (DUB's predecessor in print) for several years. His humorous columns portrayed life at UU from many angles, from student associations to the board room of the Institute for Rhaeto-Romanic Languages ​​and Cultures.  After Hardeman's departure, DUB sought a similar original voice to portray the university from the inside. The Campus Columnist Contest was born in 2012.

Eligibility
All students and staff members affiliated with Utrecht University on January 1, 2025, are eligible. Students who graduate in 2025 are welcome to participate as well.

How to participate
To compete for the title of Campus Columnist, you must submit two columns. They shouldn't be longer than 500 words each. Send your columns before December 1, 2024, to m.j.agterberg@uu.nl

The panel of judges
Once again, the winners will be selected by an expert jury who will only read the entries after they've been anonymised. This year, the panel is comprised of:

• Beatrice de Graaf. A Professor of History of International Relations specialising in security and terrorism. She is a popular guest on Dutch talk shows, explaining current events in world politics. She also has a column in the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. De Graaf is a member of the core team Security for Open Societies, where she works with social partners to find answers to issues related to democracy and security. She is also the initiator of a programme to make sensitive topics discussable in primary and secondary education.
• Nieske Vergunst is a communications advisor at the Faculty of Science specialising in public engagement and science communication. In 2011, she obtained a PhD with research into computer-human dialogues. She has a blog called Lady Geek, where she writes about "nerdy" topics, and is the author of two books, Oorlogsbrieven and Hallo Robot. 
• Quintijn de Leng is a Master's student in Urban & Economic Geography and a student assistant at UU's Community Engaged Learning project. He was the Campus Columnist for the Dutch page in 2023.
• Marjorie van Elven is the editor of DUB's English page. Born in São Paulo, she did a Master's in Gender Studies at UU and Budapest. She spent 15 years working for international media companies before landing at DUB. She has published poems in two anthologies by the Australian publisher Pure Slush.
• Ries Agterberg is DUB's Editor-in-Chief. He has a degree in Dutch from UU. Aside from his journalistic production, Agterberg published poetry collections and a novella.

Erik Hardeman stipend
Each of the winners will receive the Erik Hardeman stipend, worth 1,000 euros. To get the stipend, they must publish a column every three weeks for a year. 

Questions
Do you have any questions about the Campus Columnist Contest? You can ask Ries Agterberg: m.j.agterberg@uu.nl