Award 500 UvA graduates a PhD? Doctoral Chairperson Peter Van Emde Boas did it
For over 30 years, emeritus professor of computer science Peter van Emde Boas has served as UvA’s doctoral chairperson. On Wednesday, he finalized his 500th doctoral conferral with a firm hammer blow. “For the 500th time, I did not manage to smash the hammer.”
“The PhD is the most important product of the university, so when someone obtains their doctorate, it’s important to attend.” Peter Van Emde Boas (1945), professor emeritus of computer science, is adamant about this. Last Wednesday afternoon, April 24th, he finalized his 500th doctoral conferral in the Agnietenkapel as doctoral chair with the thudding hammer blow for which he is notorious.
The number of PhDs has been recorded since the university’s founding, although diplomas previously just had to be signed by the chairperson, making an exact count difficult. Only in recent years has the system been digital, enabling a more accurate count.
Still, awarding the 500th PhD as chairperson is a special moment, according to the Beadle’s Office. That is why the PhD candidate also pays attention to it during the conferral of the doctoral degree. “This is the 22,338th doctorate at the UvA. So that means that Van Emde Boas has chaired more than two percent of all the PhDs ever conferred by the UvA.”
This came as no surprise to Van Emde Boas. After all, he has kept track of how many PhDs he has conferred himself. “For the 500th time, I failed to smash the hammer,” is how the professor emeritus summed up that milestone during drinks afterwards.
Unexpected presidency
When a PhD was conferred in the 1960s when Van Emde Boas was studying mathematics at the UvA, the entire institute joined in. Everyone went to the doctoral defense. Van Emde Boas kept up this practice in the 1980s and 1990s, even when many of his colleagues stopped going due to the increasing number of PhDs and higher workloads.
When the chairperson, the dean of the science faculty, did not show up for a doctoral defense in 1991, Van Emde Boas was “dragged in by the hair.” “You’re always there anyway, so you must know what to do, they told me.” The absent dean thought that was a fine solution. After all, he was always too busy. And so Van Emde Boas unexpectedly wound up chairperson.
On behalf of the rector
Traditionally, the rector magnificus himself chairs the doctoral committee consisting of two or three supervisors and one or two co-supervisors who evaluate the doctoral candidate during the defense. Soon the rector outsourced the role of chairperson to the deans of the faculties, who acted “on behalf of the rector magnificus.” During the ceremony, the chairperson is therefore also addressed as “rector” and wears a simplified version of the rector’s chain.
In the meantime, the role of the doctoral chair is a task that deans are all too happy to outsource. This position fell initially to the department chair or institute directors, but due to the growing number of PhDs, emeritus professors are also often called upon. In the process, chairs who know the content of the PhD subject are sought as much as possible, although this is by no means always successful. Medicine, as the largest supplier of PhDs, has a whole pool of alternating chairs. In mathematics and computer science, Van Emde Boas is the professor in charge of most of the doctoral defenses. For example, he handles almost all the doctoral defenses of the Institute for Computer Science (IvI); the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC); and some doctoral defenses of the Korteweg-de Vries Institute of Mathematics.
Privilege
Van Emde Boas also often asks the PhD candidate a question himself, which is unusual for the chair, and which, incidentally, also falls outside the assessment. Van Emde Boas says: “That stemmed from the fear that the committee members would run out of questions. It felt like my job to keep the discussion going and to have a question ready myself. That gradually became a privilege.”
For this reason, Van Emde Boas also immerses himself in the doctoral defenses he chairs, something that marks him as chairperson. He often comes to the Beadle’s Office asking for candidates’ dissertations. “That is immediately one of my recurring complaints. In the 30-plus years that I have been chairperson, the UvA has never succeeded in ensuring that I automatically receive a copy. I always have to chase after it.”
Gavel
Even after his retirement in 2009, Van Emde Boas continued in the role of committee chair. After the ceremony, he was presented with his own gavel with an inscription for his years of dedication. “You don’t have to set that out for me anymore,” the professor says. After all, the 500th doctoral conferral does not mean the end of Van Emde Boas’ chairpersonship. “I will continue as long as I am able. In May, I already have six PhDs lined up, so we will continue diligently.”
