UvA 's anniversary to be celebrated on the third Thursday of January
The official UvA birthday date of January 8th, the so-called dies natalis, will be permanently shifted to a date further away from the Christmas recess, starting next calendar year. Next year, the UvA’s 392nd birthday will be celebrated on January 11th, thereafter the UvA will henceforth celebrate its birthday on the third Thursday of January.
This is good news for all those UvA people and invited guests who need to be back in time every year for the UvA anniversary celebration on January 8th: from now on, they will not have to return from their Christmas break earlier or continue to work on preparations for the party during the Christmas break: the date of the celebration will be moved to a later date in January starting in 2024. This coming year it will be January 11th, and starting in 2025, the UvA will always celebrate on the third Thursday of January, starting with Thursday, January 16th, 2025.
Ceremony and tradition
At all Dutch universities, the dies natalis celebration is among the academy's most important annual festivities. It is a celebration with much ceremony and tradition, where professors are traditionally dressed and usually honorary doctorates are awarded. At the UvA, past honorary doctorates have included alderman Floor Wibaut (1928), Queen Wilhelmina (1938), educator Maria Montessori (1950), conductor Bernard Haitink (1990), and composer Louis Andriessen (2018). Next year's honorary doctorates go to NRC journalist Folkert Jensma and Turkish writer Zeynep Tufekci. So they will receive their honorary doctorates on January 11th.
The celebration of the dies natalis on January 8th always followed immediately or shortly after the Christmas holiday period, which, according to a UvA spokesperson, created “several practical and logistical problems” in the preparation and organization. “Among other things, it posed a stumbling block for the availability of special guests such as the honorary professors, and in organizing additional substantive programs. It also made organizing the dress rehearsal and technical rehearsal difficult. It was therefore decided that starting in the year 2025, the dies natalis would be celebrated by default on the third Thursday of January.”
October 15th, 1877
The exact age of the UvA is also sometimes debated. The Athenaeum Illustre, the predecessor of the UvA, was founded on January 8th, 1632. On that day and the day after, the theologian and humanist Gerardus Vossius and the preacher and writer Caspar Barlaeus delivered their first inaugural addresses. Incidentally, the UvA did not yet have the right to award a doctorate at that time, so it was considered more like a college. The UvA did not acquire the right of awarding PhDs until October 15th, 1877. Anyone who wanted to obtain a doctorate until then had to go to Leuven, Harderwijk, or Leiden. So you could also say that next year the UvA will not celebrate its 392nd anniversary, but its 147th.
The oldest university in the Netherlands is Leiden University, founded in 1575 by William of Orange. On February 8th of that year, the citizens of Leiden celebrated the founding of the Netherlands' first university with “a colorful inauguration procession of lifelike gods, weapon-clashing archers, and improvised professors.” Since then, February 8th has been regarded as Leiden's dies natalis, although its celebration has sometimes been shifted there as well.
