Want to be our next campus columnist? Here’s how

Entertaining, inspiring, thought-provoking. That’s what makes a good column. Fortunately, the Utrecht University community has plenty of talented students and employees whose writing skills have exactly those characteristics. We just need to find them. That is why DUB has held an annual campus columnist contest since 2012. The fourteenth edition of the competition is now open for submissions.

DUB’s campus columnists write about a wide range of topics. Anything goes, as long as it is relevant to the university community. Their personal experiences spark deeper reflections on the university, education, research, and other matters that affect students and employees at UU. 

Students share the joys and woes of what is supposed to be the time of their lives, from dating to moving house, from their struggles in finding a job to developing a better relationship with grades. Employees talk about work pressure or how a receptionist in their building brightens their day.

The opposite also happens: sometimes, something going on in the world or at the university prompts the campus columnist to look inward. For example, the 2025 campus columnist for the Dutch page, Bastiaen Huijnen, wondered if he would fight for his country if war broke out. His predecessor in 2023, Quintijn De Leng, mused about our need to compare ourselves to others after the university decided to stop collaborating with world university rankings.

Our future campus columnists will have no shortage of topics to write about. Employees are dealing with the shockwaves of the major budget cuts imposed by the government, with downsizing and reorganisation measures directly or indirectly affecting their work. Meanwhile, students must navigate the uncertainties of a rapidly changing world, with turbulent geopolitics and technological advances such as generative AI impacting their studies and future careers. 

Who DUB is looking for   
Our panel of five judges appreciates contestants who are not afraid to take a stand. Wordplay, sensibility, nuance and a witty sense of humour can also make your column stand out. Last year, we published a video featuring four experienced bloggers who shared tips on how to write a compelling column for the Campus Columnist Competition.

All students and employees of Utrecht University are welcome to participate. If you have a temporary contract or are set to graduate in 2026, do not let that deter you. Anyone enrolled at UU or employed by UU on January 1 is welcome to participate, regardless of their status for the remainder of the year. 

How to participate
Please send two columns in either Dutch or English (participants must choose one of the two languages) to dubredactie@uu.nl using the subject "campus columnist" by December 1, 2025. Each column may be no longer than 500 words.

After December 1, all entries will be anonymised and sent to the panel of judges, which will select the three best columns submitted in each language. Those will be published on DUB later in December. Then, the judges will choose the two winning columns, one for the English page and one for the Dutch page. 

The two winners will be revealed at DUB’s New Year reception at the end of January. They will succeed the current campus columnists, Tara Neary and Bastiaen Huijnen. Both winners will receive the Erik Hardeman stipend (1,000 euros for each columnist) and begin writing columns for DUB every three weeks, starting from January 2026.

The stipend is named after Erik Hardeman, who published a weekly column for U-Blad (DUB's predecessor in print) for several years. The Campus Columnist Competition was born in 2012, after Hardeman’s departure. Every year, DUB strives to find a similarly original voice.

The judges
The winners will be selected by a panel of judges who will only read the entries after they have been anonymised. This year, the panel is comprised of:

Joost De Vries, Editor-in-chief of De Volkskrant’s Sunday supplement.  De Vries also worked for UBlad, DUB’s predecessor in print. His novel Hogere Machten was shortlisted for the 2025 edition of the Dutch literary award Libris.

Hieke Huistra, Historian of Science and Medicine at UU and columnist for the Dutch Newspaper Trouw.

Claudia Ionita, PhD candidate at the Utrecht Centre for Accountability and Liability Law, and former blogger at DUB.

Paola Di Stefano, UU graduate in Politics, Economics & Governance, freelance journalist at DUB and former columnist for the Italian newspaper La Fotonotizia. 

Marjorie van Elven, Editor of DUB’s English page. She has published poems in two anthologies.

Questions
Do you have any questions about the campus columnist contest? Just send us an email with the subject "campus columnist question" at dubredactie@uu.nl.