A pedel (beadle of collegiate universities in the United Kingdom is a person that performs varying duties and often represents the college to outsiders through wearing a uniform and providing information. In Dutch universities, the pedel helps PhD students and professors with the formal sides of the thesis defense or the inaugural speech respectively.
The university was founded in 1575 by William of Orange as a gift for the resistance of the people of Leiden against the Spanish occupation. Back then, the university was the first Dutch university, it got the latin name: Academia Lugduno Batava and goes by the motto Praesidium Libertatis (Bastion of Freedom). To date it has nine faculties and around 17,000 students.