Yogyakarta, April 23rd 2020—Last Thursday, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIPOL) UGM held its first Postgraduate Graduation Third Period Academic Year of 2019/2020. That graduation became the first online graduation of FISIPOL UGM since pandemic COVID-19. The graduation was held on the official account of FISIPOL UGM on YouTube platform.
Through the Circular Letter No. 1683/UN1.P/HKL/TR/2020, the Rector of Universitas Gadjah Mada, Prof. Ir. Panut Mulyono, M.Eng., D.Eng. decided to impose maximum restrictions of college activities started from Monday (23/03/20). The entire college activities are online, graduation is no exception.
In this graduation, there were 67 graduation participants that came from seven Master Programs FISIPOL UGM, there were Public Policy and Management (17 students), Master of Public Administration (15 students), International Relations (10 students), Communication Studies (9 students), Sociology (9 students), Social Development and Welfare (5 students), and Politics and Government (2 students). From those 67 students, there were 8 students who graduated with cum laude predicate.
And a student with the highest GPA was Maygsi Aldian Suwandi, the postgraduate students of Social Development and Welfare with 3.88 GPA. Meanwhile the predicate of the student with the fastest study period was Nurul Aini, the student of Master of Administration with a total of study period of 1 year 4 months and 26 days. The event was opened with the reading of graduation rules and the list of graduated students by moderator. After that, Ashilly Achidsti (the student of Public Policy and Management), representing the graduated students, gave a speech to the audience.
In her speech, Ashilly expressed the happiness of the students in that occasion, despite being in a difficult situation because of pandemic, “Even though we do not greet each other and celebrate this in person in the FISIPOL UGM building, I hope, that does not fade our gratitude for our achievements today,” Ashilly said.
Other than that, Ashilly also expressed her pride to be a part of FISIPOL UGM. “I saw by myself, in FISIPOL UGM, how the free dialectic process remains (and must be) responsible. Science does not scrape away our social sense and humanity, and gender equality efforts are enforced in the academic environment,” she said.
In that event, Prof. Dr. Erwan Agus Purwanto the Dean of Faculty of Social and Political Sciences UGM, also attended. In his speech, Erwan congratulated the success of the students. Erwan also said that because of COVID-19 pandemic, this graduation was unique. “This graduation is celebrated in the difficult time, the event may not be repeated in one century ahead,” Erwan said. In that event, besides Erwan, also presented the other lecturers from each of Master Programs. All of them congratulated the graduated students.