UM in its prime, five decades on
The Star, Sunday, October 3, 1999
Being the country's oldest university, Universiti Malaya has often served as a role model for other universities. As UM prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary on Oct 8, SIMRIT KAUR takes stock of the university's progress and its plans to maintain its leading position into the new millenium. (Read also about its birth)
A PARALLEL can be drawn between the founding of Universiti Malaya and the nation's struggle for independence.
As with merdeka, the setting up a Malayan university was in line with the aspiration of the Malayan people, in this case for locals to have greater access to higher education.
However, only after 80 years of colonial rule did UM become a reality -- even then, it was shared between the Federation of Malaya and Singapore.
Back then, it was considered a privilege to enter UM and its early students were considered the cream of the crop and many of them holding scholarships.
The pioneer batches took great pride in their statues and were proud to be part of the country's first university, which though new, had set very high standards for itself.
Half a century on, UM is no longer the only university in the country; 11 other public universities and half a dozen private ones have joined its ranks.
Despite this "competition" and the abundance of choices today, many argue that UM is still the front-runner among these institutions established in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
While there are no official rankings, the most commonly quoted one is regional news magazine Asiaweek's unofficial survey where, among Malaysian public universities, UM is way ahead.
The list of UM graduates reads like a virtual Who's Who of Malaysian politics, business and government service.
They include the late Aminuddin Baki, Datuk Asiah Abu Samah, Tun Hamdan Sheikh Tahir, Muhammad Haji Salleh, Datuk Dr R.S. McCoy, Prof Wang Gungwu, Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli, Dr Syed Husin Ali, Tan Sri Dr Tan Chee Khoon just to name a few.
The future of the country's oldest university looks bright as long as it continues to attract the same calibre of students who preceded them.
Maintaining the tradition
"We are proud of our tradition and track record of equipping students with the right values and skills.
"We expect our students to be leaders and to give their best in terms of performance," says UM Vice-Chancellor Tan Sri Dr Abdullah Sanusi Ahmad.
He adds that UM is still the university of first choice among students -- for its history and heritage and because of its location in the centre of the Klang Valley.
<Picture: Star Online Pix alt> NEW GENERATION ... undergraduates posing outside UM's Education Faculty. As the oldest, UM also has the advantage of having the best facilities and best brains in terms of its lecturers.
"We have the largest number of professors, more than 150, while some universities only have a handful," says the VC.
He adds that UM helped to establish most of the local universities through its expertise, especially in terms of academic staffing.
It can count among its students and staff several heads of local universities including Tun Hamdan, Tan Sri Dr Ahmad Ibrahim, Tan Sri Dr Awang Had Salleh, Ghauth Jasmon, and many others.
UM chief librarian Dr Zaiton Osman says that the importance placed on tradition at UM is reflected in its buildings.
"At UM, we don't tear down the old buildings; as far as possible, we try to ensure that the new buildings complement the old."
The UM library is a good example of this. The original library was built in 1957 and has had four phases of construction since then.
A concern for the environment has always been evident in UM, it was said that Ungku Aziz would not permit any tree to be cut down and would ensure that no building was more than four storeys high. The present VC's policy, on the other hand, is that for every tree cut down, three more would have to be planted.
Assoc Prof Dr K Thilagawathi, who studied gained a Bachelor of Arts in Indian Studies from UM in 1969, is proud of the fact that the country's only Indian Studies Department is here.
She believes that though the emphasis has shifted to science and technology with Malaysia's rapid industrialisation, the humanities still have an important place in university education.
"I think the Government has begun to recognise the importance of the arts as they realise that the younger generation are losing sight of their cultural norms and values."
"The introduction of Asian and Islamic Civilisation as core university courses which must be taken by undergraduates in all universities shows this realisation."
Because UM has the only Indian Studies Department, expertise was sought from UM lecturers to help compile the syllabus which included elements of Indian civilisations.
Dr Thilagawathi has also experienced the Malaysianisation of UM. "When I studied here, all the lecturers were expatriates from India. Now all the department's 10 lecturers are local," she says with great pride.
Staying competitive
According to the VC, UM is well prepared to enter the new millennium with the addition of new buildings and facilities.
It has spent over RM400mil in the past five to six years to upgrade the university, renovate old buildings, construct new ones and and put in place a campus area network to link the whole university.
UM has a staff strength of 150 professors, 400 associate professors and 1,100 lecturers and tutors. There are 12 faculties, four centres, two academies and an institute of advanced studies and research.
UM's academic programmes have also been diversified with the introduction of new degree programmes and the restructuring of old ones to make the courses more relevant and responsive to the needs of a rapidly changing world.
"For example, in engineering, for the past 35 years, UM had only offered the four traditional disciplines of civil, mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering.
"But now, we have introduced nine more degree programmes including manufacturing, telecommunications and CADCAM engineering. This is what industry wants and UM needs to adapt to this," says Dr Abdullah Sanusi.
Other degree programmes introduced recently include music, drama, sports science, pharmacy, early childhood education, etc.
Innovative teaching and learning methods have also been emphasised through the use of technology.
A Multimedia Development Centre and the Universiti Malaya Learning Improvement Centre were established to improve the teaching skills of lecturers.
"Lecturers should not use the chalk and talk method method exclusively anymore. Many lecture with the same yellowing notes year in and year out.
"They should take advantage of technological innovations to make their presentations more interesting, for example, by putting their lectures in a multimedia format."
Another innovation is to have students evaluate lecturers and to use the feedback together with staff and peer evaluation when compiling a performance report on lecturers.
"This has to be done as it is for the good of the students; the Engineering and Education Faculties are already doing so," says the VC.
UM has also come up with a booklet on work ethics for all staff and a code of ethics for lecturers.
Realising the importance of globalisation, UM has signed memoranda of understanding with 60 universities worldwide.
Anticipating less money from the Government, UM is intent on maximising its intellectual and physical resources.
"We have a lot of sophisticated equipment which can be used by the private sector to generate income."
Student life
The UM of old was well known as a stimulating intellectual and spritual environment. Interaction between students of different faculties and races was high.
Dr Abdullah Sanusi, who graduated from UM in 1961, can see a big difference between students and student life in his day and now.
"There was certainly more camaradarie between us, the student population was only about 1,000 then so there were more opportunities to meet often.
Racial polarisation was also not evident, "for example my room-mate, who still remains a good friend until this day is an Indian."
"Back then the activities were more multi-racial, it allowed the students to shed some prejudices through the common actities."
Today, most associations are dominated by a single race.
Dr Abdullah Sanusi is also critical of state-based students associations which he says promote parochial thinking among students.
UM has had a long traditition of student activism dating back from its Singapore campus days.
"Students those days were very mature and conscious of their future role in the adminstrative and political leadership."
A famous landmark was Speaker's Corner, just outside the library, where students could talk about anything and everything.
Even though there were student demonstrations, they were a placid, orderly affair, and certainly never turned violent.
Student activism reached its heyday in the early 70s when (Datuk Seri) Anwar Ibrahim and his UM cohorts adopted a more strident approach in debating national issues.
Student involvement in outside politics was subsequently curtailed with an amendment to the University and University Colleges Act in 1974.
The ensuring years saw little student involvement in national affairs, but the sacking of the deputy prime minister last year has seen a resurgence of student activism.
Copyright © 1999. Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. (Co No. 10894-D) All rights reserved.