World Class University

A New Stage for  Maulana Malik Ibrahim State Islamic University, Malang 

in Internasional Community

Recently, the World Class University discourse is getting rise rapidly among college communities throughout Indonesia. The term of World Class University (WCU) was firstly introduced by UNESCO through the World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-first Century: Vision and Action, Paris 1998. It was motivated by the urgency of the universities' role to prepare the nation's competitiveness in globalization era.

As we know that nowadays and in the future, the development of higher educations (read universities) can not be separated from the prediction of the sciences’ development including social science, humanities, technology, art, culture and economy as well. The shift of economy paradigm - from which based on natural resources and cheap labor and moved to  the nation's ability to develop creativity and innovation in the use of science, technology, and art - leads the nations to reformulate their strategies to strenghten their existence and competitiveness in the international community. One of those strategies is to involve the higher educations to contribute their roles for the nation. It is believed that the participation of higher educations toward nation’s competitiveness becomes a solution for  nation’s existence in globalization era. By having more than 1000 higher educations spread all over Indonesia, it is a huge potential for Indonesia to take a part more in the international community.

The nation's competitiveness can be achieved only if there is a strong unity and foundation as well as nation’s support for all aspects regarding to this issue. Therefore, universities can take the role that very significantly to unify the nation by organizing qualified education, providing more opportunities for the entire of nation’s stakeholders, and conducting researches which are able to explore the potentials of  local and other broader communities. Indeed, universities are required to work hard and more in order to restore the dignity of nation in the international community.

Responding the challenge above, UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang – well known as UIN Maliki Malang – like or dislike must take a part in preparing nation’s competitiveness. Supported by some good facilities and excelent academic atmosphere as well as high qualified human resources, UIN Maliki is ready to be a World Class University (WCU), a new stage to contribute more actions for the nation.

Taking a note from the university leaders, UIN Maliki Malang has prepared some supporting pillars to realize the dream to be WCU as soon as possible. Those pillars are embodied in a comprehensive long-term planning covering resources fulfillment, a good management and governance, and academic development. Resource planning will concern on human resources (HR), budgeting, and infrastructure. Meanwhile, management and governance will be associated with accountability, quality management, and efficient governance. In addition, the academic development will be related to research development, teaching and learning process, communities service as well as having some mutual international cooperations.

HR planning is related to lecturers and academic staff . Ideally , the ratio of the number of lecturers and students must be between 1:10-15 . It means that a lecturer must facilitate 10-15 students. While for academic staff, it is ranged from 1:10. An academic staff must serve 10 students. UIN Maliki for now is trying to meet that ideal ratio by recruiting new lecturers and staffs who have academic qualifications in accordance with the needs of the institution. It is expected that by having qualified and propotional number of lecturer and staff, an excellent student service will be realized. Furthermore, HR development should also be designed to have good competence, commitment, and heightened awareness to manage World Class University. It is continously done in line with lecturers and staffs’ specialization and duties, including the international language competence to increase the confidence associated with international community. A program that has been done by UIN Maliki Malang to support this is by holding IALF Bali as a partner to conduct English training to enhance lecturers and staffs’ English competence. The expected outcome of this training is that the lecturers are able to use English in their teaching and learning process and for the staffs are able to use English in their workplace daily.

Budget is the other important resources that should be developed in line with UIN Maliki Malang efforts to realize World Class University. It is very important to support some activities done in campus, such as: HR development (training), research, academic, facilities and other operational fundings. To objectify that, UIN Maliki Malang has coordinated and lobbied the government to increase the budget. Besides, UIN Maliki Malang has been trying to find other funding sources independently, for example: business center, cooperative, land rental and others. When the budget is sufficient, the realization of WCU is just a matter of time.

The adequacy of budget, off course, will give some significant impacts for UIN Maliki Malang, especially for its infrastructure development. The availability of good infrastucture to support the learning process is badly needed by UIN Maliki Malang; moreover, it is for realizing the WCU. New building for teaching and learning process, new dormitory for students, new laboratories, and library upgrading are the focus of UIN Maliki Malang nowadays. In addition, technology and information system that have been owned by UIN Maliki Malang so far should be enhanced to provide good management and services. By having those new infrastructures, it is expected that UIN Maliki Malang is really ready to welcome and manage WCU well.

