History of the Department of English at the University of Groningen

The Department of English at the University of Groningen
The academic study of English was first introduced as a discipline in the University of Groningen at the end of the nineteenth century. This page provides an overview of the historical development of the Department of English at the University of Groningen since its inception, in the course of which there is an overview of changes in the third level teaching of English in the Netherlands.
1876-1913: The First Department of English in the Netherlands
Jan Beckering Vinckers (1821-91), professor of English language and literature at the University of Groningen was the first English professor in the Netherlands in 1885. The Department of English at the University of Groningen was subsequently founded in 1886, making it the oldest English department in the Netherlands. From its inception to shortly prior to the beginning of the First Wold War, the department underwent several significant changes. The department grew from having one professor to having a professor and a lector, and with the increase of staff, older language and literature and modern language and literature began to take shape as separate disciplines within English. Despite the Higher Education Act of 1876 prescribing that English, French, and High German should be taught at a university, the first Professor of English, Jan Beckering Vinckers, was not inaugurated until 1886, although some courses on English were taught at the University of Groningen prior to this time.
The actual number of students taking English courses cannot be determined, because there was no doctorate in English until 1921 and therefore no kandidaats- and doctoraalexamen either. Based on the records of the number of students studying at the Faculty of Arts, however, it is possible to at least establish the maximum number of students who could have taken a course in English. During the academic year 1878-9, the year Barend Sijmons began teaching English and the High German languages at the University, a total of eight students, out of 183, were enrolled in the Faculty of Arts. Three of them were first-year students, although the Album Studiosorum only records one new student; two of them were second years, another two were fourth-years, and one was one fifth-year student. There were no students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts for the third time. In the academic year 1879-80, the number of students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts had risen to twenty. However, most of the students in the Faculty of Arts were not full-time students; in this academic year, most students took two or three courses, and others took four or just one; only four students were enrolled for full tuition.
Staff
Jan Beckering Vinckers was born in the town of Winschoten in the province of Groningen, on 24 October 1821 and was sixty-four years old when he accepted his position as Professor of English at the University in 1886. In his inaugural lecture, he described himself as being 'on the wrong side of sixty'. Before he was appointed as a professor in Groningen, he had worked as a teacher from the age of eighteen. Much of his leisure time he devoted to his own studies, and he was awarded the title of Doctor of Dutch Letters honoris causa by the University of Utrecht in 1879. Some have called him the 'father of comparative language studies' in the Netherlands. The title of his inaugural lecture was Over de behoefte aan en 't nut van Meer Wetenschappelijke Opleiding voor de beoefenaars der Engelsche Taal- en Letterkunde hier te lande (About the need for and the usefulness of more scientific education for the practitioners of English linguistics and literature). After occupying his chair for six years, he died in Groningen on 19 December 1891 at the age of seventy.
Karl Daniel Bülbring was born in Vörden, Germany, on 24 July 1863. After Prof. Beckering Vinckers died in 1891, the English department was without a professor until Karl Daniel Bülbring was inaugurated in 1893. The title of his inaugural lecture was Wege und Ziele der Englischen Philologie (Ways and Goals of English Philology). Bülbring made significant contributions to the study of language acquisition. He later left the University of Groningen to accept a professorship at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany, where he died on 22 March 1917.
Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern was born on 24 January 1867 in Leiden. Initially, a man named Cornelis Stoffel was supposed to succeed Prof. Bülbring in 1900, but Stoffel declined for reasons of health. It was therefore later decided that Johan Kern should be the next Professor of English. Prof. Kern died on 19 December 1933 in Leiden, after having taken up a professorship there in 1924.
Curriculum
These changes in staff were also accompanied by changes in the curriculum. The courses that were taught, to some extent, reflect the professors' affinities, which some have made apparent in their inaugural lectures. Prof. Beckering Vinckers stressed the importance of knowing about the historical development of the English language, and he taught a course on the history of the English language every year until his death. In this period there was a lack of attention to contemporary literature since almost all of the texts originated from the sixteenth century or earlier. Prof. Bülbring mainly focused on the traditional aspects of the study of the English language (i.e. Pre-modern English language and literature).
The courses Prof. Kern taught on Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and Older English dialects reflect the topic of his inaugural lecture in the curriculum. Although recent literature had never been a prominent part of the curriculum, Prof. Kern did teach a course on recent literary history up to 1903. In 1905 A. E. H. Swaen was appointed lector, and the recent literary history came to be the responsibility of the lector, whereas the professor focused on Older English language and literature. This marked the beginning of older language and literature and modern language and literature as separate disciplines within the Department of English.
