YOGYAKARTA – UGM Faculty of Engineering celebrates the 65th Day of Engineering University (HPPT) in mid-February. At its inception, February 17th, 1946, this school only had three departments, namely Civil Engineering, Electrical-Mechanical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering. Now, it already has 12 courses of S-1 and 32 graduate program with 370 lecturers, half of them have doctoral degree and 40 professors. Meanwhile, there are 8484 students in S-1, S-2, and S-3 currently.
The celebration raises the theme "Synergy of Alumni, Industry and Academic Communiity for post-disaster Society." This theme was deliberately chosen to affirm the role of the Faculty which always shows concern and commitment for community in the various natural disasters that occured both regionally and nationally. "This theme is inspired by the concern in helping the Merapi eruption disaster management from start to post-eruption," said Indra Perdana to the reporters on Monday (14/2).
Previously, the Faculty had helped the handling of the 2006 earthquake in Bantul, 2009 earthquake in West Sumatra, 2010 floods in Wasior, and the catastrophic eruption of Merapi. During the eruption of Merapi, they established disaster mitigation task force which had conducted field surveys and rapid assessment to provide inputs for policy makers. "Together with community groups along the banks of the rivers that originated from Merapi, we have developed an early warning system (EWS) to overcome the threat of lava trough sms blasting," said Indra.
Faculty of Engineering in the last five years with the competence of human resources and cooperation network of research and education has already developed a variety of best practice in disaster risk mitigation and disaster management, especially on disasters of ground movements, tectonic earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, sediment flow, and tsunamis. "Faculty of Engineering deems it necessary to provide the best contributions on an ongoing basis, which are sustainable to communities located in disaster prone areas," said Agus Henratni, one of the committee who manages the disaster workshop.
The celebration was topped with a speech on February 17, 2011, presenting environmental expert, Prof. Emil Salim. On that occasion, Emil Salim planned to present his scientific oration related to higher education of Engineering’s role in improving national defense and anticipating the impact of geological and climate change disasters. In addition, there will be the workshops for disaster risk mitigation (16/2), science and technology exhibition (15-16/2), Annual Engineering Seminar (16/2), and parallel public lectures by the alumni (16/2). The series of event was closed with alumni gathering and nostalgic evening for Prof.Ir. Herman Johannes and Prof. Ir. Wreksodiningrat.