A Turning Point: The Rocky Road of Unesa's Office of International Affairs

This month might be considered the pitch of OIA Unesa’s achievement during 2022. This month –15 Dec 2022– we got the gold winner for PTN BLU (public service agency college) International Partnership on Dikristek Award 2022. Deep on the surface, it is a long shot to win. OIA Unesa has passed many ups and downs along its journey before it comes to it. The volunteer reporter of OIA Unesa interviewed the chairman of Unesa’s Office of International Affairs – Mr. Asrori, S.S., S.Pd. Moving back to 2020, OIA Unesa is just an administrative international office with three branches administration, partnership, and mobility. At that time, OIA was handled by lecturers who were inexperienced in dealing with international affairs. They were helped by an administrative staff who was the same as the lecturers –zero experience in international affairs. Realizing that we need to improve the quality of OIA Unesa the chairman and the Vice chairman of OIA Unesa decided to do benchmarking at some universities in Indonesia. OIA gained much insight into building and managing international affairs from that benchmarking. OIA Unesa faced another challenge. Covid-19 challenged the OIA team to operate and manage the office during the pandemic. That was a challenging time, especially during the lockdown. As a breakthrough, in 2020, OIA Unesa launched two international programs. The Unifur (The Unesa’s International Forum of University Rectors) was the first virtual international forum for university rectors held by Unesa. Through this forum, OIA could introduce flagship programs in Unesa to other universities and organizations. As a result, Unesa was able to assign 5 MoU during 2020. Despite it, Unesa still faced difficulty in attracting international students. That was the background of the idea from Mr. Asrori to initiate the International Students Scholarship (ISS). This program was the first scholarship program made by unesa for international students. As expected, in 2020, Unesa succeeded in getting thirteen ISS awardee international students who have recently become full-time learners in Unesa. In 2021, OIA Unesa became more confident than the previous year. OIA became an active member of SEAMEO (The Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization) along with other southeast Asian countries. Through this organization, unesa got a broader door to reach out to various international partners. The increase in the 2nd UNIFUR participants proved it. There were more than seventy participants that year. That number has more than doubled from the previous year. At the end of the year, OIA has assigned 21 new MoU. This number even quadrupled from the MoU in the last year.  Entering 2022, OIA Unesa got fresh air by joining three new staff members and a managing team from a lecturer. On June 2022, Unesa joined the 12th Joint Working Group (JWG) on Higher Education, Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship between the French and Indonesian governments. This event was held in Valenciennes, French, on 28 and 29 June 2022. On that event, Unesa was chosen as the host university for the 13th JWG forum in 2024. It was an honor and an excellent opportunity for Unesa to be an international university. Moreover, this year, Unesa and the other four universities in Indonesia were officially designated as PTN BH (a legal entity college). This achievement must not be distinct from the role of OIA Unesa as an International Office, which made many improvements over the last few years. Overall, from 2020 until 2022, the most memorable achievement was the gold winner for PTN BLU (public service agency college) International Partnership on Dikristek Award 2022. It was reasonable for Unesa to be in the first place since Unesa has the improvement of partnerships during the last three years. OIA Unesa reached many MoU signings this year compared to 2020 and 2021. There were more than fifty MoU recorded on the data signed by Unesa and its partners in 2022.  The end of this period does not mean that the growth and improvement of OIA Unesa should have ended. “We should continue this fighting to make Unesa a better university day by day – especially in the international scene,” said Mr. Asrori. All OIA achievements resulted from the help and roles of many parties, including OIA volunteers. OIA volunteers as the helping hand of OIA Unesa be appreciated since, without their help, OIA Unesa cannot maintain all parts of this office. At the end of the interview session, Mr. Asrori gives a message to Unesa’s students. He said, "As a university student, you should be active in improving your soft skill through various activities outside of your class. Becoming a volunteer in OIA Unesa will be very beneficial for you to improve your international knowledge.”________________________________________________Writer: Anggi Ratri Anggoro Kasih

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