Dean’s blog episode 15: opening of Faculty Board Room and Alumni Wall. And: help us name our tutorial rooms!

Yesterday festive drinks were held at the occasion of opening the new Faculty Board Room and Alumni Wall. We also call upon everyone to help us name our tutorial rooms.

Room 1019 plays an important role in Faculty life. The Board Room is used a lot for meetings, presentations, job interviews, visits of evaluation panels, teaching, and more. It is also the most representative room we have in the Faculty. However, its design never really changed. Legend has it that, until yesterday, the interior was the same as when the Province of Limburg left in the early 1980’s. This interior did not really reflect what we want to be as Faculty: a diverse and creative community. The dark table and heavy chairs and the portraits of four old men made one think to enter a men’s club instead of the home of a young and innovative Faculty. This is why we asked interior designer Margarita Gaier to revamp the dark room into a more welcoming environment. Margarita was free to do what she liked. This led to a beautiful result.

Margarita turned the table into a more contemporary version and designed four new objects to hang on the wall. Each of these objects consists of a great amount of smaller elements. They thus – like a mosaic – represent our Faculty: a large amount of individuals each having their own views and ideas and working together towards a common goal. The four portraits were returned to the Bonnefantenmuseum.

Presentatie_bestuurskamer_ontwikkeling

Next to the Board Room, we now have a wall with photos of our graduates. This Alumni Wall will in the coming years be extended with new photos. The photos are in random order to emphasise that our alumni form one group, independent of when they graduated.

Alumni wall blog_MLR

Today we also launch a poll to name our tutorial rooms. Our Faculty has 16 tutorial rooms. These rooms have a number but lack an easily recognisable name. This does not help to find the right place. I often hear conversations along the following lines. Question: ‘Where does the meeting take place?’ Answer: ‘In the room on the second floor next to the toilet.’ Alternative answer: ‘In the fishbowl.’

room fotos_namen2_blog

We can do better than this (although we may want to keep the fishbowl). In addition, the building could reflect better that it houses a Law Faculty. This is why the Faculty Board decided to name the tutorial rooms. The names to be used could refer to a legally relevant person (e.g. the Grotius room), a case (e.g. Van Gend & Loos), a legally relevant place (e.g. Strasbourg) or a legal concept (e.g. the Trias Politica). I call upon everyone to help us find the appropriate names.

 In this poll, you can indicate which names you prefer
 and make suggestions for new ones. Do vote!

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