
Tannelie Blom retires from FASoS
Tannelie Blom, one of the founding fathers of the European Studies programmes at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and esteemed colleague, is retiring today.
As a token of appreciation for the great work together, all of his colleagues created a special video. You can watch the video here.

Lowered BSA for first-year BA students
Because of the continuing corona situation, Dutch Universities decided to lower the Binding Study Advice (BSA) norm for first-year bachelor students.
FASoS implemented this policy by lowering the BSA norm from 42 to 36 ECTS for students who are registered this academic year (2020-2021) as a first-year student for the bachelor programme European Studies, Arts and Culture or Digital Society (the bachelor programme Global Studies does not have a BSA).

Warning: increase of phishing mails
UM is experiencing an increase in phishing attempts last week. UM’s Security Operations Center (UM-SOC) has investigated these phishing mails and issues a warning for all of us.
Most phishing mails try to trick you into revealing your password right away e.g. through a malicious link to a fake login-screen.
Recent phishing campaigns however use new tricks to gain your trust.

Read the Observant online
Due to the corona crisis, we cannot enjoy our paper version of the Observant anymore.
Luckily, here you can find the online version to this week’s Observant.

New column from Anna Harris in Observant on grant deadlines
The piece muses on the NWO’s recent decision not to extend proposal application deadlines due to the lockdown, and whether this is the “best solution for science”.
You can read the column here.

Aline Sierp interviewed by Observant
Aline Sierp has been interviewed by Observant about her daily life during the second wave of the coronavirus.
You can read the interview here.

Grants from UFL/SWOL
The University Fund Limburg/SWOL awards subsidies to projects of UM staff and students.
You can receive grants for (research) projects, activities and events. The deadline for applications for staff members is 6 February. The deadline for applications for students is 26 February.
More information can be found via this link.

Online PhD Defence Nantke Pecht, on Wednesday 27 January
Nantke Pecht will defend her PhD dissertation “Language Contact in a Mining Community. A Study of Variation in Personal Pronouns and Progressive Aspect in Cité Duits” on Wednesday 27 January at 10.00. Due to the corona regulations, the defence will take place online.
Nantke’s supervisors are Prof. Dr. Leonie Cornips and Prof. Dr. Peter Auer (Freiburg).

MaastrichtForClimate launches sustainability guide
MaastrichtForClimate has launched a sustainability guide website.
This guide contains all you need to know on how to reduce your environmental impact a little bit everyday. Raising awareness on your daily food, retail, waste and hygiene habits and telling you how to be more sustainable in Maastricht.

45th anniversary UM logo available
This year, the university celebrates its 45th anniversary. For this reason, a lustrum version of the UM logo has been created. The lustrum logo will be used on a small scale only and limited to a number of resources.