With the implementation of 'Everyone Professor' at TU/e, assistant and associate professors are granted the right to award doctorates. In addition, everyone on the permanent academic staff will be allowed to use the title of professor and wear a gown on academic occasions.
The cortège during MomenTUm might just be considerably larger next year. Because with Everyone Professor, every member of TU/e’s permanent academic staff will be allowed to call themselves professor and wear a gown during academic ceremonies. And, perhaps more importantly, assistant professors will also be entitled to award doctorates to their PhD students. “The time is right.”
Dean Kees Storm of Applied Physics and Science Education is the great instigator of Everyone Professor. In his 2018 inaugural lecture, the brand-new professor had already argued that some things could be more modern and less hierarchical within the academic world. He summarized this under the heading Everyone Professor.
For example, Storm contends that all assistant and associate professors should be granted the right to award doctorates. In addition, he proclaimed that all permanent academic staff should be allowed to call themselves professors and wear a gown on official academic occasions.
Much discussion
“I posted my message on Twitter, where the discussion erupted. I started talking to many people about it, and eventually, The Young Academy of the KNAW picked up the idea. They, and especially then-chair Marie-José van Tol, really gave it a push. They did most of the work, sought support for the idea, and ensured that Everyone Professor was put on the agenda at Dutch universities.”
Everyone Professor will also become a reality at his university starting November 1, six years after Storm had expressed the idea in his inaugural address. “I’m proud that TU/e is going to do this. The time is ripe. It also helps that the Executive Board is sympathetic to the idea. Our rector (Silvia Lenaerts, ed.) comes from Flanders, where these rules already apply. The first time I talked to her about it, she was surprised that we weren’t already doing this at TU/e.”
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