Academic Forum

Under the heading of Academic Forum (AF), activities are being organized that, up until 2011, were largely provided by Studium Generale, a Latin phrase that expressed the universities’ endeavor to educate their students in a wider sense and present them with topics ranging beyond their own domains. Small-staff teams, often collaborating with student organizations, arrange on-campus symposia, debates and workshops.

Studium Generale

Up until the late Middle Ages, the concept of Studium Generale coincided with the idea of a full university, in which courses were taught in one of four faculties: arts, medicine, law and theology. Arts meant artes liberales and comprised subjects such as grammar, rhetoric, logic and mathematics; anyone who had passed these subjects could then move on to one of the three other ‒ upper ‒ faculties. The first three universities to call themselves Studium Generale were Cambridge, Oxford and Paris as these were the only ones to teach theology. To help draw in the crowds, AF often works with student organizations and books well-known speakers. One of their most notorious meetings took place around the end of the previous century, when Pim Fortuyn had a debate with Paul Rosenmöller on social security in the Netherlands. Students were berated by Fortuyn for their sloppy (and, according to him, preconceived) arguments in favor of Rosenmöller, who was declared the winner. Something similar happened in anniversary year 2017, when Thierry Baudet, one of Fortuyn’s political heirs, lashed out that “venomous ideas have penetrated our universities.”

On campus, in the city centre

In 2011, Studium Generale merged with the Center for Science and Philosophy (CWL) into the Academic Forum. After the BEST reorganization in 2016, it became part of the Marketing & Communication division. AF organizes annual events, such as Boards Day, Philosophy Day and the Night University. AF stages the monthly Heartbeat Café, a “platform for multidisciplinary analysis and discussion” in music venue Paradox in the town center. Another of its tasks is to advise student societies and cultural societies on the trips and events they organize. Their philosophical interests have spawned several publications, including a reissue of the essays of Martinus Cobbenhagen.