UvA chair Edith Hooge suddenly steps down
After one year, Edith Hooge has resigned as chair of the UvA Executive Board. In a statement, the Supervisory Board announced that Hooge is stepping down “for personal reasons”. She will remain affiliated with the UvA as a professor. A new chair has not yet been appointed, which means that the new academic year will begin with the UvA without a full Executive Board.
Executive Board chair Edith Hooge (1967), who reported sick at the end of May, will not be returning after the summer holidays. This was announced today by the UvA Supervisory Board. Earlier this week, rumours had already begun to circulate that Hooge was considering stepping down as chair of the Executive Board due to illness. It had also become apparent that she would probably not be present at the Opening of the Academic Year on 1 September and at the opening of the new University Library on 30 September: her name was not on the invitations.
The exact nature of her illness has not been disclosed. However, it is not believed to be life-threatening, but more in the realm of burnout. Usually reliable sources close to the UvA Board have told Folia that she did not get along well with rector magnificus Peter-Paul Verbeek, but this has been categorically denied as the reason for her departure by the UvA and the Supervisory Board, as well as by Hooge herself. It is striking, however, that on 20 May it was announced that Hooge was ill, even though she had last attended the weekly meeting of the Executive Board on 22 April, as evidenced by the minutes of those meetings. The subsequent minutes consistently state that she was absent, but do not specify why and/or whether this was due to “illness”.
It is not uncommon for a chair of the Executive Board of the UvA to step down prematurely, but never before after only one year. Board President Karel van der Toorn resigned in 2011 after five years, due to differences of opinion with the deans about cooperation with the VU. Executive Board chair Louise Gunning had to step down in 2015 after three years in office following a motion of no confidence by the representative advisory bodies regarding her handling of the Maagdenhuis occupation that year. And so 2025 can also be added to the annals of the UvA as a year in which an Executive Board chair stepped down prematurely.
Good governance
When she took office last year, Hooge said she wanted to focus primarily on the “good governance” of the UvA. She also expressed this view in an introductory interview with Folia. Among other things, she said that she was “not only an educationalist, but also an educational administrator”. “In my role, you have to be able to see things from the perspective of students and lecturers/researchers. I can do that,” she added.
But now it seems as if the UvA was too big a challenge for an excellent scientist who had long been associated with Tilburg University, but who mainly carried out administrative work in civil society. She did study and obtain her PhD at the UvA, but that was a long time ago. Over the past twenty-five years, no Board president has ever been appointed from outside the UvA: Sijbolt Noorda, Karel van der Toorn, Louise Gunning and Geert ten Dam were all internal candidates when they were appointed. In general, the UvA is known as an extremely difficult university to manage, a tight-knit “club” where strong and often conflicting personalities pull the strings. This applies to students, staff and administrators alike. “The UvA cannot be managed, it manages itself,” is often said. Formally, that may not be the case, but in practice it often boils down to that. For someone who wants to manage, such a culture is not necessarily easy to accept. Hooge has had a harsh introduction to that culture over the past year.
Gaza
It must be said, however, that she had an exceptionally difficult start, because when she took office on 1 June 2024, she landed with her nose in the slippery UvA butter, where a slip-up is easily made: there were demonstrations across the campuses against Israeli violence in Gaza, accompanied by numerous acts of vandalism, with the police sometimes intervening forcefully and polarisation taking hold at the UvA. Whether the Gaza policy also played a role in her departure is unknown. What is known is that Hooge wanted to pursue a firm policy against overly activist pro-Palestinian demonstrators and occupiers at the UvA. That policy was not shared by everyone.
Psychology
More or less at the same time as the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the now outgoing government announced major budget cuts, putting further pressure on the internationalisation of higher education. Not an easy time to start such a demanding job. Last spring, the psychologists were not grateful to her for wanting to scrap the English-language bachelor’s programme in psychology as part of the “self-regulation” policy, or at least that was how the psychologists saw it. At an emotional public meeting of psychologists in building G of the REC at the end of April, she said that she wanted to stick to the decisions taken within the sector organisation Universities of the Netherlands. She was met with derision.
Not enough enjoyment
In a statement, Hooge says she is stepping down “with a heavy heart”. “Despite my difficult start, immediately after the events of May 2024, I set to work with enthusiasm. My ambition was to strengthen the university community and contribute to open debate and scientific research.”
“Together with others, I have worked hard to promote nuance, diversity of opinion, connection and a safe campus for everyone, but at this point in time, these things are not easy, not even at the UvA. This has taken too much of a toll on my physical and mental health. Ultimately, I do not enjoy this role enough, which is necessary to continue in this demanding position.”
Richard Goldstein
Hooge’s administrative career at the UvA has therefore been short-lived. She was previously a member of the UvA Supervisory Board, but that also lasted only a year and three months. Chair of the Supervisory Board at that time was Marise Voskens, who also selected her for the position of chair of the Executive Board in 2024. The current Supervisory Board – which appointed a new chair last year shortly after Hooge took office in the person of former GroenLinks party leader Jolande Sap – must now urgently seek a new chair. Since Hooge’s illness, this position has been filled by Rector Peter-Paul Verbeek. On 1 June, university professor André Nollkaemper was also brought in temporarily as an additional member of the Executive Board, but that will only last until 1 September. On that date, the new vice-chair Richard Goldstein will also take up his post. The UvA will therefore start the new academic year with a two-person Board until a new chair is found. That could take until the end of this year.
This article has been slightly modified during the day.
