USU PR - The Rector of the Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) Dr. Muryanto Amin, S.Sos,, M.Si., conveyed three important messages in the commemoration of Lustrum XIII or the 65th Anniversary of the USU Faculty of Agriculture. The activity was held in the courtyard of the USU Faculty of Agriculture on Tuesday (11/16/2021).

On that occasion, the USU Rector who was accompanied by USU Vice Rector V Ir. Luhut Sihombing, MP, and the Dean of the USU Faculty of Agriculture Dr. Ir. Tavi Supriana emphasized that the Tri Darma transformation process to achieve performance in 2021-2026 or referred to as Transformation Towards the Ultimate could be implemented by the USU Faculty of Agriculture.

Faculties are expected to design institutional arrangements and programs that are in line with the 2020-2024 USU Strategic Plan, namely achieving international recognition and realizing the 2021-2026 Rector's Priority Work Program.

“Transformation in the implementation of the tri dharma task must be a new mindset for lecturers, students, staff, and all at the Faculty of Agriculture. Currently, transformation is needed to respond to three disruptions that hit life at the same time, namely climate change, the industrial revolution 4.0, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The question then is what should be done by the Faculty of Agriculture to respond to this disruption?” said the USU Rector.

He said that there was no best experience that could be used as a lesson to deal with the three disruptions. Not just Indonesia, in many countries, even including developed countries, still experiences the same difficulties.

“First, transform the curriculum review to fulfill the Independent Learning Campus (MBKM) policy. An important substance in MBKM is building bridging because of the gap between campus and industry. Agricultural graduates are still difficult to be absorbed by industries that need concrete ideas as solutions to overcome agricultural problems that currently require a touch of high technology. Learning, research, and community service must be carried out to respond to the changes that occur due to the disruption," he explained.

Furthermore, the Rector also conveyed the second important message, namely the transformation of scientific products from lecturers and students of the Faculty of Agriculture should be directed to achieve downstreaming and commercialization. Applied research must be reproduced to strengthen USU's branding as a whole. According to him, it is impossible for the Faculty of Agriculture to produce downstream and commercialization products if lecturers and students do not focus on consistently designing the link between the learning process, research and community service to produce innovation.

“The current change in business processes in agriculture, which is already using AI and IoT, requires agricultural disciplines and their variants to collaborate with other disciplines and interact with the industrial world. All learning processes must be carried out openly with a touch of industry from an early age or in classrooms, which are no longer defined as the same class as local. Class is a learning process that can be obtained from anyone, from anywhere, and at any time because information on scientific developments is very open resources, "said Muryanto Amin.

In the third message, Muryanto emphasized that the academic community was transforming into digital citizens. All lecturers, students, and education staff must migrate from manual to digital because they are more adaptive to respond to changes. The entire performance of the Faculty of Agriculture will be measured through digital data. There will no longer be a manual report that is accounted for the implementation of Tri Darma tasks. At least, the academic community of the Faculty of Agriculture must be smart digital users.

“The three transformations that I mentioned are very likely to be achieved by the USU Faculty of Agriculture. When the ranking announcement was released by Quacquarelli Symonds Asia University Rankings (QS AUR), USU was ranked 501-550 out of 687 educational institutions assessed. Among the five advantages of USU, one that can be used as capital to improve USU's ranking is the field of Agricultural and Biological Sciences," he said.

Lustrum XIII Faculty of Agriculture also presented a seminar entitled "Tips to Becoming an Organic Entrepreneur". Present as resource persons Director General of Agricultural Infrastructure and Facilities of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Indonesia Ir. Ali Jamil, MP, PhD, Director of Export Development Cooperation of the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia Ir. Marolop Nainggolan, MA, Asian Organic Ambassador, Ir. H Soekirman, Chairman of KOMTEX 65-11 Food Crops Middle Planner, Secretariat General of Food Crops Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Indonesia, Batara Siagian, SP, M.AB. In addition, the deputy deans, lecturers, staff, and students from the USU Faculty of Agriculture were also present. (©ULC)

Author: Roni Hikmah Ramadhan - Humas

Interviewee: - - -

Photographer: Amri Simatupang - Humas