KU Leuven — Attraction in Leuven

The Materials Engineering department LOVES to do this cute lil thing in March where they celebrate International Women’s Day. Honestly? It's super artificial and performative when you actually look at how they treat women, especially the ones they don't like.

Any woman who speaks up or reports being harassed or treated unfairly is encouraged to talk about it and do exactly nothing. They're super keen on keeping it quiet instead of actually dealing with it because some people's reputations are a lot more important than women.

Also, they'll try to gas light by saying things like, “Oh he didn’t mean it,” or "It's a misunderstanding" or "he had a bad day" or even "that's what we used to go through back then so deal with it" or "this didn't happen to me as a woman so maybe you're making it up?".

The ombuds is biased towards the department so it's totally not neutral at all & they're more interested in covering up for themselves than actually helping.

The administrative heads Hoeyberghs & Dillaert do nothing except ensure nobody else in the department or outside knows about it.

This only helps to make this weird cycle of fear & silence even stronger. Some students said they were scared to report what happened to them because nothing would happen and that's sadly true.

It's designed that way, to belittle and break down all your defences and barriers so that ultimately you have no choice but to accept what's happening.

One time I was walking up the stairs and I overheard this white man(some staff) talking to some woman in the hallway. (I know, it's a really weird coincidence that I heard it at the exact time, which normally doesn't happen at all)

He was all annoyed that a student reported a guy for intimidating her, and he was like, “Why didn’t she come to me first?”

He literally complained she didn't report it to him first so he could solve it "internally". Sorry, but she's not obliged to cover it up to protect your lil old boys club. Your feelings are NOT more important than her problems. It's super selfish and shady. Gross!

Unfortunately, it's not just him.

But do they talk about these things during their Women’s Day slideshow? Um, no.

Also there was this awful experience that one of my classmates (who's an SA survivor and victim) had.

She got this totally threatening email from some professor Seefeldt.

He straight-up accused her of random things she never did and saying bad things about the department, saying that she was making them look bad - all because she was reporting harassment instead of covering it up so nobody outside would know.

Let this sink in: a powerful white male professor threatening and embarrassing a helpless female student because he's worried as hell about his and his friends' reputation instead of the safety of women in his department.

It's super clear his main concern was to protect himself, his friends and ensure these things didn't get out there.

When he was called out he just ran off into the sunset. There was no apology for slandering, untruths or openly threatening one of his students. Nothing. So unprofessional! Do you want to deal with a professor like that?

A white male academic using his power against a woman for exposing something instead of keeping it under wraps & ignoring it? Where have we seen that before?

Remember this when you think about women in STEM fields and the many sad stories of harrassment AND the men who deny them. It's really sad there are so many similar stories of women in universities all around the world.

This is just here at this department. Who knows about the rest and what's...

Every year, universities like this admit far MORE students than the city's student housing supply can feasibly cover or accommodate.

Results? Rising and extremely expensive student housing rent every academic year. Subpar accommodation offered by 🤑 landlords taking advantage of students Increasing urban sprawl as developers build more student accommodation properties outside the city Higher carbon dioxide emissions caused by more students commuting out of town.

Many international students are now living in satellite sleepy towns and suburbs like Herent and Tienen, because there's no student accommodation available anywhere in Leuven or Heverlee or Kessel-Lo. This would've been impossible 4 years ago.

You can thank 🤑🤑 universities for housing rents in your city becoming more expensive every year.

The university still isn't dívésting from problématíc institutions.

The way they handled Sanda Dia's case is truly something awful.

Since the students involved in the case are népó babies with relatives in high places, they were treated very well and...

I recently came across the film from your SIM² director about the opening of the lithium mine in my country, and I have to say that I was deeply concerned by the portrayal of our people. The depiction of our nation as backward and uneducated seems both unfair and inaccurate.

While you emphasize "communicating with impact about Science & Sustainability," I would like to ask whether your focus on sustainability applies only to your home country, or if you genuinely consider the environmental and social impacts of your projects in the regions where you operate, such as mine.

It seems that your portrayal of my country’s citizens as ignorant farmers serves more to mask the interests of Rio Tinto than to engage in an honest conversation about sustainable practices and their global...