First female president

In the summer of 1997, the appointment of the first female president of the board of a Dutch university was received with a mix of enthusiasm and reserve. Lawyer Yvonne van Rooy (1951) was a successful Christian-democrat politician, and it was precisely her Catholic background that caused the mainly left-oriented university community to respond with aloofness, even more so when the PR department produced a picture postcard with Ruud Lubbers in the background, the former Christian-democrat Prime Minister. All reservations had virtually evaporated, though, when Van Rooy left in 2004, terminating a period that was called “the seven fat years” at her farewell party.

First Female, again

Van Rooy had a history of being “first female”: in the seventies, she was the first female on the board of employers organization NCW and the first female State Secretary for Economic Affairs. In newspaper Trouw she was quoted as saying: “I’m not really in favor of gender-based appointments, first of all because women are eligible for so many positions, and secondly because candidate selection should be merit-based.” Yvonne van Rooy proved herself to be an administrator who was esteemed by all and who was not confrontation-averse. Naert, who was Dean of Tias at the time, felt that Van Rooy, despite many attempts, had not been “a staunch advocate of Business School autonomy.”

Portrait of Yvonne van Rooy, by Fred Schley, from 2003

Renaming

A rather dashing exploit was the University’s renaming exercise in 2003. KUB, Catholicism, Brabant and a “hideous red logo” were doing nothing to sell the University abroad, Van Rooy opined. An internationalizing university was in need of a better name, and this required the permission of the Board of Governors, including its episcopal representative. The Governors were not expected to be keen on changing the name into University of Tilburg. And so, they were told, this would only serve as its first name but not as its full baptismal name, which was to remain unchanged as the Catholic University of Brabant Foundation. It was impossible now, surely, not to give in to Van Rooy? The Catholic identity was somehow preserved, while the baptismal name, still to be found at the bottom of everyone’s monthly payslip, has indeed not been erased from everyone’s memories.