Wetenschap - 18 mei 1995

Disappointing Response For Paris

Bea Jansen of the Foreign Students Dean's Office says she is totally puzzled as to why it is that only 4 people have registered for the May 25-27, trip to Paris organized by the International Student Panel. Although 34 places were available, it was expected that people would have to be turned away. The organizers have no idea as to the reason behind the disappointing response.

Bea Jansen explains, Last year, the trip to Paris was organized by the Management of Agricultural Knowledge Systems (MAKS) programme. It was a great success. The idea was raised this year to broaden the scope of the event to include everybody. Of course there are people who are going away for field work but there are still PhD, Erasmus and Tempus students who could have signed up. We sent 400 letters out and all we've received are four commitments. There were three people who were thinking about it. I don't think that the 300 guilders is too unreasonable, if you consider that it covers many things which other trips don't include. I even asked people who had registered if they though it was too expensive, but they couldn't give any reason why their colleagues hadn't rushed to sign up."

With such a poor turn out, the trip will not go through. Bea Jansen mentioned that in the future, any such undertaking will be preceded by advance research to see if there are any obstacles or dates which might prevent participation.