Good management and efficient governance become the next focus of UIN Maliki Malang to prepare itself to WCU. It is very important when UIN Maliki Malang has declared being WCU, UIN Maliki must have good management to strenghten itself in broader community. Besides, concerning on effective and efficient governance will also help in managing WCU. To promote it, UIN Maliki Malang develop a reliable quality assurance system. This quality assurance system is developed to provide guarantee over the results that have been designed before as well as to improve the work performance. The recent result of good management that has been shown by UIN Maliki is the best achievement of Public Service Agency (BLU) and Accreditation A from National Accreditation Bureau for Higher Education. How UIN Maliki Malang can get those achievements if there is no good management and efficient governance that have seriously been applied by all stakeholders there. It proves that UIN Maliki management is serious and ready for WCU era.

Academic is the next point to be implemented in accordance with the standards of World Class University. Qualified academic activities which based on WCU standards will be achieved if  some supporting aspects such as various resources fulfilment, good quality management and efficient governance have been successfully carried out by the university. Further, academic development at UIN Maliki is designed to increase its teaching and learning process quality, research quality, and community service quality as the most important component of academic field.

To support this academic field, UIN Maliki Malang has designed a comprehensive curriculum which integrating Islamic values and advanced technology. This curriculum implementation is based on the education system of Pesantren (Islamic Boarding School) that emphasizes on learning how to live in society through Islamic values. As a religion, Islam has become a source of sciences. Therefore, the learning process should be able to find the connections between various scientific phenomena with the Islam main source; Al Qur'an and Hadith. In addition, the implementation of the learning process is done to inculcate various values of Ulul Albab (learning seriously, being able to distinguish between the right and wrong, having critical thinking, being able to share the knowledge to others, and putting fear only to Allah SWT). The learning process must be able to internalize these values, make these values as a belief for the students, then make these values as a basis for their behavior on their daily life. Through this integrated learning process, it distinguishes UIN Maliki Malang with other universities.

Besides, the curriculum is also adopted with some universities' curriculum that have succesfully shown the ability to have graduates who are able to participate in international community. The curriculum is designed to facilitate graduates with high-level thinking skills through reading and researching culture, therefore, it should be concerned with learning strategies that encourages students to produce works/performances that demonstrate the ability of high-level thinking. In addition, the learning process is also applied to develop a variety of important characters needed by the students to be able to work together with people of various cultures, religions, tribes, and nations. In line with this situation, UIN Maliki has been aware that it is really important to give additional competence for its graduates to support their participation in international community; mastering international language (English and Arabic) is what UIN Maliki has done so far to suppot the students. By mastering these two international languages, it is expected that UIN Maliki Malang graduates are ready to take participation in international community.

Research and community services are the part of academic field that must be developed in accordance with UIN Maliki Malang readiness of being WCU. To facilitate both aspects, UIN Maliki Malang has had a regular plan of research and community service. Both are planned to be implemented for wider range communities, not only for regional but also for international. So, the beneficiaries of UIN Maliki research and community service will be wider also. This is in line with one of characteristics of WCU that acquiring the university to have a more global participations both research and community service. The more an university has wider cooperation with some foreign institutions or communities, the more exist it will be as a World Class University. That’s why having as many as possible researches and community services to international community is a must for UIN Maliki Malang to strengthen its position in international community.

In addition, it is a must to have a broader cooperation with other countries to support UIN Maliki existance in international community. Why? This is very important because it is to boost the university’s competitiveness and it is also insightful to strengthen the academic capacity that has been owned. Besides, international cooperation as a part of the education globalization needs to be built to enrich the competence and experience of UIN Maliki Malang academics in the international community. So far, UIN Maliki Malang has more than 20 partner countries spread of Asia, Europe, and Africa that hand in hand cooperate each other to strengthen both academic and non academic aspects in university.

All in all, having a good preparation of being WCU for UIN Maliki Malang is considerably needed. What has been done by UIN Maliki Malang nowadays shows that UIN Maliki Malang is serious to improve its quality welcoming WCU. It is a dream, slow but sure, will come true soon. If UIN Maliki, as institution, is ready for that, what about you reader???

DARE TO TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY: BETWEEN DEVOTION AND SACRIFICE

People sometimes need to be reminded about their responsibility, but only those responsible one who do not need it (Anonymous).

In the social context, human is a social creature. He cannot life alone. He must play a certain role in his society in which requires a responsibility toward the social values. Those social values played by someone should be accounted in order to keep the harmony and balance in human life. But, people sometimes forget that during taking part on their role in society they neglect at glance about responsibility.

Responsibility is closely related to someone’s obligation. It is something imposed on someone; something accompanying the right. Responsibility is someone’s consciousness toward their intentional or unintentional behavior and action. Responsibility does also mean doing something or duty as a manifestation of someone’s consciousness. Someone wants to be responsible because there is a consciousness or awareness of any actions and results for others’ interest.

