November 2025 – Placemaking

28.11.202524.01.2026

Making a Difference

We all seek to make a difference in this world. Making a difference provides purpose to our lives. It is the sense of our becoming. We teach by making a difference. We teach how to make a difference. Difference makes the world go around. We do not want to live in an amorphously equal world, in which we cannot differentiate between you and me and between this and that. Self-evidently, we seek a more just and equal world, but this does not imply that we seek a world without differences; it only implies that, irrespective of the differences, we seek equal rights for these differences and a recognition of these differences. If we need to undergo a medical operation, it does make a difference if a surgeon is educated as a surgeon or as a car mechanic. The other way around, if we need to get our car repaired, we would probably prefer the car mechanic and not the surgeon to do the job. Of course, both professions are highly respected and needed, but they are different. Not every teacher is a great and inspiring teacher. Others might be good listeners and coaches, or boring but intellectually challenging. Not every student has the same talents. Some might become great surgeons, others might become great mechanics. They are not equal, and their distinctions are apparent and can be assessed. Not to disqualify or devalue anybody, but to acknowledge differences and to ensure that they all find their own place and role and to stimulate them to further develop their specific talents.

Nowadays, we note that at university some call for getting rid of testing and grades, getting rid of distinctions (judicia), and assume that specific qualifications, competences and experiences do not make a difference. Their slogan is: ‘everyone professor !!’. But like in the case of a medical treatment, we surely are happy if that treatment is conducted by a qualified person, and not by anyone. Although there are good reasons for critical reflection on our didactic models and ways of coaching our students and PhD candidates, this call and this slogan are rather unnuanced and partly contradictory and counterproductive. As e.g. Noel de Miranda recently noted, the ‘everyone professor’ movement touches on key issues such as responsibility, supervising skills, mentorship, and training. Given the pivotal role of supervision quality during the challenging journey of a PhD project, the Everyone Professor initiative, and particularly the Right to Promote, cannot be universally and equally applied to ‘everyone’. One needs to differentiate. We need to make a difference!

Not all faculty members, whether Assistant or Associate Professors or also Full Professors, are, in the same way, suited to provide the level of guidance necessary for a successful PhD experience. Extending the Right to Promote must therefore include a thorough evaluation of supervisory capabilities, along with provisions for training and mentorship. I do not know of University Professors who do not regularly make use of these opportunities for critical (self-)reflection, training and further development of their supervising skills. A general accusation against professors of being poor supervisors or even abusing their position does no justice to reality, even if, in some exceptional cases, it might be justified. We should, therefore, avoid the uncritical use of these populist slogans. A good, empathic advice to or a critical probe of a PhD student is not, by definition, an offence or an abuse of power. Also, the praise and stimulation of outstanding work are not by definition unjustified. On the contrary, this is a crucial element of good supervision.

In that sense, I have always regretted every loss of opportunities to make these kinds of motivating distinctions, and I am proud of all my PhD students who were positively assessed by the independent experts in the ‘manuscript committee’ and also successfully defended their PhD thesis in the face of a large panel of ‘opponents’. It was all equally well deserved! Of course, some of these PhD students received even bigger praise and stimulation for their further career by being granted the judicium ‘Cum Laude‘ for their performance after a special cum-laude committee of independent experts assessed the PhD thesis as ranking in the top 10% of all PhD-Theses. These kinds of assessment procedures are commonly thoroughly set up and comprise all kinds of rigorous checks and balances. Making a difference in our teaching and supervision can lead to these great achievements. Differences in qualification and experience, as well as in the responsibilities of supervisors in this process, deserve to be taken into account. No, not everybody can be a professor, and there are many differences between professors. But even with the best supervisors, it is, of course, foremost the achievement of the PhD candidate which deserves the praise.

The same is true for student qualification and the respective judicia. They are not disqualifications but qualifications and important stimuli and encouragements for further development and differentiation in the positive sense of the word. Yes, we want to make a (positive) difference!! We need to make a difference if we want to be good teachers and help students to make a difference in the world, as also Gene, E. Hall, Linda F. Quinn and Donna M. Gollnick assert in their seminal Introduction to teaching: making a difference in student learning (2025 4th edn.).

Given these insights, it made me extra proud when my daughter, Michèle Ernste, was honoured with a Master’s Thesis prize, which was handed to her by the Rector on the occasion of the Dies Academicus of the University of Basel in Switzerland on November 28, 2025. That makes a difference, and we should take every opportunity to celebrate the differences out of which our world is constituted. We do want to make a difference!

References:

Hall, G.E., Quinn, L.F. & Gollnick, D.M. (2025 4th edn.) Introduction to teaching: making a difference in student learning. Sage, London.
Stanford Teaching Commons (n.d.) Growth Mindset and Enhanced Learning: https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/teaching-guides/foundations-course-design/learning-activities/growth-mindset-and-enhanced-learning
Hattie, J.A.C. (2003) Teachers make a difference: What is the research evidence? Paper
presented at the Building Teacher Quality: What does the research tell us ACER Research Conference,
Melbourne, Australia. http://research.acer.edu.au/research_conference_2003/4/

24.11.202523.12.2025

PhD Defence by Veronica Pastorino

On Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, Veronica Pastorino successfully defended her PhD Thesis entitled: “Spatial Citizenship. Understanding the challenges and redefinitions of contemporary social cohesion through the analysis of the geographies of post-migrant contentious politics” (click on cover page to download full text). Through this defence, she did not just earn the PhD title from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, but also from the University of Bologna, as part of the Double Degree Programme between both Universities.