World War I
The First World War had a great impact on academic life in Groningen. The unemployment rates were high, causing poverty and disruptions. The University itself suffered as well; the Spanish flu and other diseases caused by the war weakened the population, and many students were called home to protect the borders. However, for the Department of English the First World War also had a relatively positive effect in that the interest in the English-speaking world was steadily growing. Probably a greater number of Dutch people than ever before were now looking towards the West for new ideas and when the Great War was over, the prestige of the British Empire and the influence of the USA led to more ELL (English Language Learning) in the Netherlands. With the increased interest in English, the demand for textbooks increased as well, especially in the field of business and trade. Between 1900 and 1920, a flood of new commercial and technical textbook materials was published.
Despite the fact that many students had to leave Groningen in order to protect the country, the number of students did not drop drastically. The only noticeable effect was that from time to time, some students were absent for several months.
In 1914 there were ten professors and three lectors at the faculty. For many of the lectors, English was not their primary subject. In Groningen, and not just in Dutch language studies, a very close connection existed between language studies and literary studies. The professors who taught language and literature were often first and foremost philologists, and literature was only a secondary concern. One of them was Dr J. H. Kern, rector magnificus from 1913-14, Professor Ordinarius and lector of Anglo-Saxon, English Language and Literature, Sanskrit, and Slavic languages. Even though the number of students did not decrease substantially, the prospects at the end of the War were not positive according to some. The rector magnificus of 1919 said in his rectorial speech: 'will the History of the fourth century of our University, which started in 1914, ever be written? How desperately we wish and hope, we do not dare to expect it'. Even though the war was over, he still expected civil wars and other conflicts.
1918-39: Between the Wars
The period between the two World Wars introduced many changes to the Department of English; student numbers increased after World War I, but started to decline not long after that, the University of Groningen no longer held a monopoly on modern languages, and various professors went to the University of Amsterdam. However, in this period international relations became increasingly important and an institute was founded to provide better opportunities for students of English to study abroad.
The languages that were taught in the interbellum period were: Dutch, German, Frisian, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Old Germanic, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Babylonian-Assyrian. Since the faculty was so diverse, most professors hardly had any staff. They therefore had much influence on the courses and structure of their respective departments. There was a Philological-Historical Institute, located near the Academy Building, which consisted of a few classrooms and a reasonably extensive library. Whereas the percentage of female students, around fifty percent, remained steady during the interbellum period, the number of students doing a PhD in English each year varied from none to four (in 1926).
In this period, the staff of the Department of English consisted of three members. The first was Prof. Pieter Nicolaas Ubbo Harting, who was appointed chair of the Department at 17 November 1924 as the successor of J. H. Kern and later also became secretary of the Faculty of Arts. Harting taught English Language and Literature as well as Sanskrit from 1933 onwards. The proficiency classes were taught by H. Mulder whose research was focused on the psychological aspects of language and grammar. His lectures on phonetics were not only attended by students of English but also by students of other languages. The third staff member was lector John Alexander Falconer, who celebrated his twenty-fifth anniversary at the Department of English in 1938. He taught writing proficiency to first year students as well as the history of English literature in the Shakespearean era. The latter was based on more detailed studies of limited subjects and a literary analysis of important texts. He further studied nineteenth-century historical novels and published a study of Sir Walter Scott in 1932.
World War II
With the advent of the Second World War, the Department of English mainly had to cope with the lingering problem of vacant teaching positions. Whereas the interbellum already witnessed a decline of student numbers, this downward spiral reached a low point during Word War II. Students were soon faced with the crisis of the declaration of loyalty and the question of whether to enlist for forced labour in Germany. Due to the close of the University in early 1942, various students clandestinely took private examinations in order to further their studies under the occupation.
Around the beginning of the Second World War, there were barely twenty students who studied English at the University of Groningen, and during the occupation there were still less than fifty. In fact, Anglicist T. A. Birrell notes that 'there were never more than thirty students altogether, and in some years there was no student intake at all'. Johan Gerritsen, a student of English during the War who later became a Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Groningen, further recounts that his first year in 1939 consisted of two regulars plus one young woman who wanted to study English but whose parents insisted that she should study law, and therefore left English after a certain period. The other regular stopped for health reasons after only a few years. It is difficult to establish student numbers in this period, because especially candidates (i.e. holders of a first degree) did not bother to register until they were prepared to take the doctoraalexamen, which did require registration.
