Members

Gijs van Oenen - Chair

The Examination Board and its Beruf

Some one hundred years ago, Max Weber wrote Wissenschaft als Beruf: academic life as a profession, as well as a calling. We could say that, in matters of academic education, the Examination Board is the guardian of that Beruf. It is the University Board, or the dean, who confers the grade - bachelor or master. But it is the Examination Board that ‘establishes in an objective and expert way whether a student fulfills the conditions posed by the Course & Examination Regulations concerning the knowledge, understanding, and skills necessary for the acquisition of a grade.’ Apparently, the law isn’t fully comfortable entrusting this mission to the dean. Now of course, the dean shares Weber’s calling, and also possesses expertise, but apparently lacks objectivity. This is because he, or she, also has financial matters to consider, and other inconvenient matters that potentially corrupt the Beruf. The Examination Board here constitutes a countervailing power; it functions, so to speak, as the guardian of the faith. To do this, it can only rely on a modest stack of formal rules and regulations. Yet, isn’t it the letter that kills, while it is the spirit that gives life? (2 Corinthians 3:6) Thus behold the Examination Board’s paradoxical mission: to identify the living Beruf in the lifeless rule.