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At the end of the summer Laura Henderson will take her place as the new cluster chair of Cluster 2 (Performance Studies, Media Studies, Law, History, Religious Studies, Anthropology). To welcome her in this new role, we sat down with Laura to chat about her past, present and future with ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� College Utrecht.

When Laura Henderson was first invited to teach at the college 3 years ago, she did not hesitate. “Of course I would like to do that, where else is a better place to teach than UCU!” Laura was working as assistant professor of international law and human rights at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� at the time, and she also knew the college very well: she studied and graduated in the UCU class of 2008.

“When I heard about UCU and that it was so broad and interdisciplinary and in English, I thought ‘there is my chance!’ And so I came here.” From early on, Laura felt right at home on campus. As someone who had grown up between cultures—she is Dutch-American, and moved to the Netherlands from the United States at age 13—she was happy to meet and be around other students who had similar experiences as her. Even if they weren’t alike in all aspects.

“My mum is a cleaner, she didn’t have a lot of higher education background. I didn’t come from an elite family the way other students might have. But despite those differences in background on that front, I felt really at home because of this sort of shared in-betweenness, between cultures, and the shared interest in interdisciplinarity.”

I felt really at home because of this sort of shared in-betweenness, between cultures, and the shared interest in interdisciplinarity

Being able to explore her interests in this way was a new experience to Laura, quite different from her time at her secondary school in Friesland. “My secondary school career was colored by the fact that I was trying to learn Dutch at the same time.” Being self-conscious about her level of the language, she chose the science route in her curriculum. “I thought, in science you don’t have to speak much Dutch, it’s just numbers!”

Not yet certain if she wanted to give up on science Laura began her studies at UCU with courses in Cognitive Neuroscience. But then the course Law, Society and Justice (UCSSCLAW11) came along, and soon enough Laura knew social sciences was the direction she needed to take. After her first year she made her major Law and Anthropology, and “never looked back after that.”

Aside from law and anthropology, Laura had also discovered her passion in politics. She became chair of PoliticsCo at UCU (despite not majoring in Political Science), and later had another chance at politics in an academic setting, during her PhD at the VU Amsterdam.

“While I was there the best thing that happened to me was I became a member of the ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� Senate.” Along with her colleagues she represented the interests of all teachers and support staff at the VU in discussions with the ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� Board. In the last year of her PhD, she was elected to serve as chair of the Senate. An experience that opened her eyes to how she wants to complement her work as a teacher and researcher.

“I just loved so much to see how that worked, how the negotiation there worked, the give and take, the behind the scenes… That you have principles that you are trying to realize on the one hand, but to do that you also need to have a bit of strategic tactical thinking.”

Ever since she has been consciously looking for opportunities to be engaged in the way things are run, and this is what brought Laura to the vacancy of cluster chair. She saw it as a great opportunity for her to be able to work on the implementation of ideas and principles more directly, and not only on a policy level. She sees her role mainly as a facilitator of her colleagues’ goals in the cluster. “I think that’s the idea of academic leadership. It’s not me instructing them what to do, they know what to do. They are the experts in their field.”

“It’s just that sometimes they run into problems that they need someone to help them through, and that’s where I come in.” This can be academics-related or professional problems, but social safety and the treatment of employees are also high on Laura’s agenda. She hopes to work on matters of prevention and appropriate intervention, as well as making these issues discussable at the college. “I don’t have a clear plan for that yet but I think it’s really important to make the university a safe place for all students and employees. I would see a role for me there.”

I think it’s really important to make the university a safe place for all students and employees. I would see a role for me there.

Another topic Laura is looking forward to contributing to as cluster chair is Community Engaged Learning: boosting existing projects and helping to create new ones. Encouraging students to use their academic skills to work towards a positive outcome in their communities as part of their learning is particularly timely in her eyes. “This year especially I noticed that we talk about human rights and how wonderful they are—and they are wonderful, I love them—but at the same time Ukraine is being invaded. We see international human rights being violated on a daily basis very severely and terribly with little prospect (at least yet) of accountability for Russia.”

Such events can reframe entire courses and lead to new lines of questioning. Laura understands how easy it can be to feel of powerless and inadequate, and wanting to do more. “[Students] come to class and they say, ‘what’s the point of learning about human rights when the world is like this.’ They are asking us for concrete ways they can do something. I think that Community Engaged Learning is an answer to that. It doesn’t necessarily solve what’s going on in Ukraine, but it does give students a way to be engaged in the communities they are in – whether that’s at UCU, in Utrecht and the Netherlands, or maybe in their countries of origin.”

Laura believes that continuing to implement Community Engaged Learning in the UCU curriculum will not only help students be more aware of their part in their larger communities, but allow them to discover their own power—and better understand the responsibilities that come with that power.

“I want students to realize that just because you can’t do all that you want to do, there is space still, and you have to grab that space. I think they don’t always because they don’t know. So I want to help them grab that space.”

This is also what Laura strives to do in her own classes. From all the roles she will have from the next academic year onwards—teacher, researcher, cluster chair—it is teaching that stands central.

“It’s really why I work at a university - to teach. I love doing research, but I see that a little bit as a hobby sometimes that I do for myself and hope maybe someday someone will benefit from it. My area of research is legal philosophy; it’s not going to change the world tomorrow. Maybe it will change the world in a hundred years, you know, it’s slow. With students maybe I can change the world in 5 years, once they go out into the world and get a job. If I’ve been able to plant any little seeds of inspiration then I think: that’s why I’m here.”

Laura Henderson will start as the new chair of Cluster 2 (replacing Laurien Crump-Gabreëls) in August 2022. Next to her duties as cluster chair, she will continue to teach in the course International Human Rights (UCSSCLAW31) at UCU, as well as a number of courses in the Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� Master’s programme Public International Law.