Assistant Professor Annemieke Klijn wrote an interesting report about the role of the University Fund Limburg/SWOL in the establishment of Maastricht University. With her permission, we will present the report to you, divided into six short chapters. This is the first part.
A university in Limburg?
”Maastricht University, initially named State University Limburg, was established in 1976, after a lengthy history of regional efforts. Since the early years of the twentieth century, Limburg has tried to attract a state university, or at least an institution of higher education. Such a ‘regional’ university served as a symbol of Limburg’s empowerment, after years of having been ‘underrepresented’ and ‘underdeveloped’ within national political and educational contexts. A university, so it was expected, would not only enhance the cultural and intellectual image of this region, but it might also serve as an economic stimulus. In the 1920s, Tilburg, Den Bosch, Nijmegen and Maastricht had engaged in a fierce competition to rake in a state sponsored Catholic university. Nijmegen won out, as in 1923 such a university was established in this more centrally located city.
After the Second World War, the discussion on the need for a university in Limburg was back on the agenda. Because the number of students was growing rapidly at the time, expansion of the nationwide university system was badly needed. In November 1957 the provincial government set up the Higher Education Study Committee (Studiecommissie Hoger Onderwijs), consisting exclusively of members of the KVP, the country’s large Catholic party, and in 1959 this committee advocated setting up a so-called atheneum illustre. This was part of system of higher education in which students could enrol up to the bachelor level (kandidaatsexamen). The committee was thinking of faculties of law, language and literature, philosophy, psychology, and later on, potentially, chemistry, physics and mathematics as well. Given the preponderance of Catholicism in the province of Limburg, it was only natural to have a preference for a Catholic institution, which might be affiliated with Catholic University Nijmegen. Maastricht was named as location because this old city was seen as the main cultural centre of Limburg. Given the location of Maastricht, it seemed relevant to the committee to give this proposed new facility of higher education a multi-language and European character. From the start, after all, Maastricht had been ‘a preeminent meeting place of Roman and Germanic culture’.
The government in The Hague responded negatively, however. The Committee for the Regional Diffusion of Higher Education (Commissie Spreiding Hoger Onderwijs) saw no use in setting up a kind of annex of Catholic University Nijmegen in Maastricht. Likewise, the economist Marinius Coopmans, in a booklet entitled Universitas Limburgensis (1962), appealed to the Dutch minister of Education and Science, Jo Cals (a KVP member), arguing for the establishment of a European university, which, in anticipation of ‘a unified Europe’, would deal with international political, technological and economic issues. His plea was ignored, however. The government decided to grant the right to set up several new curriculums to existing academic institutions in cities throughout the country, rather than in Limburg.”
Text: Annemieke Klijn (Assistant Professor & Curator Art and Heritage Committee, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University)
Here is chapter two: ‘The Foundation for Higher Education in Limburg’.