In her introduction of the workshop, the moderator, Nora Bieberstein stated that students in Maastricht experience and participate in the widespread student culture which offers e.g. music festivals, cinema, student theatre, organized parties and so on. However, as inhabitants of Maastricht it can also be observed that there is a local culture with its own traditions and cultural circles bearing cultural events like Carnival, Tefaf. These two different types of cultural offer and people who seem to make use of it seem to be separated from each other. The aim of this session was to discuss this potentially existent gap between student life and local Maastricht citizens in order to come to answers for questions like:
- Is it possible to define or characterize the University’s and its student’s relationship with Maastricht and its citizens in general terms?
- Can we argue that the integration of students to Maastricht’s cultural life is hindered by rather practical problems such as a lack of information and the rather pricy activities?
- Is Maastricht a special case or can we draw comparisons to other ‘college towns’?
After a short a video clip produced by students of Maastricht University, each of the four speakers was given time to give a general statement about his or her view on the cultural life in Maastricht regarding the gap between student body and local citizen culture.
Leo zum Vörde sive Vörding started the discussion by telling students to not bridge the gap. He said that a city like Maastricht cannot do without young urban professionals and students. Furthermore, there is always the controversy between a) the city should take care of us and b) these young urban people have to find there own way within the citylife. Therefore, he thinks that we need more commitment to each other and more public debate. According to him, the ECOC competition could be used as a framework that necessitates change in this aspect. Nevertheless, he repeatedly stated that the student body plays a very crucial role in the city since they think and feel ‘from the outside’. He concluded that we need more courageous students that speak out, act and dare to dream. He stated that this session is an excellent example that shows how crucial critical students are that produce interpretations. During the open discussion at the end of the session, he remarked that a city like Maastricht is a ‘public mental space’ with dynamics and movements and “if students adapt too soon, we lose the place for interpretation”.
According to Ruta Norvaisaite, student at Maastricht University, students come to Maastricht with one major goal – to study, or at least we should assume that. Therefore, we cannot expect from them more than minimum effort to find the cultural activities. No doubt, those who search – find it. However, those who would like to participate, but simply do not have time for searching (which includes not only Googling but learning Dutch, building up social networks, being part of various organizations and mailing lists) are left completely behind. Much of the information is either in Dutch or circulated through personal networks. Thus, she stated that the gap can be filled in by better and more thorough provision of information.
Rein de Wilde, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University pointed out that all university cities have experienced tensions between the student body and ”ordinary’” citizens. In small cities with a long university tradition, such as Oxford, Heidelberg or Leiden, it took centuries for students and citizens to realize that they really depend upon each other. Then, Maastricht is a small university city as Oxford and the like, but does not have this long history of cohabitation. Therefore quite some ‘locals’ still perceive the university as an alien element. Even the municipality does not quite know how to handle or approach the university. On the other hand, de Wilde said that most people studying in Maastricht or working in the university are not born in Maastricht or its region. They feel no incentive to integrate in what they perceive as a rather closed regional culture. “Yet there are signs of change” as is illustrated by the fact that the movie theater Lumière leads the way in taking students and foreigners serious by offering English subtitling on special evenings or that Studium Generale has become bilingual within just a few years. Concluding, de Wilde stressed that if Maastricht wants to welcome art projects and cultural initiatives of world class quality, its cultural (and economic) policies should be coordinated on the level of the (Eu)region.
Finally, Maike van Storch from ‘Weekin/Weekuit’, the weekly cultural agenda of Maastricht that is coupled to the website http://www.maastricht.net noted that she seems to be standing in the middle of the gap as a journalist with an informing role. She said that an English website is recently under construction and pointed to the existence of a magazine like ‘Crossroads’. She argued that they don’t get a lot of input from students who live in their own circle and that is why “it’s not easy to approach students” since they don’t easily react. Besides, she added that there is a new cultural initiative for new students at Maastricht University, the pimpas which gives students price reductions for cultural highlights in the region. Recognizing the enclosed character of Maastricht she affirmed that “you would have to marry a local to truly integrate yourself in the local culture”.
Summarizing the results of the discussion Nora Bieberstein argued that “there is a gap” and it has both its positive and negative aspects. Because, on the one hand, the gap leads to a greater cultural diversity that should not be changed but productively used, but, on the other hand, the gap produces separation and exclusion of students from Maastricht’s cultural life. Thus, integration and diversity are opposing each other and this is what constitutes the gap. Leo zum Vörde sive Vörding stated that self-organization is one part of the solution and Rein de Wilde introduced a new concept – an ‘urban campus’ that is a serious interest of the university. Evaluating the gap, de Wilde said that in the short-term the only solution seems to become bilingual.
Text: Ali Konyali
