Amsterdam University College is a public liberal arts college in the Netherlands with an enrolment of about 900 students from more than 60 countries. All teaching is in English.The college was founded in 2009 as a joint initiative of the University of Amsterdam and the VU University Amsterdam with a particular focus on the natural sciences. Although AUC has its own campus, students can also use facilities of both parent universities. The college is part of a recent wave of university colleges in the Netherlands which have introduced liberal arts education to the country.AUC offers Bachelor of Arts degrees in the social sciences and humanities and a Bachelor of Science degree in science, which are pursued by about 50%, 15%, and 33% of the student body, respectively. The curriculum is strongly interdisciplinary; within each field, students have to pursue at least two disciplines. AUC further emphasizes its 'academic core', which makes up a large part of the curriculum.HistoryThe foundation of AUC goes back to an initiative of the two large universities in Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), as well as the municipality. It is part of an initiative to make Amsterdam a hub for research and development in the natural sciences.AUC was officially founded in 2008, and took up operation with its founding class in 2009. The first dean of the college is Prof. Dr. Marijk van der Wende, Professor of Higher Education at the VU. The first class of graduates received their diplomas in 2012. In 2016, van der Wende was succeeded as AUC dean by Prof. Murray Pratt.
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