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means to live in a diverse world and make sensitive, responsible decisions about
how to make that world better together. And where better to learn these lessons
than here in The Hague, surrounded by (and participating in) the institutions
of international order and justice? The community of LUC begins in the college
buildings, but encompasses the ideals of this famous city.
honours and excellence
There are many BA and BSc programmes in the world, but we believe that LUC
The Hague offers something unique. Part of what makes us special is our international
profile. However, our values are not only in terms of exploring diversity,
but also in terms of the quality of our explorations. As an Honours College,
LUC The Hague holds the very highest academic standards for its staff as well as
its students. Every single member of our community has already demonstrated
something special about themselves - something amazing - something that
sets them apart from their peers. You have been selected for a reason. Without
exception, we believe that all of you will graduate from LUC as some of the most
sought-after graduates in Europe: you will go on to outstanding graduate programmes
in Europe, the USA or elsewhere; you will become leaders of opinion
and policy, strategy-makers and activists; you will become responsible global
citizens and bring about change in the world around us. Because we believe this,
you are here. Because you are here, you should make this happen.
But excellence is not only about the standards of our students and our staff. LUC
is also committed to pedagogic excellence and innovation. We believe that our
programmes should be supported by the very best learning technologies and
techniques. We believe in active learning, which gives students space to develop
and explore their own ideas and to challenge the faculty on their views. We believe
in small-group learning and dynamic interaction. We do not believe in dogma.
And finally, because each one of you is unique and special, with such ambitions
for the future and so much to think about now, LUC also provides a tutorial
system to support you. Each of you will be assigned a personal tutor, whose task
it is to help ensure that you get the most out of being at LUC. All of our tutors
are drawn from our academic faculty - they have all been through top university
programmes and made successful careers for themselves as scholars. At LUC,
we believe that all students should have direct access to this kind of support:
your tutor can help you, not necessarily because they are better or smarter or
wiser than you, but because they’ve been through most of this before.
Liberal arts and sciences
For over 435 years, Leiden University has been known as Praesidium Libertatis,
the Bastion of Liberty. From 2010, LUC carries this legacy into the twenty-first
century with a firm commitment to the ethos of the liberal arts and sciences.
Most people will tell you that the Liberal Arts is an educational philosophy
rather than a field of knowledge, or that they are concerned with learning how
to think rather than what to think; some people may even juxtapose them with
the vulgar arts and sciences, which teach people useful things.
For us at LUC, however, we have a preference for a more modern and critical
sense of the role and nature of the liberal arts and sciences in the contemporary
world. In a ‘commencement speech’ at the graduation ceremony of a Liberal
Arts college in the USA, David Foster Wallace* told a little story that has now
become famous here at LUC:
‘There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet
an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning,
boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then
eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’
This little story is immediately believable: it’s simple, obvious and seems to be
plausible. But it’s Wallace’s next step that demands our attention: he states very
clearly that educators are not the older fish: instructors are not the ones who
know better, who know about the water, they are just ‘people who went before’.
Indeed, we should be cautious about the frequent claim that a liberal arts education
should not be about ‘teaching things’ but should be about teaching people
‘how to think’. Wallace is cautious about this because (quite rightly) he worries
that this would just be insulting or patronizing to you. And he’s right: we at LUC
don’t want students who can’t think already. We want the people who wonder
about the water…who notice it’s there. You are here at LUC because you are this
type of person already.
* David foster Wallace (1962 - 2008), was an american author and professor. he is most famous for the 1996 novel,
Infinite Jest. The quotations here are taken from the commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. it was
re-published in 2009 as This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate
Life.
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