The VU

I applied to about 20 universities for faculty jobs last fall. Those positions were scattered across the U.S., and they included some superficially less exciting places like Nebraska, Iowa, and North Carolina. And, of course, I applied for a position at a university in Amsterdam. Given the brutal job market, I was very fortunate to get any position. But I was especially charmed to end up at what is likely the best work environment and the coolest location.

The university I work at is called Vrije Universiteit, which translates as “Free University.” It’s commonly referred to as VU University Amsterdam, and it is simply known as “the VU” locally. Though the “VU” sounds much more like “Little Bunny Fu-Fu” than the hard “v” sound in English; also note that the University of Amsterdam – a separate school – is known as “the UVA,” which sounds like “OO-fa”. The university was called “free” when it was founded in the 19th century to advertise its freedom from the Catholic Church and government. It is technically a Calvanist school, though, as best as I can tell, it is as secular as the rest of Amsterdam. It currently has a little over 20,000 students, and it seems to operate just like a major research university in the U.S.

The campus is located in the southern part of Amsterdam, near the newly constructed “business district” and close to the city Amstelveen. This area does not look much like the main part of Amsterdam. It has several tall, modern buildings, and there are still some undeveloped open spaces sitting around.

Popular opinion among my colleagues suggests that the campus is not very attractive. I wouldn’t go that far – especially since I’m still biased to say that anything with green grass is pretty – but I would say that it differs from what I’m used to. The main building is a giant, blocky monolith that towers over the rest of campus.

There are several other smaller (and also, arguably, blocky) buildings that loop around campus. And there is a fairly new, conspicuous modern building in the middle of campus, which is situated right next to the campus bar (yep, there's a campus bar).

My building is on the western side of the campus, near the medical center. Faculty in my department often share offices - this is fairly unusual in the schools I've been to in the U.S. But it seems to work quite well. The space is about twice as large as the individual faculty offices at UNM, and I enjoy talking with my office mate.

And, since I was riding with a camera along the route where I sustained my bike injuries, I figured I'd put up a few pictures of the scene of the accident. I was riding on this bike-only path through Beatrixpark. When I was about to pass the intersection between the path and another road (a road where cars are allowed), I saw the motorcyclist pull up and stop. I slowed down before seeing that he had come to a complete stop and was presumably waiting for traffic to pass, and then I continued. He pulled onto the bike path right in front of me.

And this was his viewpoint, turning left.