• Employee , People

The new chapter in Cindy de Koning’s book is called ‘TU/e CEC’

As of the new academic year, Cindy de Koning, known as a presenter at local network Omroep Brabant and the NOS Journaal regional news broadcasts, will be joining the ranks of TU/e’s Communication Expertise Center as a communication advisor/press officer. With her fresh perspective, she will help to “showcase all of the amazing things happening at TU/e”.

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photo Omroep Brabant

Although it’s not entirely clear to her yet what her new job will entail, Cindy de Koning does know she’s ready for it. “After having worked at Omroep Brabant for 28 years, it feels like I’m ‘moving out on my own’. I’m a bit tense about it as I still love working there, but I want to keep developing and TU/e’s request came at the right time. I’ll just have turned fifty when I begin and I’ll be given the space to find out how I can make optimal use of my capabilities.”

The job in communications is a new chapter in a book about a woman who finds it difficult to do nothing, likes to soundboard with others and generally gets super excited about new projects. And who, most of all, doesn’t have a nine-to-five mentality.

Four-leaf clover

She remembers pretending she was a journalist, together with her brother, at the age of seven (and being a rather curious little girl at that). “We started a press office that we named after a four-leaf clover. We collected news items around the neighborhood, put them in typing and then we xeroxed them a dozen times at the supermarket so we could hand them out.” As a high-school student, she approached the local networks. De Koning was living in Geldrop and as a freshman she spent her Saturday mornings at the in-house broadcaster of Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Eindhoven. “At first I went round collecting song requests from the patients, but later I got to make some announcements as well. I really liked that.”

Reporting

She went on to work weekends at Omroep Eindhoven. “My brother had acquired a video camera – he used a bag our mother had made to carry around the recorder on his back – and whenever we walked the dog together, he had me do voice-overs for the footage he was shooting. But my love for radio remained.” During her studies, this was the number one thing she missed, which is why she joined Mistral Radio, Geldrop’s local network, as a volunteer.

Cindy de Koning presents the news. Photo | Omroep Brabant

“At some point I was asked to record a few jingles for Omroep Brabant. After that – we’re talking 1995 – I went from program to program.” In 2003 she made her first appearance on television and two years later, having just given birth to her eldest, she started presenting the news. Eight years ago she was asked by nationwide broadcaster NOS to set up a regional news show.

As she hosted events and taught media training – receiving flowers and gift certificates as tokens of gratitude – with increasing frequency, she decided to found a company in this ambit in 2011: Cindy de Koning Media. She intends to keep this company afloat while exchanging her jobs at NOS and Omroep Brabant for the new position at TU/e. And she’ll also continue to ‘play outside’, as she calls it, at Omroep Gelderland.

Old acquaintances

The campus is familiar territory for her. TU/e used her services as far back as 2012. “The university wanted to create a studio in the then brand new MetaForum. I gave them advice and subsequently helped designing training courses and recording knowledge clips. Our goal was to move education partly online. That had to be developed from the ground up back then.” She got to know many enthusiastic teachers and still remembers the likes of Richard Engeln of Applied Physics, Emiel van Berkum of Applied Mathematics , Caroline Hummels of Industrial Design, Ines Lopez Arteaga of Mechanical Engineering and Carlijn Boutens of Biomedical Engineering. Until the COVID pandemic digitized all of the education, De Koning taught a lot of teachers to record clips of ten minutes maximum.

Grand openings

She didn’t only teach media training to teachers, but also to board members. Rather than encouraging Executive Board President Jan Mengelers to say more, she had to reign him in. She also assisted in the implementation of the entire loop system in the lecture theaters, as both teachers and operators could do with some advice in the matter.

In addition to the recording studio, De Koning worked in many places on campus. “I was often in the right place at the right time. I presented the grand openings of MetaForum and the wind tunnel. I could also be found in the Blauwe Zaal a lot. I think that is a really nice, warm room. The acoustics are great, the Wi-Fi less so, haha. Things did go wrong quite often. When the Blue Jay drone was scheduled to make an appearance at the opening of the MedTech Innovation Center (e/MTIC) this failed because – to me it almost goes without saying – there were too many people using the Wi-Fi.

Opening eyes to the outside world

In her new position at CEC, De Koning would like to see TU/e take on a more proactive stance vis-à-vis the external media than it has so far. “Be ready in case something suddenly happens in society. I would like to help scientists to own the floor at times like those. Most journalists aren’t aware of everything TU/e has to offer. We’ll have to showcase this ourselves.” After taking a moment to think: “What it comes down to, is that everything that’s great about TU/e should be more visible. My fresh perspective helps me see that.

She’s curious as to whether she’ll be successful in cutting some red tape and breaking down the partitions between the different departments. “I’m always surprised – if not to say disappointed – when I notice that a good training course I developed at department A is unknown to department B. There definitely needs to be more transparency about what’s happening at TU/e.” Having said all that, the tension she is experiencing in the run-up to her new adventure is mostly enjoyable and healthy. She’ll be starting on September 4.

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