UNAIR NEWS – To celebrate 109th National Awakening Day, academicians of Universitas Airlangga held a ceremony on Monday, May 22. It was presided by UNAIR Rector Prof. Dr. Mochammad Nasih, in Management Office Building Campus C UNAIR.
It was attended by UNAIR officials, from the faculties, units, boards and institutes in Universitas Airlangga.
“109 years ago, Budi Utomo was established, a radical step made to be free from the colonialism. Radical measures are needed to change the condition and to be free from the oppression and achieve independence,” said UNAIR Rector.
UNAIR Rector said that the current challenges are far more different than the challenges faced when Budi Utomo was established. If they had to fight against the colonials, we have to strive to improve the national competitiveness. If we are expected to compete at global level, we will be left behind.
“We now don’t have to build Budi Utomo. The condition and challenges are different entirely. We now don’t have to fight against the colonials. Our challenge now is to improve national competitiveness. If not, we will become losers all the time,” said the professor of Faculty of Economics and Business.
Current Awakening Spirit
In this occasion, Prof. Nasih encouraged the lecturers to increase their scientific publications. UNAIR has targeted 457 titles of research to be published in international journals indexed by Scopus.
Even though the journal publications are lecturers’ responsibility, the staffs are expected to support achieving the target.
“This target of 457 Scopus indexed journals. It is the lecturers’ job but the staffs must support them. Do not make the lecturers busy with administrative work,” he said.
UNAIR Rector also hoped the academicians to have spirit of national awakening and he encouraged them to leave the old work ethics and be more flexible with new patterns.
“Don’t work only with old patterns. I hope this national awakening spirit enters into you all. As now the situation is different, we need to have great flexibility. I hope everyone can be more flexible,” he said. (*)
Author: Binti Q. Masruroh
