The Vrije Universiteit is an university in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The Vrije Universiteit should not be confused with the University of Amsterdam. The name is often abbreviated as VU. It is the university of the Vereniging VU-Windesheim, which also encompasses the Christelijke Hogeschool Windesheim, and was formerly known as the Vereniging voor Christelijk Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs (Association for Christian Scientific Education).

The association was founded in 1880, and headed by Abraham Kuyper, as the first Protestant university. Vrije Universiteit literally means Free University to signify freedom from government and church. The education itself, however, is not free of cost; like all accredited universities in The Netherlands students pay a (government determined) fee, while students receive a student loan from the government as well.

About 17,000 students (2004) attend the university, with 2,200 scientific employees, and 1,600 non-scientific employees.

Notable faculty

• Jan Peter Balkenende, the current Prime Minister of the Netherlands, was a special professor of "Christian-Social Thought".
• Pieter Kooijmans, currently a Judge on the International Court of Justice, Professor of International and European Law (1965-1973)
• Andrew S. Tanenbaum, professor of Computer Science who wrote the Minix operating system and the Amoeba distributed operating system. He is the author of the textbooks: Computer Networks, Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, and Modern Operating Systems.
• Earth Science professor Jan Smit was one of the people who contributed to the theory that an impact of a meteor near Mexico caused the ending of the Dinosaur age about 65 million years ago.

Notable graduates

• Wouter Bos, party leader of the Dutch Social Democrats studied at VU
• Pim Fortuyn, the assassinated party leader of the LPF studied sociology at VU.
• Gerrit Zalm, Minister of Finance in the cabinet Kok II, Balkenende I and II, also studied economics at VU.
• Bas de Gaay Fortman, the world's only Chair in Political Economy of Human Rights.

External links

• Vrije Universiteit Website

Universities in the Netherlands | Education in Amsterdam

Freie Universität Amsterdam | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | 阿姆斯特丹自由大学