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| READY TO OBSERVE: Threee Australian Students of ACICIS (left-right) Cameron Rhyss, Sally Swinnen and Janelle Susan, will spend their time in East Java to conduct researches. |
AFTER welcoming the 18 foreign students of Darmasiswa RI program, University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) was visited by three Australian students of East Java Study Program (EJSFP) of Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS). Through this program, the students will conduct researches about current developing issues in Indonesia, especially in East Java.
The students are Cameron Rhyss Anthony Whittredwhow are going to conduct a research on global warming, especially the climate change and its impact to Indonesia; Sally Swinnen on the rampant tobacco addiction ; and Janelle Susan Falconer on the implication of sustainable development in East Java, especially in the field of social, environment and tourism.
They have started their academic activity with General Lecture on Wednesday (2/9). For the next two weeks, they are going to enroll in the class of culture enlightenment and research method in UMM.
The coordinator of ACICIS UMM Program Widya Yutanti MA explained that this program has significant contribution for the internationalization of the faculty where it belongs, that is the Faculty of Social and Politic Science (FISIP). “Through these researchers, we get much cooperation with Australian institutions and universities,” she said.
She added that the students are the 41st headship of ACICIS program. So far, there are 239 Australian students who have conducted researches. The program itself is the result of cooperation between UMM and consortium consisting of 20 well-known universities in Australia.
During their time in UMM, they will conduct researches for one semester and reporting them in Indonesian. In the middle of the semester, there will be progress report to evaluate the researches they have conducted. At the end of the semester, they have to present the results.
Sally Swinnen, students of Charles Darwin University (CDU) Australia, said that she is interested in observing tobacco addiction in Indonesian due to her curiosity of why Indonesian really like smoking. “I am interested in conducting research on tobacco because Indonesian people smoke a lot and I wonder why there are many free smokers here,” she said.
She admitted that she chose UMM as academic-partner university because UMM has special cooperation with Australia through ACICIS. “I also interested in this program because I want to get scholarships,” she ended.
ACICIS, formed in 1993, offers the Australian students many choices to study about Indonesia by coordinating its access into regular semester or equal courses applied in Indonesian universities. (lil/han/t_far)
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