YOGYAKARTA – It was a relaxed atmosphere during the ceremony of transfer of leadership from former Dean of UGM Faculty of Medicine, Prof. dr. Ghufron Mukti Ali, M.Sc., Ph.D., to newly elected Dean, dr. Rr. Titi Savitri Prihatiningsih, M.A, M. Med.Ed., Ph.D., which took place on Tuesday (3/1) in the auditorium of the Faculty.
It was started with a joke made by Chair of Faculty Senate, Prof. Dr. dr. Hardyanto Soebono, Sp.K (K)., who said that since the founding of the Faculty, only this time one of its lecturers has been appointed Deputy Health Minister. But immediately he corrected. "Because the term ‘Deputy Minister’ has recently emerged," he said. Ghufron who is the target of the joke only smiled hearing his senior’s joke.
Titi Savitri, the new Dean, also became the target of joke from the Professor. "For the first time, Faculty of Medicine has a female Dean, also the youngest one. But don’t forget, 10 months is the shortest official term for a dean during the history of the Faculty," he said, followed by laughter from the audience.
After entertaining the audience, Hardyanto became a little serious. He assessed Ghufron as having contributed much to Faculty’s advancement, namely to build buildings and maintain campus environment which is greener and cooler. Meanwhile, on the position as new Deputy Minister of Health, Hardyanto hoped Ghufron would adopt the ideas of UGM Faculty of Medicine to be used in national health policy. "We hope our national health policies become more beneficial to our nation," he said.
For the new dean, Hardyanto suggested her to significantly reduce activities outside campus. "In accordance with the message from the Rector delivered at your inauguration, external activities which are nothing to do with the duties as dean should be reduced," he said.
Ghufron in his speech congratulated Titi Savitri as the new Dean. He mentioned Titi Savitri as a young woman who is able to lead the Faculty. "Mrs. Titi Savitri would be a much better Dean," Ghufron said.
He added that he had conducted many things as Dean within three years. One of which was conducting accreditation for all 31 study programs in S1, S2 and S3. The recognition of accreditation is not only from domestic institutions but also from abroad. "One thing is that our curriculum design is good. It is not inferior to that of Harvard University," he added.
One that needs to be addressed again, Ghufron said, is meeting the need of number of lecturers which is inadequate. "We have 26 graduate study programs. We need particularly specialist program. Not only that, the number of doctoral students reaches 280 people," he said.