Yogyakarta, October 14th 2020—Fisipol UGM Student Board is back with a Dean Hearing on Wednesday afternoon (14/10). In this event, the Dean hearing is created to accommodate university students’ academic and non-academic questions about the university process in the new normal. As always, in the hearing there was Prof. Dr. Erwan Agus Purwanto, M. Si as the dean, Dr. Wawan Masudi as the Vice Dean of Academics and Students Relations, as well as Ika Wulandari Widyaningrum, S.Pd., MBA as the Head of Students Relations. The event was held from 16.00 until 17.30 pm.
Talking about the next semester university scenario, Wawan said that in this situation, the university doesn’t have a fixed scenario. However, the faculty never prepared a one-single scenario. He said that we all need to be adaptive to the situation. “If we look at the situation and there’s still a lot of obstacles, we need to prepare for the online scenario. But the bottom line is the faculty never prepares only one scenario. We need to prepare for everything,” he said.
When it comes to budget, the faculty is still trying to create training from outside sources such as for digital literacy and entrepreneurship courses. In the preparation and implementation, the faculty tries not to spend too much from the RKAP budget. “So, even if this is the situation, we still try all that we can to fulfill Fisipol’s vision of increasing students’ skill, but we also try to get support from other sources,” Wawan said.
The next point that was discussed is the students’ study plan at the start of the semester that was pretty problematic. Ika confirmed that the students’ study plan system is a bit different from last years’. This has to do with the university system change that is developed in the Simaster platform. There is a data migration from Sia to Simaster which was managed by DSSDI so there was system maintenance while the study plan period was done. Therefore, to overcome that problem, the academic division has to communicate with the university students, the professors, as well as DSSDI.
Related to the tuition fee reformation, the survey conducted by the student board shows the fact that there are variations on students’ family earnings. In this case, Erwan said that Fisipol is one of the faculty that will not increase the tuition fee but he does suggest abolishing the tuition fee limitation. This is so that parents with a really high wage can pay the proportional amount of tuition fee. This will be more fair for the parents with low wages as well. UGM will not implement a different tuition fee based on the entry method like other universities. According to Erwan. UGM has to think of smarter ways and to not follow just any solution. Fisipol tries to save money in many sectors while maintaining the quality of service given to students. However, it can be avoided that maybe in the next year there will be a reduction of activities. In this case, the university is trying to find an alternative solution which is by adding the tuition fee range for parents with really high wages. “This method is the most rational compared to using SPMA, we do not agree to that,” Erwan said.
When it comes to the university implementation now, the faculty shared a questionnaire to get input on the online learning process this semester during the mid term period. This survey is done to see whether there are quota difficulties or things like that. Other than that, Fisipol is trying to develop the Lend a Laptop movement, especially for final year university students with difficulties in finishing the thesis. According to Wawan, there will be 40 laptops for the first phase and there will be a lending procedure. “We will do a survey to know the overall problem,” he said. Next, Wawan also informed Fisipol’s plan to create a virtual digital library. During the mid terms, there will be a Digilib socialization so that all collections can be accessed.
The last topic that was discussed was related to the Omnibus law. The faculty is trying to get the final form of the law and to do an analysis from a political and social perspective. According to Wawan, university students as a fellow citizen have the right to voice their aspiration and do a demonstration because it is a way to implement the political material learned in class in the real world. Erwan also agrees that university students need to be sensitive to national issues because they will one day become leaders. The faculty doesn’t discourage students from joining the march. However, students need to accept differences and know the importance of communication in that situation.