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Successful launch of 30-year FASoS festivities

FASoS

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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