Responsibility itself is natural. It means that it has become a part of human life. Everyone must be the one who has responsibility; if he doesn't have it, then some others will give him a responsibility. As Rasullullah Muhammad (PBUH) stated in his Hadith, “You all are a leader and accountable to the people you lead. A king leads his people and his leadership will be questioned. A husband leads his family and will be asked about his leadership also. A mother leads her husband’s house and her children, and then she will be asked about her responsibility. A slave is to manage his/ her employer’s property and will be asked about his responsibility. Remember that all of you will be asked to lead and will be accounted for your leadership.” (Al-Bukhari Hadith)

The above hadith shows that Islam upholds someone’s responsibility. There is a correlation between the rights and obligations in someone’s responsibility. The rights and obligations always exist along with human life. The rich one is responsible for his property and obliged to pay zakat/ infaq for his property. Besides, he also has the right to manage and use his property as he wants accordance with Allah’s rules.

The hadith also explains that basically all people are a leader. Thus, everyone will be responsible for everything which has been counted on him. It has been mentioned as an example that a maid/ slave is a leader for his employer’s property. In addition, the hadith is also talking about the basic ethics of leadership in Islam. It has been explained that the fundamental ethic in Islamic leadership is a sense of being responsible. All people in the world are referred as a leader. Therefore, as a leader, they all bear the responsibility, at least being responsible for himself. A man is responsible for his family, wife and children. An employer is responsible to his employees and subordinates. A president is responsible to the people whom he leads, and so on.

However, the responsibility here is not merely a meaningful task which must be done, be completed, and be left without giving any impacts or effects for the people whom be led. But more than that, it is a more meaningful attempt of a leader to realize the people whom he leads to be more and more prosperous. That is the breakdown of basic concepts of Islamic leadership.

Thus, because the essence of leadership is a responsibility and the form of responsibility is prosperity, so if parents are just to feed their children but do not meet nutritional standard and do not facilitate their children educational needs, then it cannot be concluded that those parents have acted as a responsible one. Similarly, if an employer provides salary to his employee under the regional standard of minimum salary, then he cannot be said to be responsible. It is same if a leader, take a president for example, leads his country merely as a “government”, but he has no serious efforts to lift his people from poverty to prosperity, the he cannot be labeled as a responsible leader. That’s why; being responsible is not just a simple thing in which everyone can act as he performs a responsibility; it’s hard to be implemented on daily life.

Therefore, to remind us, we have to remember about two essential things in performing a responsibility in our life; devotion and sacrifice. The embodiment of sense of responsibility can be embodied in the form of devotion and sacrifice. Devotion and sacrifice are good deed for the benefit of human himself. Both are good deed in the form of thoughts, opinions, or power as the embodiment of loyalty, love, affection, norms, or the bonding of everything that be done sincerely. When people work hard all along day to meet their basic needs sincerely, they have already been responsible for what become their role. Sacrifice is the result of devotion. Sacrifices may be in the form of possessions, thoughts and feelings, even can also be soul. Sacrifice willingly submitted unconditionally, without any agreement, without any transaction, whenever needed. Devotion always demands sacrifice, but the sacrifice does not necessarily require devotion.

Finally, it is a common thing that being responsible doesn’t exist by itself in every person. But, whatever the social role, the position, the background and the intension responsibility must be a part of human life. Human cannot escape from this one. He must realize that whatever he did, he will be responsible for it. Responsibility is a form of devotion and sacrifice and it will take human position be more respectable on their social life if they remember about it. Because people sometimes need to be reminded about their responsibility, but only those responsible one who do not need it. (Ibe)

Outbound: Balancing Humans’ Intelligences

 Basically human beings are endowed by God of intelligences namely intellectual intelligence, moral intelligence, social intelligence, emotional intelligence, and motion intelligence. However; somehow they do not realize them or maybe just focus on one of them. As consequence, some human beings’ roles in society do not show a harmony. In real life, it is a common phenomenon that some of them tend to rely on one of their intelligences than to balance these all intelligences. Therefore, in order to create a harmony in life, a way to bound up those five intelligences is badly needed. Outbound is becoming a popular solution to enhance human intelligences. Then how does outbound bound up these five human intelligences, this article will explain it briefly. 

