The student association remains popular: ‘The corps, that just seems beautiful’

Just before the registrations for the Leiden student association Minerva open, a group of dozens of new students gathered for the Sociëteit on the Breestraat. There is a large dark blue cloth on the facade of the building with a green owl on it. ‘Gas on it’, it says in green letters. At one past ten the students start running: they can enter the building.

Many have a plastic bag with a cheese stalk or chocolate roll from the supermarket in hand. It is mandatory to bring a snack and something to drink. The registration can take a few hours, is on a printed sheet of paper in front of the entrance.

Further supplies: proof of registration with a study, your health insurance card, the telephone number of your doctor and a debit card with at least two hundred euros in registration fee.

Felix (19) from Zeist lights a cigarette outside before he stands in line. He is the entire week at the introduction activities of Minerva and is still ‘reasonably broke’ from the night before. In September, Felix, who does not want his last name in the newspaper, starts with a study of biology. “The corps, that just seems beautiful.” He cannot say much more before a member of the student association announces the reporter that it is “not necessarily the intention” to talk to the aspiring members.

Board game association

During the introduction week, called el CID in Leiden, students can not only get to know their studies and their future fellow students this week. They can also register for a student association. Leiden has more than thirty, including a (board) game association, a diving club and four Christian associations. The most popular associations are Minerva, Augustine and Quintus, who welcome hundreds of new members every year.

Student associations are popular in Leiden, also sees Simon Nammensma (21), board member at the Local Chamber of Associations (PKVV) – an umbrella body to which 25 associations are affiliated. “Associations are very present in Student Life Leiden. We see a constant increase in members in the past fifteen years.”

I will soon have a place where I can always go to have a drink.

Last year more than fourteen thousand students were registered at an association, according to figures from the PKVV. That is a quarter of the Leiden student population: last year the university had more than 33,000 students and the Hogeschool around 12,000.

The registrations mainly peaked in the coronaper period. Nammensma: “It is precisely in those years that students tried to build a social life through associations.”

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‘Nice drink’

Making friends, partying, a regular drink evening. That appealed to prospective psychology student Julia Weiland (18). De Rotterdamse has registered for Augustine and was just given a tour of the building. “I will soon have a place where I can always go to have a bubble. Then you don’t have to app to people: can you do tonight?”

That is also stated in her handwritten motivation letter of four hundred words, which all prospective members of Augustine must take with them in their registration. Also with Augustine they have to stand in line, with snack. If there are too many registrations, the association will lottery lots. Last year there was room for 440 new members, says chairman of the Jibbe Smalbrugge association (23).

Smalbrugge does not want to share how many new members can be added this year. The handwritten motivation letter does not weigh during the draw. “We will read them through for pleasure, or we do nothing with it. But if you arrive with two hundred words, we will ask if you can write two hundred.”

An additional advantage for members of associations such as Minerva and Augustine is that they have a chance to win a student room in one of the club houses. There are a few hundred of these in Leiden, according to Nammensma of the PKVV.

Number of student rooms is falling

In student cities there is a shortage of more than 23,000 student rooms, according to the National Student Housing Monitor. NRC Rather calculated that the number of student rooms on public websites in the second quarter has fallen by forty percent compared to a year earlier.

The number of association houses in Leiden is also decreasing, the PKVV signals. The umbrella organization held a survey last year showing that three hundred student rooms in fifty student houses in Leiden will disappear in the hands of private individuals in the coming year.

We see a constant increase in members in the past fifteen years

There is little supply in Leiden, also noted Juul Claassens (18) from Venlo when she started looking for a student room in May. “I started early, but I only went to two hospital evenings.” It was already hit with her second “Hospi”. “I really had a lot of luck. Otherwise I had to go on the train for five hours every day.” She comes to live in a mixed house, with fourteen roommates who are all members of different associations.

Claassens has just been shown around Augustine together with Weiland. The two met the day before, they are together in a group during the introduction week. Claassens still doubts, but probably opts for a membership at the Quintus Association.

Weiland hopes that her membership at Augustine will also make it easier to find a room, but for the time being she will continue to live with her parents in Rotterdam. “I really want to go to rooms. But I don’t know yet if I red, financially. The association is also super expensive. And luckily there are also trains to Rotterdam at night.”

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