People believe that having a long life means possessing many experiences. The idea also occurs in an educational area that the longer an institution is established, the more well-established, stable, and prestigious it is. However, the age does not hamper the institution to gain a lot of achievements. A number of international ranking boards seek to appreciate the attainments as QS World University Rankings with the category of top 50 under 50 and The Times Higher Education having Young University Rankings. Talking about the ranking, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) has recently become the best university under 50 in Yogyakarta.
Center for Strategic Information Data of Office of Planning and Development of UMY analyzed a university ranking report by Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia in August 2018. The analysis was undertaken based in criteria of the ministry to rank higher education institutions, namely human resources, accreditation, students, research, and publication. As the result, UMY was the best university under 50 in Yogyakarta and the third best university under 50 in Indonesia.
Rector of UMY Dr. Ir. Gunawan Budiyanto, M.P. stated that the accomplishment showed that UMY is now at the right track. “In the last three years, UMY attempts to build public trust in both Indonesian and overseas. The achievement presents that UMY can be acknowledged among Asia-Pacific universities and other universities in the world. Indeed, many international partners cooperate with UMY in various academic schemes,” he maintained.
“The accomplishments are actualizations of a vision and missions to create a university which bears generations to contribute to community. The rankings are an output of a systematic performance to confirm a position of UMY in a national level,” declared Gunawan.
Furthermore, Head of Office of Planning and Development of UMY Slamet Riyadi, S.T., M.Sc., Ph.D. explained, “UMY is young or categorized as a university under 50 having excellent achievements. Being the third best university under 50 in Indonesia ascertains our path in a national level besides getting ‘A’ (sangat baik – excellent) in 2013 and ‘A’ (unggul -superior) in 2017. Then, referring to strategic plan of UMY till 2020, UMY targets to be an international reputable university,” he asserted.
Slamed also conveyed that UMY has actively contributed to produce sciences and serve community. “UMY is a university actively giving contribution to development. For instance, lecturers of UMY do publications for science development and community service. Another example is that UMY students get achievements and get engaged in community service,” he said.