In 1939 the Department of English had three members of staff (a professor, a lector, and a tutor for Present-Day English and Didactics). The professor was the forty-five year old R. W. Zandvoort, who had been appointed two years earlier as the successor of P. N. U. Harting, who had taken up a chair at the University of Amsterdam. Zandvoort was inaugurated on 20 November 1937 with an address on De studie der Engelse Plaatsnamen (The study of English Place names), and taught Old and Middle English, Modern English, as well as English literature up to the time of Shakespeare. As soon as Zandvoort became chair of the Department of English, he was confronted by the problem of finding a lector for the teaching post of modern literature. Whereas this post was occupied by the Scotsman J. A. Falconer MA, who had been appointed lector in 1913, he had lectured increasingly less in the late 1930s due to health complications. In the summer of 1939, when Falconer was finally given sick leave, the curators commissioned Zandvoort to search for a successor. However, he decided to appoint English lectors for a restricted two-year period; it would be up to him to extend it by another two years, as sometimes occurred. In order to recruit new staff members, Zandvoort contacted the Representative of the British Council in Amsterdam, who would inform London, which in turn would advertise the post and make a first selection. After this procedure, Zandvoort would come to London to interview the selected candidates and pick the most suitable applicant.
Curriculum
Whereas the lecture programme contained a certain general structure, the modern literature survey course, as well as Zandvoort's sixteenth-century literature course, was given as a three-year cycle which students could enter whenever they wished to do so. Moreover, the idiom course and the English prose course (covering grammar and analysis) were given to all undergraduates at the same time. A first-year student could take eight or nine classes consisting of both lectures and practical exercises within the department, and general linguistics lectures outside of it, as well as whatever other courses the student was interested in. Three or four of these classes were literature, four were Present-Day English, and the ninth was devoted to Middle English. During this time, Old English was taught in the graduate phase along with other courses in syntax, translation, and literature, as well as didactics for those who aimed at eventually becoming a teacher. However, the emphasis was primarily on self-study and the writing of essays and papers. In the second year, students were supposed to take the Gothic course, and for the second degree they had to include two minor subjects from outside the Department of English.
1945-60: The Post-War Period
Since the 1930s the number of students at the Groningen Faculty of Arts had been declining and due to the War around 1950 almost half of the registered students did not finish their studies. In the case of the classical languages the number of first-year students was even lower than the number of professors. To avoid the abolition of the Faculty of Arts, the Groningse college van curatoren suggested that the academic lectors should become more involved with the teaching of those studying to become high school teachers. The Groningen wethouder also requested the University to collaborate with an M.O. programme (M.O. education). M.O. stands for Middelbaar Onderwijs (High School) and refers to the level of education the prospective teachers were trained to give. However, the opinions on this matter varied among the faculty staff. Part of the staff declared their opposition to the plan: a university's purpose was to educate scientific researchers. The professors of classical languages protested heavily against the idea as they regarded it as the weakening of the monopoly of the gymnasium student's admission to the art studies. The professor of English, R. W. Zandvoort, had an alternative plan for the three-year baccalaureate studies, which would be open to those who were in the possession of a gymnasium diploma or HBS-diploma and which would provide teaching qualifications for the lowest years of the HBS and the mms and for the kweekschool. Nevertheless, the college van curatoren held on to its preference for a university level M.O. education and a number of arts lectors set out to establish a plan.
In 1945, twenty-five students enrolled at the study of English at the University, which was an unprecedented amount. Some of them were returning students who had to postpone their studies due to the occupation measures, others were there because English had become quickly become popular after the Second World War. However, after the growth in the number of enrolments in 1945, they strongly decreased again. The M.O. programme was designed to offer a solution to this problem. From 1958 onward, the Department of English offered a double programme. There was the regular programme which ideally would lead to the kandidaatsexamen after three years, and after two more would lead to the doctoraalexamen. However, most students needed and were encouraged to take more time.
