I mainly tell them how not to do it! 

Interview: Maaike Dukker-’t Hart 
 
‘When I was just in education, I did exactly what I did at Rijkwaterstaat (Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management) and the Province of Noord-Brabant too… Making mistakes! I overloaded myself with revision work, due to lots of open-ended questions and difficult sums, all of which I also weighed differently in the assessment. But you learn from mistakes. What I never do again is use someone else's presentation in my class. I sometimes did that in the beginning, out of necessity, but I’ve found that this is a no-go. It’s not your own story. Stop. Don’t do that again.' 
 
A miracle 
'If I don’t know something, I say so. So I also said very honestly to my students, guys, I don’t know now, next week I'll come back to it. And then I had another week to prepare better. I put in a lot of extra hours.' As honest as he is with students, he is also honest in this interview. About his work at Rijkswaterstaat and the Province of Noord-Brabant, he says, 'so much can go wrong that a miracle almost has to happen for it to end well...' And that miracle didn't happen. It makes him laugh now. ‘It hasn’t all been for nothing though; I now share those failures with my students, so I mainly tell them how not to do it!'  
 
Bouncing in all directions 
'I just wasn't organising my work well enough,' he admits flatly. 'As a project manager, you have to provide clarity and I wasn't doing that. I was bouncing in all directions. Debbie (Dermout, academy director, eds.) always says, you just have ADHD. I ended up not getting away with it either and my boss at the province said, say Rien, why not start looking around a bit? He had given a guest lecture at NHTV and came back with a vacancy. Might this be something for you? He couldn’t have been any clearer!'  
 
Drama 
'I had huge doubts,' says Rien, 'ever since my secondary school days I’ve always sworn that I would never become a teacher! What I did to my teachers, I really didn't want to go through that myself. Havo  was a real drama for me to begin with. I failed the languages, and when I heard that, I had already started studying at HTS (institute of technology). I had to go back to 5 havo! Can you imagine? The second time I managed to pass cum laude. No idea how, so that actually was a miracle,' laughs Rien.  
 
Bridge-builder 
‘After my Civil Engineering studies I started working in the early 1980s as a sewerage consultant at Rijkswaterstaat. Oh no wait, I went into military service first. I was a bridge-builder with the Pontonplaatbrug Compagnie and we did military drills on the border near East Germany. Learned a lot from it, they should reintroduce military service...' he says as he turns to ask colleague Don’s (Guikink, research manager, eds.) opinion in passing. Compulsory community service it should be then, for everyone, they quickly agree together. 
 
Social involvement  
So, a bridge-builder. Literally, or figuratively too? ‘Not really,’ says Rien, ‘although, in combining disciplines, I am. Until I worked here, I was only concerned with technology. In the Built Environment study programme, it is also or specifically about behaviour, the psychology behind it. That combination makes it fascinating. How does it really work, in people's heads. If you choose BUas, you really have to be socially involved. If you are only interested in engineering, you would be better off choosing Civil Engineering.’ 
 
Fish in the water  
So this compulsory community service is not such a bad idea? 'Exactly', says Rien, 'very good for broadening the mind, because honestly, it's precisely that combination of disciplines that makes me feel like a fish in water at BUas.' Reminds me of the orca I got from colleague Sybren Hogewerf. It has become a tradition within our academy, the orca, a kind of challenge trophy, meant to compliment someone. Trainers of orcas in America ignore bad behaviour, they reward good behaviour. That's behind it, see, I read that here...' Snaps his laptop shut, 'so next year I may hand it over to a colleague. Just put in a call for some help from our alumni, who do they think should join this illustrious orca company and why?' 
 
Enthusiastic high fives 
Okay Rien, you talk around the subject smoothly, but why did you get that orca? 'Because I'm so enthusiastic!' Grin. 'And it was exciting, that presentation! Sybren built his story nicely. Age says nothing about giving enthusiastic high fives, I heard him say. Then I knew, that's me!' 
 
Rien would like to make another call on graduates. 'Since the blunder with the borrowed presentation, I always design my classes so that they are really my own. With lots of real-life stories and, of course, my own stories. Sometimes those are no longer that relevant, so I would like to ask alumni to think about whether they have a story worth telling. In a guest lecture or maybe you're also thinking about teaching? Contribute to our research? I would love to hear from you! Let me know and drop me a line at smalheer.m@buas.nl.