World Leisure
International of Excellence (WICE), you could say, is the intellectual
property of Dr. Teus J. Kamphorst, see also under who is who. Teus
Kamphorst was the first graduate, in the Netherlands who officially
graduated, in 1966, in the Sociology of Leisure. Immediately after
graduation he was appointed lecturer at the same University, with the
special task to build a Department on the Sociology of Leisure. In the
sixty’s too, he initiated the creation of the still functioning Dutch
Leisure Studies Association (DLSA), the name of which was changed in
the ninety’s into Association for Leisure Studies (in Dutch VVS). In
his academic career he published on literally each aspect of leisure.
Pretty soon in his career, he decided, in addition to teaching the
sociology of leisure in Utrecht , to his research work and writing on
leisure and related issues, and in addition to heading that, in the
sixty’s, still small Department on the Sociology of Leisure, to join
the international leisure arena. Soon he became Board Member of the
European Leisure Association (ELRA) and of the, by then named, World
Leisure and Recreation Association (WLRA), later changed into World
Leisure (WL), and now recently again changed into World Leisure
Association (WLA). He co-initiated the still very successful, online
accessible international Leisure, Recreation and Tourism Abstracts and
Database (LRTA Journal and Database), based at Commonwealth
Agricultural Bureaux in the United Kingdom, and functioned on its Board
and Editorial Committee for 6 years. He was appointed Secretary General
of the Research Commission on the Sociology of Leisure (RC13) of the
International Sociological Association (ISA), which position he held
for 8 years, after which he was appointed Chairman of the same for a
period of 4 years. In 1983 he did his Ph.D. in Utrecht on the subject
of long term of differences in educational styles and leisure
experiences during early childhood on leisure behaviour 25 years after.
It was specifically his
involvement with leisure and leisure related issue in the international
scenery, which, at the end of the eighty’s made Dr. Kamphorst aware
that leisure had hugh international consequences – examples were and
are international tourism, the Olympic Games, or the McDonald-isation
of the world through mass media -, however, that there existed no
educational set-up yet that addressed leisure and leisure related
issues from that international, world wide perspective. Thereto
accommodated by excellent social security arrangements in the
Netherlands, in 1990 he decided to take early retirement - at the age
of 50 -, with the aim to realise such a worldwide operating educational
programme.
Having an ideas is one,
implementing it is another piece of cake. For the time being Dr. Teus
Kamphorst had no place to go. Fortunately, at a meeting of the Von Clee
Foundation held in Brussels in 1989, Kamphorst met people of the
Christian Higher Professional Education College (CHN) based in
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. They invited Teus Kamhorst to realise his
idea for a world wide operating educational centre for the study of
global aspects of leisure at their Campus. Though still his idea, Dr.
Kamphorst felt that it would be wise to invite the, by then still
named, World Leisure and Recreation Association (WLRA), of which he has
a Board Member, to join this initiative. The CHN and WLRA made an
agreement on the realisation of what was called “World Leisure
International Centre of Excellence”(WICE). A Board of Directors was
appointed, consisting of three representatives of the CHN – Dr. Henk
Siegers (Chairman of the CHN), Drs. Mr. Dinant Hutten and Drs. Keimpe
Kuijpers - , and three representatives of WLRA – Prof. Dr. Cor Westland
(Secretary General of WLRA, Prof. Dr. Jack Kelly, and Prof. Dr. Gerry
Kenyon -. Prof. Cor Westland was appointed Chair of WICE and the
initiator, Dr. Teus Kamphorst was asked to take the position of WICE’s
first Director. Proper preparation a truly international educational
Programme at Master level took about two years and the first WICE
class, with 25 MA students coming from 23 different countries started
in 1992 at the CHN Campus in Leeuwarden. In 1993, the CHN decided to
apply for funds from the Dutch National Government to create on their
Campus a specific building for WICE, called the “WICE Building”. WICE,
together with other Departments of the CHN moved to that building
in 1994.
The CHN was entitled to
issue an autonomous MA degree to the WICE graduates. However, on of the
problems that WICE met in its early years at the CHN was, that
specifically the international students were keenly interested in
getting a Diploma that was not just accredited by the CHN, but by the
Dutch Government. Further, though the CHN was fully co-operative on the
joint WICE endeavour, an overall Evaluative Inquiry (visitation) done
by a Canadian Expert Group under Chairmanship of Prof. Dr. Barry
McPherson, made clear that spin-off of WICE for the CHN, in terms of
intellectual transfer of knowledge from the international WICE scholars
and teachers to the CHN staff, was very limited. WICE, as it were, more
or less operated as a separate and isolated entity. Reason for the
majority of the Board of WICE to decide to follow McPherson’s prime
recommendation to leave the CHN and to look for another home. Dr.
Kamphorst was asked to inquire the possibilities. Though WICE, working
on a world wide scale, can be housed everywhere in the world, it was
considered handy to keep it in the Netherlands. From that perspective
there were two places to go: to Tilburg University where existed a
Master level Programme in Leisure Studies, or to Wageningen University,
where there was a Master Level inter-departmental Programme in
Recreation and Tourism (R & T) with emphasis on environmental
issues.
The choice was
made to go to Wageningen University (WU). A contract was made between
WU and WLRA, comparable to the one that was made in 1990 between the
CHN and WLRA. Agreed was that WU would house WICE and accredit an
official Dutch Master to the WICE graduates and WLRA would deliver
international students and Faculty to WICE. A Board was appointed,
consisting on behalf of WLRA, of Dr. Teus Kamphorst (Chair), Prof. Dr.
Bob Stebbins and Prof. Dr. Atara Sivan, and on behalf of WU of Prof.
Dr. Adri Dietvorst (Chair of WU’s Rcreation and Tourism Group) and Drs.
Jan Philipsen. As title for the renewed educational Programme of WICE
was chosen Leisure and Environments.
As of 1996 there
were two educational Programmes at WU dealing with leisure and related
issues: WICE, operating at a global level, and the Recreation and
Tourism Group, operating on a national, Dutch level. Upon graduation,
to R & T students was granted by WU a typical Dutch Ir or Drs
grade, to WICE graduates a MSc grade. With the aim of European
intergration, in 2000 the Dutch Government decided to leave the typical
Dutch educational system with its, for foreigners, weird titles for
what it was and to move to the Anglo-Saxon Bachelor-Master system. As a
consequence, as of 2002, the year in which the move was to be
effectuated, WU would have had two educational Master level Programme
on leisure and related issues, namely, WICE and the R & T
Programme. Since this was thought to be very confusing for the outside
world, it was decided to start negotiations with the aim to merge the
two programmes. The inter-departmental R & T group was changed into
the Chairgroup Socio-Spatial Analysis (SRA), and as of 2002 WICE and
SRA jointly offers a Master of Science level Programme called “Leisure,
Tourism and Environment”. This merging process called for a new
contract between World Leisure and Wageningen University, the outlines
of which were laid down in 2002 already, however, the mutual singing of
which still had not been done. So, actually, WICE, within the framework
of World Leisure, is still acting under the rules and regulation set in
1996; WU offers the infra-structure and the degree, and WICE the
international students and Faculty. The merging of 2002 has changed
things insofar that the number of Dutch students (formerly R & T
students) in class has increased. Further, the number of international
students has decreased a little bit, among others because of the
decrease in the number of (mainly Dutch) scholarships that are
available for international students who mainly come from developing
countries and need financial support to enable them to follow the
WICE/SRA MSc level educational programme.
Wageningen/Culemborg
March 2007
Teus J. Kamphorst