Heleen Mees and Arnoud Boot to open academic year of economics and business in Groningen

On Thursday 30 September, columnist Heleen Mees and professor Arnoud Boot will open the new academic year of the Faculty of Economics and Business with lectures about China and the financial markets. In addition to Heleen Mees’ lecture about China and professor Boot’s about the financial market, three awards will be presented: lecturer of the year, freshman of the year and the FEB-EBF thesis award. The opening will take place in room 0015 of the Kapteynborg (building J) on the Zernike complex and starts at 15:30 hours. Language of communication will be English.

Every year, students, staff and guests of the Faculty of Economics and Business celebrate the opening of the new academic year. The faculty organises this event together with the students of the faculty association EBF. Chairman will be Michael Koetter, professor at the faculty and expert in the field of financial economics.

The opening also forms part of the first day of the two-day EBF congress with the theme The (R)evolution of Powers.

Awards

For the election of the Lecturer of Year, every academic year the teachers with the highest scores on their evaluations are nominated by students. A jury consisting of student-representatives of the faculty eventually chooses the winner.

The FEB-EBF Thesis Award will go to the best Master’s thesis of the past academic year.

FEB encourages its students to achieve the best possible results in their studies and therefore awards the Freshman of the Year Award to the best first-year student. After every semester, the freshmen rankings publish (on student number) the results of all first-year students and compare them to those of their fellow students in the same programme. The overall winner is chosen from the best students of all nine bachelor programmes and he/she will receive the Freshman of the Year Award. 

Boot and Mees

The lectures of this year’s opening of the faculty’s academic year are held by Arnoud Boot and Heleen Mees.

Professor Arnoud W.A. Boot is Professor of Corporate Finance and Financial Markets at the University of Amsterdam and Director of the AmsterdamCenter for Law & Economics (ACLE). He is a member of the SER and the Bank Council of the Dutch Central Bank (DNB). He is also advisor to the Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden), Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London and at the Davidson Institute of the University of Michigan. The title of his lecture is: 'Footloose corporations – Have financial marketsdestabilized firms?'

 

Heleen Mees, MSc , FEB graduate, is an economist, lawyer and columnist. Since 2000 she has been living in New York, where she works as an advisor on EU affairs. As well as her column in NRC Handelsblad, Mees has published in international newspapers such as The International Herald Tribune, Le Monde, Financial Times and Japan Times. In April 2009 her second book, ‘Between Greed And Desire - The World Between Wall Street And Main Street’, was published. Her PhD is on ‘The power of China’, which is also the title of her lecture on 30 September.

Opening Academic Year FEB – EBF programme

15.30h Welcome

16.00h Opening by professor Michael Koetter. Welcome by EBF Chair Joram Kok and by professor Elmer Sterken

16.10h Heleen Mees, MSc

16.45h Presentation of the awards by associate dean Janka Stoker:

• FEB Freshman of the Year award 
• EBF Thesis of the Year award
• FEB Lecturer of the Year award

16.55h Professor Arnoud W.A. Boot

17.30h Drinks and opening of exhibition 'Antidotes from the Dismal Science'

Location: Kapteynborg (Building J), room 5419.0015, Landleven 12, 9747 AD Groningen

 

Note for the press

For more information: Nienke Bastiaans, communicatie.feb rug.nl, Tel. 050 363 3741.