During the education day of Mechanical Engineering at TU/e in DOMUSDELA yesterday, a part of the program was on the topic of Social Safety.
In this part, Het Acteursgenootschap (Dutch Actors Society) played their theater play "#metooacademia: The Learning Curve" for us, which left the room in silence.
After the play, Ellen De Greef - Daamen led the plenary conversation on the topic. Who has experienced transgressive behaviour? And who has acted on it as active bystander? It led to a constructive conversation, where experiences were shared and different boundaries were addressed.
I am very thankful that we could organize this part in the program of our education day. With many thanks to Yves Houben, Hans Kuerten, Apoorva Sonawane, Rob van der Heijden, Nicole Lammerts-De Laat, Rick, Phoenix Wongpimoln, Irene Kuling, and all participants and guest speakers who collaboratively made this day a great success.
Now, it is time to continue the conversation on social safety. Within the department: among staff, among students and the department as a whole.
And for that, I'm quite hopeful. As our Dean Patrick Anderson keeps stressing the importance of this topic, as Monica Zakhari leads our departmental wellbeing signal group with great dedication, and as there is good willingness to move towards important culture change.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming months. To the initiatives that will come, and the safer and more inclusive culture that will hopefully follow.
Interested in the play of yesterday, and how it was perceived? Wesley Klop of Cursor TU Eindhoven wrote a nice article on it!
https://lnkd.in/e_GM8xu3