FASoS

Successful launch of 30-year FASoS festivities

Maastricht University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Last week, students and staff gathered in the FASoS garden to kick-start the festivities of the faculty’s anniversary year. 

Tree planting and time capsule

To festively usher in the year, a commemorative tree was planted in the FASoS garden. The tree, a Tilia cordata, was sponsored by our colleagues from Facility Services. Next to the tree, a time capsule was buried. Students and staff could hand in items to go inside this time capsule, and the 30-year FASoS organising committee decided which items would in fact be buried.

At the start of the ceremony, FASoS dean Christine Neuhold gave a speech about the history of FASoS. One of the members of the 30-year FASoS organising committee explained which items the committee chose to go into the time capsule: 

  • Our anniversary logo, 3D printed by ‘the PLANT - Playground and Laboratory for New Technologies’
  • Brochures of the bachelor's and master's programmes our faculty offers, for the academic year 2024-2025
  • 2 poetry booklets which were written during a worldwide pandemic in 2020 and 2021. You also find a COVID-19 test, the disease which caused the pandemic, and a face mask which had to be worn by citizens for almost 2 years
  • An anthology created by 19 FASoS researchers in 2023, titled ‘The stories we tell: creative nonfiction accounts of our research’
  • A partially used gift card from our faculty café Bandito Espresso, where students and staff enjoy their daily intake of coffee and home-made soup
  • The Strategic Plan of our faculty for the years 2021-2025
  • A ChatGPT-generated story about what our faculty will look like in 20 years
  • A salary table from the year 2024
  • Our faculty's research report of the year 2022
  • Letters and pictures from FASoS students

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Fasos boom planten

Cookbook and staff party

Festivities for the rest of this anniversary year were also announced. The students already had a gala in February, and for staff members a party will be organised in June. A poll was posted on our internal communications channel in which staff members could vote on whether the party should take place at FASoS or at an external location. 67% of those voted chose for the party to take place at FASoS. 

Besides the parties, a call for contributions to a FASoS cookbook was launched earlier this week. Students and staff are asked to share their favourite recipes, which will be compiled in a hard-copy cookbook later this year. 

Additional festivities will be shared in due time!

Photos: Eric Bleize

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