Vrije Universiteit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Latin: Universitatis Liberae | |
| Motto | gewoon bijzonder (English: plain special) |
|---|---|
| Established | 1880 |
| Type | Special, protestant |
| President | Prof.dr. Lex Bouter |
| Faculty | 2,000 scientific employees of whom 300 professors |
| Students | 17,102 |
| Location | Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
| Affiliations | EUA |
| Website | www.vu.nl |
The Vrije Universiteit (Free University) is a university in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The Vrije Universiteit should not be confused with the University of Amsterdam. The name is often abbreviated as VU. It is the university of the Vereniging VU-Windesheim, which also encompasses the Christelijke Hogeschool Windesheim, and was formerly known as the Vereniging voor Christelijk Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs (Association for Christian Scientific Education).
The association was founded in 1880, and headed by Abraham Kuyper, as the first Protestant university. Vrije Universiteit literally means Free University (better: Liberated University) to signify freedom from government and church. The education itself, however, is not free of cost; like all accredited universities in The Netherlands students pay a (government determined) fee, while students receive a student loan from the government as well.
About 17,000 students (2004) attend the university, with 2,200 scientific employees, and 1,600 non-scientific employees.
[edit] Notable faculty
- Jan Peter Balkenende, the current Prime Minister of the Netherlands, was a special professor of "Christian-Social Thought".
- Pieter Kooijmans, currently a Judge on the International Court of Justice, Professor of International and European Law (1965-1973)
- Andrew S. Tanenbaum, professor of Computer Science who wrote the Minix operating system and the Amoeba distributed operating system. He is the author of the textbooks: Computer Networks, Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, and Modern Operating Systems.
- Earth Science professor Jan Smit was one of the people who contributed to the theory that an impact of a meteor near Mexico caused the ending of the Dinosaur age about 65 million years ago.
- Peter Koslowski the ethicist and philosopher
[edit] Notable graduates
- Wouter Bos, party leader of the Dutch Social Democrats studied at VU
- Pim Fortuyn, the assassinated party leader of the LPF studied sociology at VU.
- Gerrit Zalm, Minister of Finance in the cabinet Kok I, Kok II, Balkenende II and Balkenende III, also studied economics at VU.
- Bas de Gaay Fortman, the world's only Chair in Political Economy of Human Rights.
- Robert Charles Sproul, a popular American Reformed theologian and apologist.
