Headlines

The Dutch musician Ton Koopman is to receive an honorarydoctorate from the Faculty of Theology on the anniversary of theuniversity's foundation. The year 2000 has been declaredInternational Bach Year and this baroque specialist has made aconsiderable contribution to contemporary musical visions of theChristian faith through his interpretations of Johan SebastianBach, among other composers. The premier of St Mark's Passion,directed by Koopman and performed in the Vredenburg concert hall,will follow the awarding of the honorary doctorate on March 24.Patricia Goldman-Rakic is also to receive an honorary doctorate onMarch 27, from the Faculty of Biology. She holds a chair at theYale University School of Medicine and conducts research intoschizophrenia.

Teachers

Aspiring teachers need to know how to use computers in theclassroom. The university's teacher training programs are toreceive 1.5 million guilders to teach them how to do this moreeffectively. Study programs which want to use this money will needto draw up a plan. SURF, the higher education computer foundation,will then implement the most promising plans. The 1.5 million comesover and above the 13 million which education minister Hermansearlier made available to establish alternatives to the existingone-year graduate programs. This is intended to boost the number ofteachers graduating annually from 600 to 1,200.

Women

Of 22 applications Utrecht University submitted at the end ofJanuary for grants from the Aspasia incentive program for women inacademia, just one came from the hard sciences field. The Facultyof Arts was the Utrecht leader with eight applications. Nationalresearch organization NWO launched the Aspasia program last fallwith the aim of helping female researchers to progress to thehigher academic positions. The NWO's target is to increase thenumber of female full professors in the Netherlands to 31 withinfive years. The AWT, the Science and Technology Policy Council, hastermed Aspasia's limited ambitions 'a drop in the ocean'. The AWTfeels the time has come for more drastic measures, meaning aseparate incentive fund for women with the potential to becomeprofessors. Just how many full professors of this kind shouldemerge is, in the AWT's opinion, a matter for the universities, theNWO research organization and minister Hermans. It is they who willhave to cough up the money.