Headlines

Two Utrecht University students have been nominated for theECHO-award, to be presented on March 29th to a promising studentfrom a racial minority. Law student Tulay Dimirci and medicalstudent Ahmet Akdeniz from Utrecht will compete with eight othernominees for a work of art and a Harvard University summercourse.

Chair

The Utrecht University board has rejected Dutch daily DeVolkskrant's claim that its refusal to accept Dr F. Leijnse'snomination to a special chair was because he is chair of theNetherlands association of universities of professional education.The newspaper claimed that Leijnse's position would entail aconflict of interest with the professorial distinction. The Utrechtadministrators refuted that assertion but refused further comment.But a letter dating from early 2000 to the Willem Drees Foundation,the benefactor behind the chair, stated that the rejection wasbased on doubts over Leijnse's academic abilities.

China

Nuffic, the Netherlands Organization for InternationalCooperation in Higher Education, is setting up a Dutch highereducation information agency in Beijing. Thousands of Chinesealready study in the Netherlands. The Chinese government's desireto encourage exchanges of young talent is partly based on theinability of its own institutions to accommodate the enormousnumbers of aspiring students. The agency is an element of the Dutchpolicy of packaging knowledge and education as export products,particularly in South East Asia.

Train delays

Few students know that they too can claim refunds from DutchRail if their trains are late, but the LSVb National Student Unionhas started to a campaign to alert them. A half-hour delay is worthfive guilders to a student with a Public Transport Travel Pass, anhour ten guilders. Students anxious to claim the maximum shouldsurf to http://www.watnou.com/ns/ todiscover which trains had the longest delays.

Free tickets

'Krang' are raw, wild and often compared to Tom Waits andCaptain Beefheart, but hail from Diepenheim in the province ofOverijssel. Their latest CD 'Ten Aarzel' (in hesitation) is anintriguing collection of Nederpop. You can win two free tickets forthe Krang concert in EKKO next Saturday at 8 p.m. Surf to U-bladonline at http://www.ublad.uu.nl and answer thecompetition question.