The University Council noticed several issues with LISA’s Notebook Program, which resulted in a delayed delivery of high-end laptops to new students recently. ‘We don’t want to discuss the Notebook Program as a whole, since we very much appreciate its existence,’ Dirk Koelewijn of student party DAS stated. ‘But we do have our frustrations, like the short period of a few days students had to order their laptops. And we think the delays in delivery were foreseeable. We’re lucky the situation is mostly resolved with very limited consequences for education.’
No overhaul, but improvement
All things considered, the university council wasn’t steering towards a complete overhaul of the Notebook Program, but towards an improvement of the process. Executive Board vice president Mirjam Bult was happy to hear that. ‘We have the most innovative program in The Netherlands: we can supply our students with high-end laptops at very, very fair price. So it would be bad idea to rethink the entire program; that would lead to older laptop models at a higher price. We should keep this project as good as it is, while trying to improve the process and decrease corona-related risks. We will look into that.’
There are however a few misperceptions about how the process is organised, Bult continued. ‘Once the student has placed an order, communication takes place between supplier and student, not between the UT and the student. We’re not involved in every step of the process. And this year, we had to professionalise the process this year, but we couldn’t start earlier. If we did, we couldn’t have guaranteed the availability of the latest models. It’s a balancing act.’
Unclear timeframe
Still, the council wasn’t completely satisfied with the answers of the Executive Board. While Bult heard that there was only a week delay in the availability of the notebooks compared to last year, to the council’s best knowledge there was a six week difference. ‘We do not doubt your good intentions,’ said Koelewijn. ‘But what I do find worrisome, is that info you receive is different from what we hear from study associations.’
Even after a lively discussion, things remained unclear. Which is why Bult invited the council to reconstruct the situation together with the project group. ‘That is the best way to find the leak. We need this collective intelligence, so we can especially rethink and improve the communication process.’
