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During a short, private ceremony at a hospice in Epe, Wittenborg student Debbie Kuang (Kuang HuiHong) was presented with her diploma by directors of Wittenborg, Peter Birdsall and Maggie Feng. Also present were Debbie’s mother Wang Shuyun, Wittenborg lecturer Henry Muusz and volunteers from the hospice.

Debbie’s home is in the Chinese province of Hunan, and during the emotional occasion, Debbie emphasized her wish that Wittenborg continue to grow and always support students from developing countries such as herself to have the chance to study at the school, graduate and become successful. She requested that her name be used to promote Wittenborg’s education to students from poorer backgrounds in developing countries, and that others could benefit in the same way that she did. Maggie Feng remains by Debbie’s side, together with Debbie’s Mother and Henry and his wife, with whom Debbie has lived the past year, in Epe (near Apeldoorn). Debbie’s Father and Sister plan to fly to the Netherlands, to be with her on Tuesday.

WUP 19/05/2012

Wittenborg University will celebrate its 25th Anniversary with a Gala to be held on November 9th 2012 in Apeldoorn.

The Gala will be the final event during a week in which students, staff, and partners from business, education and the professional field will be invited to take part in a number of special events, seminars and workshops.

Wittenborg was opened by Mayor of Deventer, C.J.D Waal on 21st September 1987 at its then location on the Pikeursbaan in Deventer. It was first called Wittenborg InterCollege, however soon dropped the 'Inter' part of the name, keeping just Wittenborg College. From 1996, once it received its state appointment as a University of Applied Sciences it was officially called Hogeschool Wittenborg, and since 2007 the University has gradually been changing its name in all publications to Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences.

Since 1987 Wittenborg has offered its programmes at 4 different locations, and each time its logo changed, until that of the present day. During the past 25 years, Wittenborg has offered programmes in many fields, including business, finance, real estate, banking, international management, languages, communication, ICT and life sciences. 

In the early years the Wittenborg offered short courses and business to business programmes, in areas such as Marketing, ICT, and Communication. It also offred language courses in English. Wittenborg started to offer short degree courses in the 1990's and full Bachelor programmes since 1996, when it received its University of Applied Sciences status. Although Wittenborg has been offering full English taught degree programmes only since 2002, Wittenborg International was already offering courses in 1999 in cooperation with partners in Poland.

The 25th Anniversary celebrations come after a time during which Wittenborg University has become an institute with a strong international profile while having significantly changed its appearance, location, and expanded its Bachelor and Master programmes through a long term partnership with the University of Brighton. It is intended that the festivities will reflect the current student body and the institute's partnerships, whilst looking back at the past acheivements and its students and forward to developing programmes and future growth.

During the 25 Year celebration week, an important event to be organized will be an employment and career market that aims to introduce employers to the benefits of involving dutch and international students in their companies and organisations.

Info: The name Wittenborg was taken from the name of a German tradesman and Mayor of the Hansiatic City Lubeck, Johann Wittenborg (1321-1363). As a successful international businessman, trader and entrepreneur, Johann continued his father Hermann's international business, trading from the Baltics states to the Netherlands, Belgium and England.

WUP 11/05/2012

Student Housing in Apeldoorn, and the value for the local economy of International Students

Wittenborg University continues its drive for more affordable student housing in the city of Apeldoorn. Currently a number of longer term projects are being discussed, including the development of empty office space in the heart of the city centre. The key to successful student housing is a balance between the commercial interests of the owners and developers and the non-commercial interests of students and education institutions. (International) student housing is a complicated and sensitive branch, however forms the key for economic growth in a town such as Apeldoorn that is on the one hand looking for higher educated youth in the town, and on the other is currently financially in need of dedicated and sustainable economic growth.

Students coming from abroad to Apeldoorn see the town as the new centre of their world, and each student brings with them an economic growth of at least 20,000 euro (per year) for the region. In some cases even more. The math’s is not difficult; a group of 200 students, the yearly input into the direct local economy is 4 million euro per year, year in year out. For towns such as Deventer or Enschede, where the number of international students reaches well over 3000, the figures reach a staggering 60 million euro per year.

Notwithstanding the basic economic impact of international students on an economy, other factors could bring the total value much higher, such as attracting highly educated personnel, researchers, entrepreneurs and ambassadors for the national economy. In Apeldoorn, even every Dutch student attracted to the town to study counts in the equation also, as the municipality is not a traditional student town as such, so therefore students are attracted to programmes because of their content, the international atmosphere, the quality and professionalism, and they invariably come from outside the region, cities in the west, such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Breda and the Hague.

WUP 11/5/2012

In preparation for the launch of the International Master programmes , (MSc International Event Management and MSc International Tourism Management), to start on the 3^rd September 2012, University of Brighton coordinator Chris Dutton visited Wittenborg University today, and together with colleague Joyce Webber, a learning technologist from the University. The aim of the School of Service Management’s visit was to introduce Wittenborg staff to Student Central, the University of Brighton’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) which is based on Blackboard. Wittenborg University has been using the alternative, Open Source VLE Moodle, since its early days of 2004, and staff in Apeldoorn will have to learn how to recognise the similarities and differences between the systems before the new academic year starts in September.

