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- BUas 60 years!
60 Years of Pioneering beyond Borders. Episode 3: 1986-1996
BUas (and everything that came before) is turning 60! So, we’re diving into the archives to revisit some meaningful moments. In a series of six episodes, we’ll take a journey through six decades of history.
In previous episodes, we traced the roots of BUas right back to the beginning – to NWIT and VAT. In 1987, the stories of these two institutions finally come together. On the first of August that year, they join forces – initially still living apart, split between Breda and Tilburg – under the name Nationale hogeschool voor toerisme en verkeer, or NHTV for short.
Merger
Why this merger? The programmes and disciplines are closely related. More importantly, Minister Deetman has set in motion a process of upscaling in education. Both parties to the merger also aim, through this union, to strengthen the national character of their programmes. So the drive to find crossovers was there from the very start. ‘Upscaling’ and ‘national’? Those words have long since left our vocabulary 😉
1,400 applicants are competing for just 300 places
Talk to alumni from those early NHTV years and you’ll hear the same thing: it was seriously tough! By this point, the degree spans four years, some 1,400 applicants are competing for just 300 places, and nearly half don’t make it through the first year. In Breda, students with a passion for travel have to get to grips with subjects like economics, sociology, computing, statistics, civics and law. Those coming from havo find it tough going – an atheneum background with economics, maths and geography turns out to be a far stronger preparation.
The first step towards offering master’s education comes in 1990, with the launch of the Master in European Tourism Management. A fully English-taught programme, developed in partnership with Madrid, Heilbronn, Chambéry and Bournemouth. This may well be where ‘firmly rooted in Europe’ – with KreativEU as a key priority in our current positioning – first took shape. Either way, it was a landmark moment in making our education truly internation
International
The year 1990 also sees the arrival of our very first truly international classroom. The Bachelor in International Tourism and Management Consultancy (ITMC) welcomes its first international students. It quickly becomes clear, though, that international education is not the same thing as education in English. From our home base in Breda, we begin actively seeking out international graduation projects for our students – projects that bring different cultural contexts into the mix. After all, it is only in this way that students can be genuinely well prepared for an international career.
Eveline Riedé is one of ITMC’s first graduates, being among those who take on just such an international graduation project – and years later she goes on to supervise BUas students herself, in her role at Regio West-Brabant. ‘During my placement in St. Petersburg, I researched the tourism development of the Leningrad Oblast and discovered that a solid organisational foundation was simply nowhere to be found. Without that, it becomes very hard to collaborate and actually get things done. Working together as a region is genuinely valuable. That’s also what I love about BUas – it operates across the world, yet still has its feet firmly planted in Brabant soil.’ (source: Alumni Newsletter June 2020)
Cross-cultural understanding is becoming ever more important. Under the banner of internationalisation@home, our Global Engagement Team – though that name would only be introduced much later – works to put in place everything needed to create a truly international study and working environment.
25th anniversary
In 1991, NHTV celebrates its 25th anniversary with a commemorative book. And who better to write it than students from the Public Relations and Communications specialisation? Known to insiders as Y‑PRV, XYZ is a familiar name in those days. It has nothing to do with generations, and everything to do with fields of study.
X = international
Y = domestic
Z = recreation
Simple as that. But the options are multiplying.
New programmes
The year 1990 sees the launch of a two-year short higher professional education programme (Kort-hbo in Dutch) in Tourism and Recreation, followed in 1991 by a programme training students to become tour managers. NHTV is the first institution in Europe to offer such a programme – developed in close collaboration with the International Association of Tour Managers.
Plenty is also happening within NHTV’s transport and logistics field. In 1993, the ‘Transport and Distribution Management’ programme is launched. With this advanced course, aimed at graduates of higher professional education, NHTV takes a leading role. The programme, lasting just over a year, has been developed in collaboration with Hogeschool Zeeland and the University of Humberside in Hull, where students ultimately graduate with a Master of Science degree.
From the Recreation track (Z), a new programme naturally emerges, initially launched as ‘Leisure Studies’ and later renamed ‘Leisure Management’. The programme focuses entirely on careers within cultural organisations, the sports sector, or the events industry.
Brand-new building
Eight years after the merger, the partner institutions NWIT and VAT finally come together physically at the Mgr. Hopmansstraat location in Breda. The brand-new building is officially opened by the then Minister of Transport and Water Management, Jorritsma. The distinctive structure, with its ‘elbow’ and roofs like ‘pushchairs’ (now the Game Labs), remains part of our campus to this day. It is now called ‘Frontier’, a reference to our pioneering, boundary‑pushing spirit.
The building proves too small almost from the outset, but fortunately we still have the Sibeliuslaan location, which initially houses the short higher professional education programme (Kort-hbo) in Tourism and Recreation and later on the programmes of the Academy for Hotel & Facility. But that comes much later. For now, we are ‘on the Hop’, home to the Transport, Spatial Planning and Logistics sector and the Tourism and Leisure sector.
Next time (after the summer holidays): 1996-2006: A growing international ambition (and recognition to match!
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