(Unila): Numerous parties have lauded the University of Lampung’s (Unila) capacity to expedite the attainment of full professor status among its faculty members. In addition, by inaugurating 15 professors in 2021.
Unila broke the record for the Indonesian-World Records Museum (MURI) for the most lecturers to be inaugurated in a single procession. This was also MURI’s acknowledgement of Unila’s success in propelling its lecturers to attain the highest academic titles.
In 2022, Unila resubmitted 40 lecturers to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology for full professor rank, and four of them were granted the designation. During the two years of the current leadership, the Rector, Prof. Dr. Karomani, M.Si., was able to increase the number of professors at Unila from 66 to 85.
On April 5, 2022, during the National Webinar “Strategy to expand the number of professors and expedite the promotion of functional positions of lecturers,” Unila’s Rector, Prof. Karomani, revealed the university’s top-secret strategy for increasing the number of professors.
The webinar took place in a hybrid format, with 4000 online and offline participants, 250 of whom were rectors and vice rectors from major Indonesian universities.
This webinar, organized by Unila and PT Sentra Vidya Utama (Sevima), also featured a presentation by Prof. Dr. Ir. Djohar Arifin Husin, a member of Commission X of the House of Representatives.
According to Djohar Arifin Husin, the current number of professors in Indonesia is only 5479, or 2% of the total of 312,890 lecturers. It is still uneven as 98 percent of lecturers do not hold the rank of professor.
“This is the challenge we need to achieve the Asean, Asian, and global levels. Therefore, the full professor title needs to be replicated,” Djohar Arifin Husin stated.
In addition, the deployment of lecturers is not done fairly in that the majority of them, 57.44 percent, are located on Java Island, while the rest are dispersed throughout the provinces of Indonesia.
Dikti reveals a list of the top 5 universities with more number of professors in Indonesia: Hasanuddin University with 318 professors, followed by Universitas Gadjah Mada, 312, Universitas Indonesia, 284, Universitas Airlangga, 223, and IPB University, 216 professors, respectively.
He desired that all institutions would fight to improve their quality, including the number of lecturers with full professor status at each institution. “Through this webinar, I do hope that an increasing number of lecturers motivate them to achieve a full professor title,” he stated.
According to Djohar Arifin, to achieve a professor title, a lecturer is required to adhere to the rules of Dikti standards, both general and specialized such as, the choice of journals, keyjournals, unplagiarism, etc.
He added, including the particular category of credible international journals and how publications might be included in the category of credible international journals. Lecturers must also adhere to the recommended format for research reports.
Inviting more number of visiting professors can be one of the strategies that institutions can employ to increase a number of professors. Universities should frequently engage with foreign universities, such as by inviting lecturers of the highest caliber from internationally renowned universities.
This can inspire and direct lecturers to enhance academic life, competence, quality, and scientific output. Budgeting cash for the research of professors is equally essential. They can compete for research and cooperation funding from Dikti if the institutional budgets are constrained.
In addition, the coaching clinic’s type of mentoring activities in producing articles to processes from start to finish is the most essential. The participants of the program for future professors are provided with competent direction.
“Coaching clinics are crucial to the advancement of professors. Please encourage the lecturers and support them so that young lecturers are even more eager to achieve a full professor title,” he said to the Rectors.
In the subsequent session, Unila’s Rector, Prof. Karomani, discussed strategies and plans for boosting the number of professors. First, according to Karomani, by bolstering leadership management and arming lecturers with the concepts of openness, accountability, and jembar.
Unila’s leadership adheres to the jembar principle, which expedites the promotion of lecturers to the rank of professor. This is the institution’s greatest secret. There are no longer any frictions.
“In fact, I did my utmost to assist them in achieving a full professor title as rapidly as possible by utilizing the obstacles that had previously posed difficulties for me. According to Karomani, this is the philosophy of jembar: “Finish with yourself, hold no grudges; we are here to help everyone, without exception.”
The professorship process is the nactually ensured to run as intended from the department, faculty, university level to the higher education levels by having all leaders act a captain.
Karomani added that he has established a Professor Acceleration Team, whose job it is to find lecturers with the ability to advance beyond the functional level of associate professor and who have the necessary professional experience and credits.
He added that this team helps aspiring prospective professors learn how to prepare a manuscript that can be published in well-known world wide publications.
Then, he issued a rector policy to offer rewards to lecturers whose manuscript is published in Scopus-indexed journals. An incentive of Rp40,000,000 should be begiven to the author for publishing manuscript in a Scopus-indexed journal in the Q1 category, Rp30,000,000 in Q2, Rp20,000,000 in Q3, and Rp10,000,000 in Q4, respectively.
“In order to encourage professors to conduct research, we also provide lecturers with research funding, the budget of which reaches Rp30 billion, 10 percent of our tax-revenue” Karomani said.
In addition, making a promotion system that is more visible and responsible allows lecturers to input their tridharma (three pillars of higher education) activities to the system so that they are aware of their current credits.
“There are therefore three secrets to accelerate the number of professor ranks at Unila. First, the leader has to be jembar, second, lecturers are required to undergo a coaching clinic for an article preparation, and the last, lecturers who publish in Scopus-index journals should earn rewards, according to Karomani.
The webinar hosted by Unila got the Webinar Record with the Most Rectors and Vice Rectors Participants Award from the Indonesian-World Records Museum. “This is the eighth record achieved by Unila.
This is an expression of appreciation for the fact that what the Rector of Unila is doing to accelerate faculty is a concrete action. The Senior Manager of MURI, Awam Rahargo, hoped that the webinar encourages other universities to at least copy Unila’s efforts to accelerate their lecturers to achieve a full professor title. [PR Team]