Besides the regular programme there was the M.O. programme, which was traditionally divided into an M.O.-A-part, which involved the control and theoretical knowledge of the modern language, and a M.O.-B-part, which involved the modern linguistics and older linguistics and literature knowledge. The M.O.-A-exam was positioned at the end of the second year, after which the M.O.-B-diploma could be achieved at the end of the fifth year. Later on, the M.O.-A-exam was moved to the end of the third year, as this increased the succession rate. With the coming of the M.O. education, the University now had two type of students, namely those who had a gymnasium high school diploma and knowledgeable about Latin, and those who had a high school diploma that did not include Latin.
Staff
The Department of English had a small staff. There was Prof. R. W. Zandvoort, who was a professor of English Language and Linguistics during the period 1937-1964. Aside from Professor Zandvoort, there was another professor named. J. J. van Helden who educated students in the candidate phase (for the kandidaatsexamen) in phonetics, and the grammar and idioms of English. Zandvoort selected and appointed native speakers for a period of two years, with the possibility of an extension. From 1954 until Zandvoort's retirement in 1964, the University had six of these functionaries. The first was from Ireland, Norman Jeffares, whose arrival the students tensely anticipated. At the beginning of 1946, he was welcomed by the English Students' Club with a special programme which included among others the recital of poetry and the performance of a play. In the summer of 1947, Jeffares organised a one-time exchange with Trinity College Dublin: two Dutch students spend a trimester in Dublin, while two Irish students came to Groningen. Jeffares left in 1948 for Adelaide in Australia and two years later he became professor of English linguistics at the University of Leeds. His successor was Hubert H. Hoskins who stayed at the University during the period of 1949-1952 and was an Anglican priest as well as a lector. Peter Allt became the next native speaker appointed by Professor Zandvoort from 1952 until 1954. He was succeeded by Eric N. W. Mottram who stayed for a period of 4 years (1955-1959). The final functionary appointed during the time period 1945-1960, was Richard L. Drain (1960-1963).
The University Building
After the Second World War, there was an unprecedented growth of the University and the Faculty of Arts. The number of students increased rapidly. While it took almost three centuries to reach a thousand students, the next thousand of them were reached in 1950 and took no more than a quarter of a century. The number of students enrolled kept growing, so that in the study year 1963-1964 there were 5,400 students. Consequently, there was a great need for larger facilities for education and practical scientific practices, which were now getting too small for the number of students.
1960-80: The Hippie Generation
By 1960 the University had recovered from World War II. In the 1950s the student population had grown steadily and in the 1960s a new difficulty presented itself: the baby-boomers arrived at university. With the increase in student numbers, the city of Groningen was faced with a remarkable number of students in need of housing, bikes, and a safe place. At the same time, the government started to increasingly regulate the universities. Programmes were shortened and professors no longer had full control over the student's curricula.
University Reform
In 1969-70 there were management reforms in the Faculty and the departments that were part of the Faculty. These changes to the structure were resisted by both staff and students in the Department of English, but the reform of the system was eventually followed through. Prof. J. Gerritsen from the Department of English became chair of the board for Daily Management at the Faculty of Arts. In this same year they were still struggling to hire enough staff members in order to run the Faculty.
The Department of English changed in this period into the research group English Language and Linguistics. Many of the problems with which they were concerned were related to who could or could not be a part of this particular group. The group was ruled by the group board. This board consisted of professors, lectors, scientific employees, non-academic employees, and students. Only students who were a member of the group could be on the board. Students became a part of the group through their research. This is due to the difference in doing research in different disciplines; in the discipline of sciences, for instance physics, it was much easier to be involved in group research, because even first-year students were stimulated to participate in the research of their teachers, whereas this was not at all the case for those who studied arts as a discipline, among which were the students of English.
Student Body
Overall the number of students starting the academic programme of English was low. In the academic year 1960-1, for instance, four men and five women started the study. Numbers fluctuated until 1972 when, due to the aforementioned Law of Higher Education which changed high school education, many more students were admitted to the programme. In total there had never been more than sixteen students starting till then, and in 1964-1965 there were only five students who started. In 1968 there were seventy-seven students of English in total. This number kept growing and ten years later the student population of the academic study of English was nearly five times the size it was in 1968.
