Rectores magnifi

Rectores magnifici

A Rector Magnificus (Latin for “Eminent Ruler”, plural Rectores magnifici) presides over a university’s education and research. Though his or her tasks may vary, a Rector is always a member of the Executive Board, the university’s governing body. The current Tilburg Rector (Emile Aarts) is in charge of “educational policy, including pre-university- interface issues and partnerships with higher professional education; research policy, including indirect government research funding and contract research funding; internationalization, professorship policy and academic representation (Doctorate Board).”

A new era

Since the late sixties, Rectors have been appointed in principle for a four-year term, with reappointments gradually becoming more common. Up until the early 21st century, a Rector had always been chosen from amongst the University’s own pool of professors. Emile Aarts, deriving from the Eindhoven University of Technology, was the first Rector Magnificus who was an outsider.In the University’s infant years, the rectorate was an honorary but demanding position, taken by another professor each year. The first to do so was Thomas Goossens, who ‒ exceptionally ‒ filled it for three years. In addition, this most frugal of professors was also the university’s housekeeper, a role he was to perform well into the fifties. The second Rector was Weve, a Dominican who was told by Goossens when he accepted the position that “our growing College will demand from thee work and yet more work. However, I know that it will please thee to give it and that nothing will gratify thee more than to augment its prestige and to add to its esteem.”

Growing numbers

Since its foundation in 1927, thirty-one Rectores Magnifici have served the University, and they have always worn the same chain of office at academic ceremonies. The third Rector Magnificus was the ubiquitous Professor Martinus Cobbenhagen, commonly considered to be the founding father of the institution’s education program, who also had a secondary school in Tilburg named after him. Cobbenhagen held the rectorate three times, only to be surpassed by his student friend, Professor Kaag, who held it four times. The longest serving Rector (nine years without interruption) was Frank van der Duyn Schouten (the first protestant rector at Tilburg University). All Rectors have been portrayed and have their portraits on display in the Portraits Room, in the Cobbenhagen Building.