A lot has happened since Rona Jualla van Oudenhoven was appointed at Radboud University. At first she could still sometimes come to the Nijmegen Campus from her home in Leiden, but all her work has now moved online. “Still, I did manage to meet a lot of people and make new friends in those early days,” she says in our interview, which inevitably also takes place online. “The conversations I had with people on Campus in September and October seamlessly morphed into the online conversations of today.”
When Radboud University created the position last year, Van Oudenhoven was still living and working in Canada. She has held a similar position at Durham College, a shared campus of Ontario Tech University. “My husband is Dutch and I come from Trinidad and Tobago. For years, we commuted between these two worlds and Canada, but my husband always wanted us to settle in the Netherlands.” When their two children went off to university, the couple felt that the time had come. “I started looking for a job and saw this vacancy. I called to ask whether a good command of Dutch was a requirement. It wasn’t, because Radboud University wanted to become a more international campus. I applied, and the rest is history.”
Connecting people
Van Oudenhoven’s task is to formulate a University-wide strategy for diversity, equity and inclusion. The world is slowly encroaching on Dutch universities, she says. “With the popularity of social media and the world becoming a global village, students are more aware of developments across the world. They hold the university and older generations accountable, and we’ve got to listen to them.”
Van Oudenhoven sees her position as a response to this changing world. “An organisation that wants to survive must adapt. All around the world you hear a call for responsibility, solidarity and alliance with social justice issues.” In the Netherlands, she points to the 2020 National Action Plan on Diversity and Inclusion, which was published more or less at the time of her appointment. Aligning with this plan can make a university better, she says. “When everyone feels safe and heard, all members of the Campus and surrounding community can work well together.” In her progress report she writes: “This safeguards the University’s integrity, ensures that its decisions include the perspectives of others, and allows it to function as a respected source of unbiased advice and guidance.”
Radboud University is increasingly prioritising these themes: the student parties and Personnel Department devote a lot of attention to promoting inclusion and diversity. In Van Oudenhoven’s preliminary plan the University commits to contributing to a free and healthy world, with equal rights for all. It also expresses its intention to “have a positive impact at regional, national and international level.” Van Oudenhoven believes that collaboration is essential in this context. “A lot is already happening at Radboud University, but existing initiatives are still too fragmented. For example, at the Faculty of Arts students and staff are working on decolonisation, but people from other faculties don’t know about it and may require a completely different intervention . I’m here to connect people and find out what’s needed.”
The art of helping a university move with a changing world lies in what Van Oudenhoven refers to as ‘courageous conversations’. The greatest challenge is making sure that everyone is involved. “Many people believe that it’s not ‘their conversation’. Talk about diversity, equity and inclusion usually takes place among those who already work on these issues, so it’s a bit like preaching to the converted.” This is why Van Oudenhoven has given the Anti-Racism Awareness Week on Campus the subtitle ‘Join us in solidarity’. “This is a conversation that concerns us all. How can we redefine terms like diversity, race, colour and gender so that everyone on Campus realises that this is their policy too?”
Give the climate a voice
The topics she addresses cover a wide range. Van Oudenhoven mentions LGBTI rights, gender equality, equality for people of all skin colours and ease of access for people with a disability, but also issues like climate and sustainable purchasing. “If the University wants to borrow or purchase equipment, we’ve got to ask ourselves: Where does this equipment come from? Did the production process involve child labour? What’s the impact on the climate? I’m committed to defending vulnerable groups and entities, and the climate is a vulnerable entity without a voice.”
Van Oudenhoven’s priority is to create a safe space for all. “Radboud University is doing its best in this respect. Funds have been made available for more confidential counsellors and staff to promote student wellbeing. The Covid-19 crisis has really brought these issues into focus. There’s even more attention on mental health now.”
Her previous job in Canada included community partnership, meaning the relationship between a university and its surrounding community. “I thought it was a very beautiful concept, and I want to introduce it in Nijmegen. It’s about showing that everything we do is done for and with our community. For example, Radboud University is made up of approximately 70% first-generation students.” She believes that this affects the University’s responsibility. “How can we integrate these students’ parents into our system, and what can we learn from them?”
Corporal punishment
Her concern for the underprivileged arose from the educational system in Trinidad and Tobago, where she grew up. “It was a very harsh system. Corporal punishment was considered normal, and a wrong answer would earn you a few blows. By the time I was eight or nine years old, I was very much aware of injustice and how unfair it was that as a good, clever student I never got hit, while my friends did.” She wondered: “Why is this system maintained, and by whom? And why do people look on and do nothing?”
Van Oudenhoven’s parents were traditional Indo-Caribbean. “My father saw education as a road to freedom for a girl, but socially he was very strict. And my mother followed his lead.” Van Oudenhoven was not allowed to go to many parties as a teenager or cut her long hair. “These stifling rules contrasted with the freedom I had to learn, and it made me wonder: Why were boys allowed to do things I wasn’t?” When she graduated from secondary school with honours, her father asked her what she wanted as a gift. She could pick anything, he said. She laughs: “I said I wanted short hair. In the end, he said yes, and I got the shortest bob cut possible, with even shaven sides. Later on, he also supported me in choices that were not necessarily his. It was very freeing.”
Her urge to travel also finds its roots in her schooling and upbringing. “I studied a lot of world literature at school, including Shakespeare, Chaucer and James Joyce. This shaped my love for the world, and it gave me an international perspective.” She understood that people don’t necessarily have to stay in one place. “Literature showed me that we’re entitled to a bigger story than the one we’re born into.”
As with her parents, her work is about moving with a changing world and narrative. “How do we get people to move with a changing world, and how do we change along with the world? It was important for my parents then, and it’s important for the university now.” She understands that this is not always easy for everyone. “For my parents, it was difficult because of their culture. I wanted to show them that change is good; you can’t stay forever in a static mould.” For the University, it’s difficult to make everyone aware of the importance of these issues, she says. “But ultimately it’s something that concerns us all.”
International context
Her interest in social justice continued to grow after she left school. When she met her husband, she exchanged her position as research expert at a ministry in Trinidad and Tobago for a job in The Hague. As an international consultant she came into contact with all kinds of underprivileged groups. For UNICEF, she worked with refugee children on the border between Myanmar and Thailand. Her assignment – developing an inclusive educational system – taught her to view things in context. “The parents found it really important that their children didn’t lose their language and culture now that they had been driven out of their homes. What songs do you sing at a birthday? What do you do at a funeral?”
Van Oudenhoven has always worked in an international context; now she has to get used to being mostly in one place. This begs the question of what ‘home’ means to her. “My husband always says: home is where you are [meaning me]. I used to change it to: home is where my family is, but now that my children are away at university, it’s not really true anymore. They’re finding their own way.” For her, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada and the Netherlands are all home, she says. “I adjust easily. I realised early on that I can feel at home anywhere.”
Van Oudenhoven’s steps towards a more inclusive university:
- During her first months in the job Van Oudenhoven created a needs assessment, i.e. an inventory of needs at Radboud University in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion. Based on this inventory she drew up a preliminary plan of action.
- The first version of this plan will be sent to every University employee and student for feedback and additions.
- By summer Van Oudenhoven should have a final report, which she can start implementing with different teams.
- The basic principle underlying all these steps is: no policy will be imposed. The entire University must be involved in developing a strategy.
Text: Jozien Wijkhuis Photography: Goedele Monnens
This article was previously published in Radboud Magazine.