The long title of this PhD thesis reflects the ambitious and complex setup of the underlying PhD research, which might need some clarification:

The PhD Thesis focuses on how second-generation youngsters with a migration background, also called ‘migrants’ descendants’, gain citizenship in their new home country. Following the seminal work of the Citizenship scholar Engin Isin, Veronica suggests that this is much more than just a formality. It is not so much related to their judicial status, although,that is of course also part of it, but more related to becoming a full-fledged member of the host society and community, as well as to how others recognise them as such. It is much more a multiscalar ‘practice’ and a ‘process’. Citizenship emerges out of what political actors and ‘citizens’ do… This already makes it clear that it is not just an issue of nationality or of the nation-state, but also of the local and regional communities in which they are active. This brings in the dimension of space (or place). Identification with and belonging to a specific place can occur at different spatial scale levels. The way one might gain this kind of ‘citizenship’ can also vary from one place to another.

Veronica investigated the processes of how these youngsters gain citizenship in their new home surroundings in two different countries, Germany and Italy. In both countries, she looked at specific social movements, or one could roughly also say: specific ‘NGO’s’, which intend to support these youngsters in gaining citizenship. These social movements in both countries operate on a national as well as on a regional/local level, reflecting also the different spatial scale levels of identification, belonging and (social) cohesion.

To conceptualise the complex spatiality of these processes, Veronica adopts and adapts the triad coined by Henri Lefebvre comprising Perceived Space (the more material and physical characteristics of space), Conceived Space (the conceptual and mental transposition of space) and Lived Space (the embodied and personally experienced aspects of space).

So Veronica tried to grasp the complexity of gaining citizenship based on individual and social actions, as well as on the individual and collective activities of these different social movements operating in different national and societal and political contexts.

Gaining citizenship is not an easy thing, and goes along with resistance and conflict and therefore can be described as a real ‘struggle’. This also demands critical reflection on how this actually takes place and might be improved. If it utterly looks as if it occurs smoothly and peacefully, there would be no reason to seek alternative ways of dealing with it, even though the underlying problems might still be there. Veronica, therefore, also concludes that some degree of irritation and conflict is actually needed to make critical reflection on these processes and ‘learning’ from errors effective.

In this way, her research attempts to contribute to societal and political debates as well as to scientific debates in the fields of European Postmigration Studies, Social Movement Studies and Citizenship Studies by adding a critical spatial lens to it.

12.11.202520.11.2025

PhD Defence by Joren Jacobs

The Netherlands are renowned because of their Spatial Planning and their institutionalised System of Spatial Planning. Something many Spatial Planners in the Netherlands are very proud of. This does not make them the most critical or progressive branch in Dutch governance. On the other hand, in the last decade, the actual practice of spatial planning in the Netherlands has changed quite a bit. Under the influence of the changing political climate, austerity programmes in the disguise of decentralisation to provincial and municipal levels of governance, Spatial Planning was increasingly marginalised and suffering from a lack of resources and of effective instruments. In practice, Spatial Planners were struggling to find new ways and alternative modes to ‘do’ Spatial Planning. One might say that this enforced a certain dynamics or ‘progressiveness’ in Spatial planning. In an earlier PhD thesis I supervised on ‘informality in Spatial Planning’ and in another blogpost on the ‘Culture of Spatial Planning’, this was also addressed.

In this respect, it is refreshing to view Spatial Planning and its dynamics from a totally different perspective, in which not only the spatial setting and the object of spatial planning are problematised but also the practice and institutional setting, as well as the self-awareness and ‘identity’ of Spatial Planning itself are rethought.

This is exactly what Dr Joren Jacobs did in his PhD Thesis on Cross-border Spatial Planning in World Society. A systems-theoretical perspective (Click on the Image of the Cover to download the full text).
While strictly sticking to the System Theoretic perspective of Niklas Luhmann (for a brief introduction in Luhmann’s Systems Theory, see this brief video) Joren shows how a System of Cross-Border Spatial Planning does not easily evolve and needs to deal with the (new) limitations and opportunities of boundaries to be effective while causing the whole System of Spatial Planning to change and adapt and to re-define itself. Looking less at the strategic actions of decision makers or planners but rather at the inherent logics of systemic dynamics and interactions between different subsystems, it shows new avenues of how cross-border landscapes and interactions take shape. This new theoretical conceptualisation of (cross-border) Spatial Planning links nicely to Complexity Theories and Assemblage Theories of Spatial Planning, even though in specific aspects it is also radically different.

On Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, Joren Jacobs, supported by his Paranymphs, Dr Daan Boezeman and Dr Henk-Jan Kooij, successfully defended his PhD thesis before a panel of five distinguished examinors consisting of Prof. Sander Meijerink, Prof. Marc Redepenning, Prof. Angelique Chettiparamb, Prof Raoul Beune and Assoc. Prof. Martijn Duineveld.