A Feather in Your Cap: the feather is a prize passed on from one UAntwerp colleague to another in recognition of their efforts or achievements. This time, Werner Coppieters (Product Development Department) passes the feather on to Michel Corthaut (Interior Architecture Department).
Hello, Michel. You deserve the feather, and it’s my honour to pass it on to you.
The discipline of interior architecture has carved out a place for itself in the UAntwerp landscape. Thanks in part to your subtle guidance and contributions, as a real driving force, this happened very naturally.
It’s been a rocky ride for the Interior Architecture programme: first part of the NHIBS, then the Henry de Velde Institute, HAIR, and later Artesis; sometimes bunched together with architecture, other times going it alone; sometimes a study programme, other times a department within faculties with ever-changing compositions and bosses. The fact that the programme is what it is today is in large part thanks to you.
You started out by delving into the maze of academic educational pedagogy guidelines, while keeping a low profile. Then, together with your colleagues, you went off the beaten path to develop a fresh, realistic approach for the study programme, and you kept at it with increasing personal responsibility. From the front row, I admired how you and Stefan succeeded in convincing the integration committee with a solid plan for the future, supported by various documents and diagrams, but above all with the unwavering conviction – supported by the entire study programme – that this programme has a future at UAntwerp.
With blood, sweat and tears, you and your colleagues submitted a ZER file to the Educational Review Committee that came to assess the situation in Antwerp, and they were hard-pressed to find any faults. And I dare say that’s not as straightforward as it may seem. The programme passed the first updated assessment with flying colours. It certainly helped that you were constantly polishing the structure and identity of the programme whenever you had a moment between assessments and other stressful times.
Over the years, we’ve sat on various committees together, from CIKO to core competence adjustment committees and updated programme assessment committees. I’ve never heard you speak unkindly of anyone. I’ve never seen you push your opinion on others by yelling the loudest. At most, I’d see a raised eyebrow when you didn’t quite agree with someone who was defending their position a bit too passionately. With admirable self-restraint, and often with a touch of humour to defuse the tension, you always managed to explain your own valued view of the matter, briefly but clearly.
As we get older, even though we may not lose our inner fire, a well-deserved retirement awaits us all – including you. Boundaries will always be pushed, lines redrawn. It’s up to future generations to allow the study programme of interior architecture to thrive, taking into account all the rules imposed from outside, but also with new insights that develop from within. They should have no trouble with that, as for so many years, you’ve set a perfect example of how it can be done.
I hope your right eyebrow didn’t go through the roof while reading this. And if it did, I’m looking forward to your response, undoubtedly seasoned with a good dose of humour.
Werner Coppieters
P.S.: Has it been decided yet who’ll be evaluating the individual study programmes next academic year?