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- BUas 60 years!
 
# 60 Years of Pioneering beyond Borders 1976-1986

 

More than a decade after its founding in 1966, NWIT is moving to a new home in Breda. The building on Sibeliuslaan sits right on the edge of the Mastbos forest – a significant step up from its previous addresses on Etnastraat, Haagweg and Karnemelkstraat.

 

 

 

 

 

 In 1978, the Wokkel is installed in front of the building. Anyone who studied on Sibeliuslaan will surely recognise it. Nico Rolsma’s spiral-shaped artwork now stands in front of the convent on the BUas campus. If you look closely (and if you’re familiar with the logo of the Nederlands Wetenschappelijk Instituut voor Toerisme ;) you’ll see the letters NWIT. The sculpture soon becomes known as ‘the Wokkel’ and every new class is invariably photographed there; your student life can only really begin once you’ve crawled through the Wokkel.

Creative Business doesn’t exist yet, but a school newspaper is a time-honoured tradition and, as you might have guessed, it’s called ‘de Wokkel’. Made by students, for students. Much like the student cabaret that takes to the stage for the first time in 1978. The lecturers follow suit in 1981, celebrating NWIT’s 15th anniversary with their ‘Dievenbal’. And there’s plenty more theatre to come: Tierelier, Ad Rem, Eigen Wijs, Kondwiet Staat, NHTV Theatre. The list ends with The Improv Theatre Club, one of the many BUas Clubs now thriving on our campus.

Just a quick word about Kondwiet Staat, or rather: Life in the Kondwiet Staat. The name of this 1980s cabaret group is a playful nod to the ‘conduite state’ – a physical, pale yellow, duplicated booklet in which students themselves note down their exam results (which are displayed publicly and by name on the noticeboard in the corridor – yes, really!) so they can work out whether they’re still on track for that dream job in tourism.

So how do you go about finding that dream job, in an era without LinkedIn or job sites? In 1982, the Stichting Banensignalering (SBS) produces the first newsletter featuring job vacancies for graduates. It’s a matter of cutting, pasting and copying, and the work is done by students who, in their leisure time, scour the newspapers and trade journals in the library on Sibeliuslaan – the very spot where, years later, our hotel school’s training company restaurant, Sibelicious, is launched!

Our training companies, another new phenomenon in the world of higher education, date back to 1985. That’s the year NWIT launches an ‘in-house’ travel agency run entirely by students – essentially the forerunner of Newways. It was quite a challenge back then, as during exam weeks or after nights out, the travel agents on duty were sometimes hard to find.

And how are things going in the meantime at VAT on Stappegoorweg in Tilburg? They are also making significant progress there with a new study programme – in collaboration with the University of Groningen. In 1974, a three-year programme is launched to train traffic enforcement officers (verkeersschouten in Dutch).

Traffic enforcement officers? That’s right, a new role in the Netherlands since 1972. A traffic enforcement officer is a kind of public prosecutor, dealing exclusively with traffic offences; the role falls under the Public Prosecution Service. In 1982, the last traffic prosecutors graduate from VAT – after that, the programme ceases to exist. Apparently, there were enough traffic prosecutors by then, and the role has since been abolished altogether.

Also new at VAT during this period are the Ruimtelijke ordening en planologie (Spatial Planning) degree programme (from 1978) and a Logistics degree programme (from 1980). With the arrival of these new areas of study, alongside Verkeerskunde (Traffic Engineering), the foundations are in place for what would later become the portfolio of the Academy for Built Environment & Logistics, known to many as the Academie voor Stedenbouw, Logistiek en Mobiliteit (SLM).

Back to NWIT. Although a study programme for National Guides is set up in 1986 – as always, in close collaboration with the profesional field – NWIT is increasingly setting its sights on the wider world.

In 1987, we take part as a university of applied sciences in an international conference for tourism students for the first time – that year held in Heilbronn. The following year, we host the conference ourselves, bringing together students from various European countries in Breda to discuss the theme of tourism and the environment. ’That conference was a key catalyst for the development of our international education programmes, the first exchanges and further collaboration between various European partners,’ says Marlie van Dun, herself a graduate of NWIT and later Director of International Affairs at our university of applied sciences.

Actually, thinking internationally has been in our DNA right from the start. As early as 1971, eight Indonesian managers came to Breda to take a course at NWIT, learning how to put their country on the map as a tourist destination.

In 1987, the stories of NWIT and VAT come together. On 1 August of that year, they merge – though not yet physically – under the name Nationale hogeschool voor toerisme en verkeer, soon abbreviated to NHTV. Together, they have some 1,400 students. The reason? The study programmes and subject areas are very much related. But above all: Minister Deetman has set in motion a process of upscaling in education. And also: both merger partners want to use this coming-together to strengthen the national character of their programmes.

So the search for crossovers was there from early on. Upscaling and ‘national’ have long since disappeared from our vocabulary 😉

 

 

 

    ![De wokkel met studenten uit 1978](https://www.buas.nl/sites/default/files/styles/1_1_groot_wysiwyg/public/2026-05/wokkel-met-studenten.jpg?h=97b6e7b5&itok=m6UOiakT) 

 

 

 

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