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| Students interact each other in the park next to the UMM Library |
THE ATMOSPHERE of Malang City, East Java, is cool to lure students from different regions and countries to study in this city. This attraction also inspires the University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) to build a campus nuanced recreative or edupark. The concept of campus tourism is expected to make the minds of students fresh, so they will have brilliant and creative ideas.
According to Fauzan, the Rector of UMM, UMM who claims itself as a green and clean campus plans to have fresh and healthy atmosphere. This is also supported by the unique topography of UMM that will make students and lecturers feel comfortable.
Students can see beautiful scenery when entering the gate of UMM. They can see Panderman Mountain and Arjuno Mountain surrounding the campus. Fauzan said, “Students like this view to take picture”.
In front of the main lecture building, there is a beautiful lake surrounded by gazebos that are favorite places for students to study together, or just to take a rest. Students can also circle around the campus with bike provided at some point.
Moving towards the West, past the round building of UMM Dome, is currently being built a road that will connect with one of the most iconic business unit of UMM which is called Taman Sengkaling UMM. While to the east, there is a stadium UMM near the conservation area of rare Arboretum plants.
Moreover, UMM Vice Rector II Nazaruddin Malik explained, this campus also takes advantage of natural beauty for academic development. For instance, the utilization of Brantas river that divides this campus. “UMM build Mycro Hydro Power Plant (PLTMH) uses the flow of Brantas river, so it can save the electricity cost up to 25 percent”.
Besides, the students of UMM can learn about hundreds of plants in the campus. By downloading Finding a Tree application in PlayStore, they can learn about types plants by barcode that is sticked in each plant. There are 41 types of plants in UMM, such as palms, tapebuya, and casuarina tree.
International Atmosphere
The students of UMM come from various regions in Indonesia and some other countries. Vice Rector 1 of UMM, Syamsul Arifin stated that in 2016, there are 188 new students who come from 18 countries, such as Australia, Chile, People Republic of China, Japan, Germany, Cambodia, South Korea, Poland, Romania, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sudan, Thailand, East Timor, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
UMM students can also expand international relationships through partnership programs. For instance, in every semester, UMM students have the opportunity to become buddy or partner for foreign students to do joint project through Learning Express (LEx) program in partnership with Singapore Polytechnic and Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT) of Japan. The best buddies will be sent to Japan and Singapore to continue the project. LEx is one of the programs funded by the Tamasek Foundation.
Besides, students can take short study abroad by joining Erasmus and Erasmus+ program which consist of 54 universities in 19 counties in Asia and Europe. By joining this program, the students will study for 6 months up to 1 year in one of the European campuses. Furthermore, students also can take summer camp in People Republic of China, taking Mandarin course, taking master and doctoral program scholarship from Confucius Institute.
Syamsul also said that, UMM also partnered with the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesia Studies (ACICIS) with 22 leading universities in Australia and Sakura Foundation to give the opportunity to students to join Sakura Science Program in Japan for two weeks.
UMM even now has corners of cooperation with the government in several countries, including American Corner, Saudi Arabian Corner, Thailand Corner, and China Corner. Those corners are located in the Library of UMM and become the center of information, development of insight, and forum for UMM students who want to study in these countries.
UMM also has UMM Corner in Thailand, as a center of information about UMM and Indonesia. Next, UMM Corner will also be opened in several other countries. Meanwhile, to facilitate foreign students studying at UMM, there is an Indonesian Language Unit for Foreign Speakers (BIPA), so foreign students are fluent in Indonesian language before entering regular lecturing.(lus)
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