The month of March is dedicated to the theme of women in action. Helianthe Kort, a lecturer at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, is committed to women within Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. “My drive has always been to understand it in such a way that I can transfer it to others,” she said.

“My name is Helianthe Kort and I have been working as a Lecturer in Technology for Healthcare Innovations at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences since 2004. In addition, I have been working as a part-time professor of Building Healthy Environments for Future Users at Eindhoven University of Technology since 2011. Besides work, work and more work, I am a mother and have five children together with my husband. One of my biggest hobbies is sports, I really do all kinds of things! At the moment I work out a lot and soon, when the weather gets nice, I will be on the golf course.

As a little girl, I had no dream at all of taking the position I have now. I was, and am, always very focused on content. For example, I thought to myself, “What happens when a chicken dies? I did not understand this, nor did my parents explain this to me, but I still wanted to know. So I decided to dig up a dead chicken and see what happened to it. So I always went for the content and never for the position.

I always try to advocate for women within Hogeschool Utrecht, so that young women can get and keep a good position. I do this by looking at their possible career steps. Women are because they have children, really out of the picture for four months. And although women perform well, you see that their career path lags behind that of men. I try to explain in the conversation how strange this is, but sometimes it’s difficult.

When I started my job as a professor, I didn’t have the idea at all of, ‘I’m going to take this position as a dark-skinned woman.’ I am content-oriented and the job just seemed very interesting to me. With the knowledge of today, I understand that people still sometimes see me as a kind of role model. The best part was that my best friend’s daughter went to her school with the newspaper article that mentioned that I had become a professor, and proudly said, ‘Look. This is my aunt, and she’s a professor!’

I have several examples of women I find inspiring. First, my mother. Unfortunately, she has not been with us for a few years, but she is my role model. I also find Mia Duijnstee inspiring. She was also a lecturer at the Hogeschool Utrecht. And finally Oprah Winfrey. How she is in life and how she, as a black woman, was able to make the connection between the different cultures in America, and between rich and poor, I find special.

Anything is possible! Above all, go after your dreams. I have done this myself. I am often told “this cannot be done and this is not possible. But I don’t want to hear what can’t be done, I want to hear what can be done. So if you want to go for something, go for it fully and try to find a way in that.”

Who, to you, are the inspiring women within the HU? Email us at info.di@hu.nl and who knows, maybe she’ll be in the next interview!

By Noa Meerwijk

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