Intellectual intelligence (well-known as IQ) is an intelligence that gives us the ability to calculate, to analogize, to imagine, and to be creative and innovative.  Moreover, some psychologists call it as “What I Think". In real life, sometimes some of us do not realize that we often do only prioritize our IQ. One of the characteristics of people who prioritize only on their IQ is often seeking advantage for himself/herself by doing a variety of ways. If it is profitable for him/her, whatever the risks will be taken but, if it is harmful for him/her, then he/she immediately leave it.

Those who belong to above characteristic just tend to focus on the output than the process. As consequence, they think that every way, either right or wrong, is appropriate way to be done to achieve a certain goal. This is very dangerous in human community. So, by having outbound which provides various models of the game, the participants are directed to balance their IQ that emphasizes on the understanding of the importance of a process and sustainable efforts in achieving a certain goal. By design of the game that requires more patience, the participants are asked to complete the games and challenges step by step. By having this activity, they will more appreciate the process of achieving certain goal than only focusing on the output. 

Moral intelligence (Moral Quotient-MQ) is the intelligence of human beings to know the rights and wrongs based on a strong sense of ethics and apply them in daily action. In daily life people sometimes neglect this intelligence. As a result, in doing an action people who leave this intelligence prefer to be dishonest and to do all things using all means. Honesty is no longer as a way to life but, it is just an alternative that can be left and forgotten for achieving a certain goal.

Those who are trapped in this situation tend to be such homo homini lupus, those who could sacrifice anyone for his/her ambition. Therefore, outbound will put MQ as the IQ’s companion for achieving a certain goal. So, completing games and challenges must combine both IQ and MQ. As stated on above that by having proportional IQ and MQ in completing games and challenges, participants are asked to complete the games and challenges in the right way and of course honesty becomes the key to get the true success.

Human as social beings always communicate and interact each others. They should prioritize the social values and the consensus during their involvement in society. In addition, they should have high social sense. So there will be none who is selfish, individualistic and exclusive among the others. Nevertheless, if people have low social sense, then there will be a person who only thinks about him/herself. He/she prefers to do everything by him/herself than to involve other persons for getting the best result.

Outbound games commonly will involve the cooperation and togetherness among the participants to achieve a certain goal. This is the focus of games provided in outbound that all participants are directed to complete the game by having a good team work.  So, there will be no one who can complete the challenge without others’ support. No one can achieve the target alone; he/she must need others’ hand. Here, the participants can learn how important building teamwork is and how valuable the existence of others for getting success is. So, that those who can enhance his/her social intelligence in his/her life, success is not something difficult to achieve but vice versa.  

Emotional intelligence (Emotional Quotient -EQ) can be defined as a number of human abilities to recognize emotions, to manage emotions and to express the emotion appropriately, to motivate themselves, to recognize others, and to build relationships with others. It is very easy to measure that somebody have low EQ. Those who are always angry and can’t restrain his/her anger tend to have low EQ. As the result, they are usually not able to control themselves and to blame the others even though the people who are blamed do not make a mistake.  Moreover, they face everything that happens in the world emotionally.

People who are illustrated above will get a new experience in outbound. They will be trained how to be tolerant among others, how to respect one another, and how to prioritize precision and reason in every single action rather than negative emotion. In short, they learn how to enhance their EQ. In completing the games that are designed in outbound often requires a high precision and persistence level from the participants. Here the EQ’s participants are tested. Patience that they had done during completing the game finally will produce an outstanding achievement. They have already achieved a tremendous satisfaction.

There are some people who are very busy with many activities in their life.  In whole day they can spend many hours to accomplish their various activities. Doing many things in life requires a good time management and also good planning. Here, people are badly required to be able to manage their time and also to manage their movement to accomplish all duties. People who have the ability to manage all their duties properly are classified as people who have high motion intelligence. They enjoy their activities in which require a high movement level.

Outbound provides various games that require running, jumping, and moving parts of body. It requires high mobility from the participants. They will move from one area to another area. Like or dislike, they will move their entire body to achieve the target given by the outbound’s instructor. Having a physical fitness is a reflection of person who has high motion intelligence.

Finally, enhancing the human performance by balancing those five intelligences in daily life is urgently needed to create a harmony. Who do not like a harmony in a life? Every body does like it. Therefore, to make it comes true; human being should behave properly by enhancing and balancing their intelligences. Enhancing and balancing the intelligences actually are not difficult but, sometimes we neglect one of them. If you fell that you are belong to one of people who have low intelligences, then have an outbound. It will bind up your five intelligences and train you to be a better person who has good and balance intelligence; intellectual intelligence, moral intelligence, social intelligence, emotional intelligence, and motion intelligence.