The aim of the Wittenborg University IT department will be to provide students with as much user interface integration as possible, between the Moodle experience and its Blackboard comparison. Web programmers at Wittenborg are looking at various options that will be able to present students on the joint programme with a unified ‘look’.

Staff at Wittenborg has also been introduced to the substantial online resources provided by the University of Brighton’s online library, and students on the Master programmes at the School of Service Sector Management’s International Event Management and International Tourism Management will enjoy the benefit of a state-of-the-art online resource facility.

WUP 10/5/2012

Did you know that Wittenborg is looking for an international student graduate who would be interested in working at Wittenborg? Can you programme in PHP, and do you have knowledge of MYSQL and Apache? Contact us here…Application form for Working @ Wittenborg

The Event Management MSc Programme - An Event Project Manager

The Master of Science (MSc) in International Event Management is a broad Master programme that is open to all students with an business or economy based first degree. It looks at the role of an Event Project Manager from an international perspective, taking into account a broad role of innovation and implementation. For instance, the programme allows direct entry to students with a University of Applied Sciences (HBO) Bachelor degree in a related field. As the programme offers a wide range of modules from Project Management to Innovation and Globalisation to Fund Raising, it is suitable for a wide range of direct entry graduates. Although the programme offers a higher degree perspective to students from service sector education backgrounds, such as those with a degree in Tourism, Event Management, or Hospitality  Management, it is also a good alternative specialisation for International Business Administration graduates who are looking to diversify their qualifications and so enhance their career opportunities.

Graduates from the MSc programme in International Event Management will be a valuable asset to companies and organisations in many sectors not just the Events and Entertainment sector, although this is an ever growing and currently booming industry worldwide. In the past years, event management has become one of the most important factors in a company's marketing and branding strategy with recent research showing that many organisations spend up to 7% of their annual marketing and branding budget on organising and attending corporate events and exhibitions.

Event managers are seen as all-round, pro active members of a project team, often involved in projects from the pre-conception through fundraising to eventual execution. A project and event manager will be pivotal within the company, working with different levels of staff and management from different areas in the organisation. The Event Project Manager will be required to understand the developing project from the perspective of finance and human resource management, and from local and international social responsibility, taking into account the views and wishes of all stakeholders.

For more information about the Master of Science programme in International Event Management please see the Event and Project Management Pages.

The Master programme can be followed in 1 or 2 years depending on a student's choice of full time or part time study combined with work and students are registered at both Wittenborg University and the University of Brighton, in order to give students the maximum access to facilities and services.

WUP 08/05/2012

Dr. Teun Wolters: Summarizing strategic leadership

Experienced lecturers in business administration – without excluding others – are proficient in both unfolding the full content of their subject and recapitulating it succinctly. Also, many blog writers and the like appear to be masters in outlining fields of knowledge in an insightful way while enticing their audience into wanting to know more.

An interesting website article written by Dr Paul J.H. Schoemaker on strategic thinkers (INC.com) exemplifies the art of summarizing.  He writes that every leader’s temptation is to deal with what’s directly in front, because it always seems more urgent and concrete. However, if you do that - the writer poses - you put your company at risk. Companies need leaders who can see beyond their nose; but, can you recognize such strategic leaders?  According to the writer, adaptive strategic leaders – the kind who thrive in today’s uncertain world – do six things well. They anticipate, think critically, interpret, decide, align and learn. 

This intriguing summary, however, makes one wonder what this is all about.  Every citizen does that in order to make it to the next day and beyond. Obviously, it is the special business environment that makes the difference.  Experience and gut feeling may be important, but when you have to lead and manage a large organization, using your brains and acting upon it seems to be indispensible. Organizations do not have much that keep them going on their own accord.

The intellectual side of management is of course what business education is good at. There are more dimensions (which the school pays attention to), but using your brains based on good evidence-based concepts must not be forgotten or played down.  That’s for sure.

Dr Teun Wolters

WUP 26/04/2012

Dr. Teun Wolters: Mental flexibility

A friend of mine told me he as a guest lecturer recently taught students on topics in the area of information management. He felt the session was not as successful as he wished it was. He thought to explain this by the fact that he is used to talk to an academic audience interested in well-considered elucidations on the pros and cons of certain conceptual models that professionals use when executing their job. The previous class, however, wanted to hear what should be done in concrete terms; no confusing reservations, please. 

Here, we touch on an issue that is particularly relevant to business and management education. Considering the turbulent times we are in today, students must learn to both absorb incessant flows of information and interpret them based on grounded concepts and theories.  However, information can be incomplete and biased. Theories (at best) have the features of an on-going process of thinking and discovery. You cannot take them on board as an always reliable compass.

This together requires modes of thinking and mental flexibility which are helpful (they do not question only but also give support), intriguing (so that the student is triggered to know more about them) and manageable (they can be applied without being a genius). Voila, a true challenge to higher education.

Dr Teun Wolters

WUP 09/05/2012