The passing of Honorary member: Drs. J.B.R. Dekker

Dear Ibn’ers,

We have recently received the sad news that our Honorary member Drs. J.B.R. Dekker has passed away on the 6th of June. He has been an Honorary member of Ibn Battuta since the 18th of May, 2004. He received this Honorary membership because of all the contributions to the Association and to the faculty. 

“He helped Ibn Battuta when it was needed. He was extremely supportive and very approachable. Dekker inspired generations of geographers with his stories, incredible amount of knowledge, and unparalleled stamina during excursions. He taught students how to act like proper geographers; that we should always keep our heads up and that, when possible, a good geographer never takes the same route twice.”

Jan Dekker has always remained a donor for Ibn Battuta, which is not a very common practice. He was often willing to lead excursions or give lectures. He helped out the Boards with choosing destinations for Foreign Excursions and actually joined one to Istanbul in 1976. For many years, Dekker was one of the first people new students would encounter. He became well known due to his yearly slideshow during the introductory period. 

Dekker was one of the founders of the fieldwork excursions and led many trips in and outside of the Netherlands. Between 1993 and 2003 he wrote columns about his work for the magazines ‘Geografie’ and ‘Geografie Educatief’. These were bundled and published in ‘Ter Plekke’, as a retirement gift from his colleagues at the faculty, you can still found copies of this book around the faculty if you are interested in reading his work.