/Voorpagina /Mensen /Nieuws /Opinie /Cultuur /Studentenleven /Achtergrond /English page /Onderzoek /Reportage /Bestuur /Ruis /Ranzigt /Colofon

/Faculteits Berichten /Vacatures /Mensa /Oude cursors /pdf formaat /TUE /Zoeken:

jaargang 43, 14 december 2000 English page

ING Brings People Together Volunteers from the International Neighbour Group (ING) have been looking after TU/e's foreign guests for thirty years. The group consists mainly of wives of professors who organise activities for foreign staff at TU/e. Their goal is to make people feel at home at the university and in Eindhoven. "We try to bring people together," says Jarmila Kalasek from Prague, who has been involved with ING from the very beginning. "Foreign staff members sometimes need help finding each other, but also in getting to know their Dutch colleagues. Our monthly get-togethers are informal occasions where people can make friends." Families Mrs Kalasek was effectively marooned in the Netherlands when the Soviets entered Prague in 1968. At the time she and her children were visiting her husband who was employed by PNEM in Maastricht. Later Mr Kalasek came to work at TU/e's Electrical Engineering department, and the family was one of the first to be welcomed by the International Neighbour Group. "They really helped us to settle in. I kept coming to the meetings and in time became a volunteer. I enjoy meeting people from all over the world. When ING started, they mostly looked after families. After that there was a period when foreign staff had to leave their families at home. These days we are seeing more families accompanying foreign staff members." Personal Help ING chairman dr.ing. Ber Verzellenberg says the idea for ING came from TU/e staff visiting the United States. "They were met by people at the airport and taken to dinner at people's homes. When they came back to the Netherlands they decided that this kind of welcome was lacking here in Eindhoven and ING was born." ING organises an annual introduction meeting, various excursions, a monthly get-together, various potluck dinners and barbecues. There are free Dutch/English language courses on Tuesday mornings at ING's Open House in ESKafe Student Centre. "We try to give new people some personal help," Verzellenberg explains. "Staff who have been here longer have usually found their own way." Some 150 foreign staff regularly take part in activities organised by ING. These days ING even has a budget allocated by the Executive Board. "A marked improvement on the early days, when we had to plan every activity down to the last quarter," says long-time volunteer and party-organiser Mary van Overbeeke.     Pets Dr. Zhang Jian from Peking has been at TU/e's Mathematics department for 1,5 years and still regularly visits the monthly get-togethers. "I love the environment here in Eindhoven. It is very quiet, and there is a good quality of life. I like the little gardens that go with every house. I've planted tulips that I look forward to seeing next spring. My daughter of ten has two rabbits and a cat, something that would be impossible at home in Peking. She already speaks Dutch, and she sometimes translates for me. I understand Dutch a little, but can't speak it. I get by with English. I like it in Holland, I'm the first one in my family to appreciate the wonderful cheeses! I also like the way you can travel so easily, in the Netherlands and to other cities in Europe." International Incident Zhang continues: "The only thing that's difficult is the fact that there are so many other people with Zhang as a surname, or a version of my Christian name Jian as a surname. I've resorted to picking up some of my mail in person." Dr. Sergey Novak from Novosibirsk jokes that there are only about five surnames in China, but an international incident is averted. Novak is also a post-doc at the Mathematics department. "I'm happy here, everything is so well organised and I appreciate the good computers. I like to visit the informal ING meetings. Something that surprised me at TU/e was the number of people from Bella Russe, they all seem to be in applied mathematics and computers. Normally I wouldn't meet Bella Russians, but now that I have it's interesting to get to know them. I myself am more of a theoretical mathematician and expect to become a teacher or a researcher."/. The next ING activity is a potluck dinner on February 17 2001.

New Venture Prizes for TU/e Students Four TU/e students have won New Venture prizes. This competition for innovative ideas netted two two-man teams one thousand guilders each. Joep Keij and Harold Peeters, both students of Mechanical Engineering, found a new method to determine acoustics in a space. They wrote a business plan that won a thousand guilders in the first round of the competition. Olaf Bressers and Maarten Hoenders (respectively Mechanical Engineering and Chemical Engineering) wrote a plan to market a sensor to detect bedsores (decubitus). All four students will go on to the second round of the competition. The three best business plans will win 50,000 guilders each in the third and last round. Anti-racism Meeting Disappointing An action meeting organised by a student association against racism in Eindhoven (ESVB) was a total flop. Just one interested student came to the meeting, which was organised after a 'nationalist' student association in Eindhoven created a stir with posters and comments on their website. Cursor announced ESVB's intent to expose discrimination in the November 30 issue. Aafke Heringa, chairman of ESVB, said they were a bit disappointed. "Why did nobody come? It could have something to do with exams. But on the other hand, we really don't know how involved students feel in these kinds of issues." ESVB said a new meeting would soon be organised. Students Wanted for Testing Virtue Cebra, TU/e's centre for E-commerce, is looking for students who want to be the first to check out the virtual campus. Students in possession of a laptop can take part in the first tests of the virtual, three-dimensional campus from week 51 to week 1. The tests are meant to investigate the system's stability. Participants in the test will be rewarded with a film voucher. Anyone interested in a test drive on the Virtual Campus should mail Bas Vermeer at: b.h.p.j.vermeer@cebra.tue.nl. 'Me Tarzan, You Lose' Wins Createch 2000 The final round of Createch 2000 was won by a TU/e team. The team, called 'Me Tarzan, You Lose', won on Saturday in the finals at the University of Twente. The assignment was to develop a robot that could climb a four metre high pole in three minutes. During the competition between teams from TU Delft, the University of Twente and TU/e, the robot was allowed to obstruct other robots without actually damaging them. One team (from the University of Twente) was disqualified because they played too aggressively. Cosy Fluorescent Light A fluorescent light that can change colour and intensity was the subject physics engineer Leon Bakker worked on for four years in the Elementary Processes in Gas Discharge group under Professor Gerrit Kroesen. The idea was to study gas discharge in a fluorescent light with two dials, one for intensity and another for colour temperature, colour white. "The colour of a fluorescent light or energy-saving light should be able to be changed from hard white to an orangey-yellow so that it can approach the feel of candle light," said the new doctor, who is starting a job at Philips Research on January 1. Pyramid of Cheops Cheops, the student association at the Architecture department, is celebrating its 15th anniversary. Something that will not go unnoticed on campus. Cheops' anniversary week started on Monday December 12. The celebrations started with the construction of an aluminium pyramid. The pyramid is twelve metres high and will grace the grounds in front of the Auditorium this whole week. The anniversary celebrations will finish tonight with a stunning party in Discotheek Hollywood in Dommelstraat. Entry is free, the doors open at 9 p.m.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]