Two Study Programmes of the Faculty of Cultural Studies (FCS) Universitas Brawijaya (UB) received an international accreditation visitation of AQAS (Agentur zur Qualitätssicherung an Hochschulen mit Sitz in Köln) which is based in Germany. This visitation was carried out through an online platform for cluster 3 which are the Study Programme of Fine Arts (SPFA) and Study Programme of Anthropology (SPA). This accreditation aims to improve the quality of UB as an international standard university.
The visitation was divided into several sessions, namely, the university management session, which was attended by all leaders of the university and a virtual campus tour that was held on Monday (9/5/2022), then the faculty management session which was attended by all leaders of faculties, departments, study programmes and users of graduates, students, and alumni on Tuesday (9/6/2022). The review was carried out on Thursday (9/8/2022)
The expert panels include (1) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Keum Hyun Kim, University of Malaya (Malaysia), Department of Asian and European Languages, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, (2) Prof. Jörg Obergfell, Trier University of Applied Sciences, Department of Art and Design, (3) Karina Tungari, Illustrator and Graphic Designer, Hamburg, Germany (Representative of the Labor Market), (4) Ribal Zeitouni, Technische Universität Berlin, Culture and Technology (Student Representative), (5) Vi Le, M.A., dan (6) Ronny Heintze from AQAS.
On this occasion, UB’s Rector, Prof. Widodo, S.Si., M.Sc., Ph.D.Med.Sc. conveyed the UB’s developments, achievements, and plans, as well as the important role of SPFA and SPA in UB.
“Those two study programmes are important for UB’s development because in Indonesia, especially in Java Island, we have a lot of local wisdom and traditions which we should maintain, and all of the science and technology in UB are based on local wisdom and adapted to our vision, so this is why those two study programmes are very important for the development of UB,” said Prof. Widodo.
Hamamah, S.Pd., M.Pd. Ph.D., Dean of FCS UB, explained that FCS is one of the youngest faculty in UB. So, through this process, FCS would like to learn how to improve its quality of teaching, researching, and conducting community service. Therefore, FCS UB strives to learn and improve quality by getting an assessment from AQAS.
“We would like to advance the progress of the improvement of the faculty, this is the reason we would like to be assessed internationally, especially from AQAS,” said Hamamah.
“The presence of the SPFA and SPA in this university is to balance the interdisciplinary communication for UB to achieve its mission,” she continued.
FCS UB has prepared various things for this AQAS visitation starting from 2020. Cluster 1 Visitation of Study Programmes of (1) Japanese Literature, (2) Chinese Literature, (3) Japanese Language Education, and (4) Indonesian Language and Literature Education has been held on March 21-25, 2022, and currently waiting for the results. Meanwhile, Cluster 2 (Europe) for Study Programmes of (1) English Literature, (2) French Language and Literature, (3) English Language Education, and (4) Masters in Linguistics are still waiting for the implementation schedule. [dts/aaz/PR FCS]