Staff
The NRC of 3 September 1964 indicates that Prof. R. W. Zandvoort left the University of Groningen in this same year. He had two successors: Dr J. Gerritsen and Dr David Wilkinson. Dr Gerritsen would teach English literature and English linguistics of the Middle Ages. Dr Wilkinson would teach English literature after the Middle Ages as well as American literature. However, though there were always measures that could be taken, like inviting colleagues for guest lectures, in 1969 the Faculty of Arts was generally understaffed. The administrative staff was not proportionate to the number of students, and the number of staff members engaged in research was low, especially for the Department of English. In 1970 there was still no lector for general literature in the Faculty of Arts. Even though, in 1974, there were many students of English and the Faculty was running at full capacity, there would not be a numerus fixus. In 1976 there was still a deficit of teachers, although the problem was solved with some last-minute measures and the guest lectures.
Curriculum
Students of English had to read many plays (as many as twenty Shakespearean plays) and other works of literature, but they were also confronted with linguistics. Some of this would be new to the average student, such as phonetics. First the English student would study Middle English, and read Chaucer for instance, and later Old English. At this time linguistics was not treated extensively, partly because of a lack of knowledge but also because of a lack of interest. The ideas of Noam Chomsky, for instance, were not treated at all. The study of Middle English was focused on tonal changes—the students were taught to differentiate between five dialects in Middle English.
1980-2000: A New Study System and a New Building
After the M.O. programme of the 60s and the Mammoetwet in the 70s, the university system changed again in the 80s. In 1982 the Two Phase Structure was introduced. And that was not the only change for the Department of English, they also once again moved to a new building, the Harmonie.
Two Phase Structure
The two phase structure brought with it many changes to the programme. The amount of years a student was allowed to take was once again shortened, this time from five to four years. The first phase was the propedeuse phase, this was only one year. After this year students could either move on to the doctoraal phase or move to a second phase of a different programme. Because of this new structure a new type of student emerged. Prospective students could now choose the best combinations of propedeuse and doctoraal. As a result the first year of the English programme would now have between a hundred and two hundred students, many of whom would move on to other programmes, and only twenty to thirty students who would move on to the English doctoraal phase. Some doctoraal phases, such as Communication Studies, required students to study English for a year because it was a good preparation for the rest of the classes. A secondary effect of this disjoint between first and second phase students was that lectors now had to work with very large groups in the propedeuse phase. A side effect of this was that there were no rooms large enough in the Alphagebouw to house all the first-year students. This was especially evident in the language practice rooms. Not only did the length of the programme change, but so did the classes that were taught. There were fewer mandatory classes and students had more freedom to choose their own direction, within limits. The propedeuse year had mostly mandatory classes, which enabled that all students could begin their doctoraal studies with a sound base.
The New Millennium
The Department of English underwent several significant changes in the new millennium. From a government-mandated name change that reflected the emphasis on culture in language studies, to the European switch to the Bachelor-Master structure and all the shifts in the educational landscape that followed from it, the twenty-first century has been an eventful one for the Department so far.
Structural changes
In 2000 the name of the degree programme was changed from "English Language and Literature" to "English Language and Culture", reflecting an emphasis on the broader cultural context of language and literature. The Dutch government had mandated this name change for all "Language and Literature" departments in The Netherlands. Unfortunately, 2002 marked the end of the Translating specialisation programme. This programme, which was not just for students of English but for students of other languages as well, was canceled due to budget cuts. The programme, which had only existed for a year and a half when its cancellation was announced in 2000, was considered unprofitable by the Faculty Board. Petitions, discussions and two letters sent by Geart van der Meer to the Board were unsuccessful.
In 2008 a new specialisation programme was introduced for the English Language and Culture Master: Writing, Editing and Mediating (WEM). This programme was developed partly because the Bachelor-Master system meant that the Department now had to make an effort to convince students who had earned their Bachelors degree to stay in Groningen for their Masters. Whereas under the old system students were 'kept' at the University for four years, now there was an increased mobility between university cities and universities had to 'sell' their Masters degrees to prospective students. WEM was developed to satisfy demands for a socially and professionally relevant degree, one that prepares students for jobs as editors, translators or other such professions. The programme resulted in part from talks with alumni about what skills English graduates are supposed to possess. In 2010, WEM changed from a 60 EC programme to a 90 EC one. This was not to last, however, as in 2013-2014 the 90 EC Master English Literature and Culture was replaced by the 60 EC Master Linguistics and the 60 EC Master Literature. This change was mandated nationally in order to help the many language programmes that were struggling to finance 90 EC programmes. Now, all language students would get a degree in Literature or Linguistics, with specialisations in their chosen languages. WEM is now a specialisation within the Literature Masters programme.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu