Full house in Haarlem Campus in the Koepel, but delay in building student housing

Director Timo Timmerman of Haarlem Campus & Global School for Entrepreneurship comes in triumphant with this news. In addition to student rooms in Hoofddorp, there is also room for a number of students in studios of Corendonhotel in Badhoevedorp. “And the bus to Haarlem station stops around the corner.”

According to Timmerman, it is precisely the fact that housing for students from home and abroad in Haarlem is arranged for them, which is one of the reasons for the popularity of the new study. He is glad that at least that has been arranged. From January, the students can then move to the new building around De Koepel.

Popular

But the way of teaching and the interaction with SMEs and other companies from Haarlem and the rest of North Holland is also a reason for the many applications for the private university of applied sciences, according to dean Prof. Dr. Stijn van der Krogt. “The students come to us very consciously because we give them personal attention. That’s how we distinguish ourselves.”

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One third of the students come from the Netherlands, one third from Europe and one third from the rest of the world. Thirty nationalities will soon be represented in De Koepel. A few students from Ukraine have also reported. For them, the application rules are applied flexibly, because diplomas from secondary schools, for example, are not available due to the war.

Van der Krogt also thinks that the collaboration with companies and organizations from Haarlem is of great added value. “In the second year, they look for assignments from those companies to solve problems.” Because that is the whole idea behind the Business Psychology, Creative Media, Digital Transformation Management and Applied Sustainability Management courses: how can you make changes.

In addition to the SME companies that work with Cupola XS, also Dura Vermeer and the Spaarne Gasthuis represented in The Dome. “We also seek contact with Tata Steel, for example,” says Timmerman. “Because how is that company going to change in relation to the environment? That is interesting for our students to think about it.”

And according to Van der Krogt, it is also about the ethical side. “How are we going to make the world a better place.” For example, there are discussions with the Haarlem organization Stem in de Stad, which represents the interests of the homeless. “We can look with our students at how to set up courses for volunteers.”

Sound experiment

If after four years all the school years are up to speed, there will be room for 600 students on the Haarlem Campus. How that will turn out sound-technically in the former prison, which was known for the enormous echo, is still exciting. But the acoustics now appear to be able to withstand many students. This became apparent during an experiment before the summer holidays when graduating students were allowed to study in the rooms of the school. “And then it got pleasantly busy, that’s what the companies that are located here also thought. Now we think it’s a bit quiet.”

Stijn van der Krogt and his colleague Pier Wouda of the Creative Media bachelor’s program are busy getting their courses off to a good start. Enough teachers have been found for the first semester. “Just like with the rest of education in the Netherlands, it is a challenge,” says Van der Krogt. “But we do have an advantage as a new study programme,” adds Wouda. “The teachers don’t have to devote themselves one hundred percent to education because we only have one year left. And we want the teachers to keep in touch with practice. So they don’t have to burn their ships yet.”

Another aim is to attract more Haarlem students next year, says director Timmerman. He hopes to increase local growth through secondary schools that offer TTO (bilingual education, ed.). Timmerman is of course aware that this was one of the political question marks during the discussions about awarding the monumental building to the Panopticon Foundation that wanted to realize the educational stronghold in De Koepel.

Cost

The high cost of tuition fees for private education was also a point of criticism at the time from a number of political parties. That tuition fee has now been halved, says Timmerman. “And for that 6750 euros per academic year, you get a lot of lessons with personal contact,” says Van der Krogt. And Timmerman foresees that the program will soon become a real ‘University College’, if more master’s programs are offered in addition to a Liberal Arts study.

The students will start on 1 October on the Haarlem Campus, a month later than the rest of the colleges and universities in the Netherlands. The Haarlem Campus is affiliated with the German University of Applied Sciences SRH Heidelberg, where the academic year also only starts on 1 October. “But next year it is the intention that we will keep pace with other Dutch colleges and universities and then start in September,” says Pier Wouda. With, of course, a few introduction days first. Students will only experience the real student life in Haarlem at the beginning of 2023, when they move into their Haarlem rooms.

Watch the ‘sneak-preview’ report below that NH Nieuws made in January of this year, when De Koepel finally opened for the residents of Haarlem after the renovation.