Issue 2 - O

Interview
Busschbach
to our difficult situation.’ He then tells
me to the side: ‘As if anyone would
care that we would be abolished, but
we all were still very idealistic ’. He
then continued the story: ‘I can still
remember that it was a very cold and
hard winter. We went out in the middle
of the night of course because it was
completely illegal. We did not want
to be seen by the police. And so we
had these leaflets and we also had a
waste bag with glue in it, but it was so
freezing that the glue actually froze
inside of the bag so we really had to
stop after two or three hours! We were
so cold!’
Professor Liebregts goes on: As a
second way of getting attention we
also wanted to occupy the building of
the Classical department, but we were
very very polite and we first asked
permission from the caretaker of the
building whether he would allow us to
have a sleep over. We were granted
permission and we took our sleeping
bags and we were off to the Classical
department. I can still remember that I
spent two nights in the office of my
professor of Latin. He adds: ‘the
caretaker was such a nice man; he
stopped by the second night to see
whether we were still okay and
whether we needed anything. We on
the other hand were trying to be
fearless and wanting to make a point
we were OCCUPYING the building!
That shows that no one took it actually
very seriously!
As a last attempt we also wrote a letter
in Latin to the pope in Rome to explain
the situation and whether he could
actually prevent the minister of
education of abolishing our
department and we actually got an
answer from the Vatican! Well, not
the pope himself of course but one of
his spokespersons who said that ‘The
pope regrets that these languages will
no longer be able to be studied in
Utrecht but I hope that you will
understand that the pope has no say
in these matters and cannot intervene
in what seems to be a government
affair.’ So in the end the department
closed down and I was really one of
the last to still graduate in Utrecht. The
rest had to go to Leiden, Amsterdam
or Nijmegen.’
After these fabulous anecdotes I
asked him a bit about his job ‘What
does a Professor actually do?’
‘Basically what I do are 3 things: one, I
have my research, so like anyone else
I have to write a number of articles or
produce a certain amount of
researches a year. I also have of
course my amount of teaching which
ranges from first year students to MA
students. As a professor you are also
involved in all sorts of levels of
administration which includes
implementing new plans for the
faculty, trying to improve on the
program, to meet on a regular basis
with other chairs of faculty
departments, and I have assessment
talks with the people for whom I am
responsible, let’s say the literature
people, on a yearly basis. So there are
a lot of meetings and committee work
involved, as well as the writing of
official letters and reports.’
‘And which part do you like best?’
‘Teaching!! I also like research very
much, but I find it almost more like a
private sort of thing. As a researcher
you are far less public and in touch
with people, with the exception of
going to a conference or keeping up
contacts with those experts with whom
you can discuss your work. In this
sense, I think teaching is a more fun
thing to do because there is more
social interaction and I simply like to
teach. Teaching is the most direct form
of being occupied with your
profession.’
‘And which part the least?’
‘Administration, because these
administrative meetings can take for
hours and sometimes after a few
hours you think what am I doing here?
Of course sometimes decisions are
The Angler – Year 8 – Issue 2 13