Poetry is an activity that is favored by various groups, including young students. The freedom to create beautiful works of writing and literature that describe snippets or moments of life is poured through stanzas and lines that are not constrained by rigid rules. In the Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM, the space to create poetry is made a place through student activities, the Semi-Autonomous Body Sanggar Lincak FIB UGM.

Starting from a collection of poetry fans among FIB UGM students who later formed a poetry community, Sanggar Lincak provides a space for FIB UGM students to gather and create together to produce poetry works with associations held every week at FIB UGM. Routine activities held by Sanggar Lincak such as Poetry Reading Classes and Rabun Senja which are open to the public, are an attraction for UGM Faculty of Arts students to participate and take part in poetry activities with other faculty students.

On Wednesday, March 20, 2024, Sanggar Lincak invited Public Relations of Faculty of Arts UGM to participate in regular weekly activities. Abyan Irsyad Fawzi, as the Head of BSO Sanggar Lincak guided the routine activities with 6 other students to create poetic creations with a special theme on that day, “Religiosity”. The students were given 15 minutes to compose their poetry creations and then read their respective poems. Each student was also given the opportunity to explain the background of the poem they composed.

Not only explaining the background, each student also shared their experiences and responded interactively to each other’s poems. This aims to build a sense of community and a safe space to not only poem, but tell stories. To know more about BSO Sanggar Lincak, students can visit through this Instagram link.

On Monday, March 4, 2024 a Thesis Proposal Seminar or Sempro was held offline for S-1 Cultural Anthropology students of FIB UGM. The Proposal Seminar was held openly, so that the academic community and the general public could see the seminar. This seminar was attended by 29 students who were divided into four clusters, namely the economic tourism cluster, lifestyle and health cluster, ecology and maritime cluster, and arts, gender, and labor cluster.

Dr. Atik Triratnawati, M.A as the Head of the S-1 Cultural Anthropology Study Program who was also present as a discussant lecturer in the proposal seminar this time delivered several comments, he conveyed a message related to the need for students to refer to SDG’s values in writing a thesis. He revealed that actually Gadjah Mada University has made a regulation where the final project, thesis, and thesis of students are required to refer to the values in the SDGs and all courses in the S-1 Cultural Anthropology Study Program have also referred to the values in the SDGs. However, from the seminars that have been held, almost none of them refer to or clearly link the thesis proposals that students present with the values in the SDGs. Responding to this phenomenon, he planned that in the future there will be a socialization related to embedding SDGs values in the thesis and thesis of Anthropology students.

In addition to mentioning about SDGs, Dr. Atik Triratnawati, M.A also responded to the seminar from a technical point of view, she advised related to the question sentence in the problem formulation. She revealed that there are still many students who underestimate the question sentence “why” and feel enough with the question sentence how, even though according to her if the why sentence is used in the right context, it will lead to broader and deeper research findings. He advised students who will take part in proposal seminars in the future to consider the aspect of the question sentence “why”.

From the proposal seminar that has been held, it can be seen that although the University has emphasized the importance of referring to SDGs values in the thesis, there are still gaps in its application by students. Support and socialization planning that will be initiated in the future are important steps to ensure that students can better understand and apply these principles in their thesis. In addition, messages related to the importance of asking “why” questions are also important points in improving the quality of research. All of this is an effort to encourage the achievement of the ideals contained in the SDGs, especially point 4 (Quality Education) through the contribution of Cultural Anthropology students at Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM.

Two students of the Master of Middle Eastern Cultural Studies, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Fahmi Mubarok and Lutfi Nurfadli became Liaison Officers and Translators at the Hajj and Umrah Organizers Association (Himpuh) Deliberation on Wednesday-Friday, February 27-29, 2024 at the Marriot Hotel Yogyakarta. The event was attended by Prof. Hilman Latief, M.A., Ph.D. as the Director General of Hajj and Umrah of the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia. The two students accompanied Mashariq’s VIP guests from Saudi Arabia, Wael Mohammad M. Rasheedi and Mohammedamin Hassan M. Andergiri.

Fahmi Mubarok and Lutfi Nurfadli are graduates from two leading universities in the Middle East, Al-Azhar Cairo University in Egypt and Yarmouk University in Jordan. Armed with experience and communicative Official (Fusha) and Local (Ammiyah) Arabic language skills, these two outstanding students successfully translated directly the remarks of Saudi Arabia’s VIP guest representatives at the event. They also received positive responses and good appreciation from the VIP guests who were accompanied. Thus, knowledge of Arabic and Arabic language skills, especially spoken language, play an important role in establishing and improving the quality of cooperation between countries.

On Wednesday, March 20, 2024, the Indonesian International Student Mobility Awards (IISMA) 2024 program organized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) for students in Indonesian universities, announced the final selection of the IISMA 2024 selection process. Faculty of Humanities UGM in 2024 managed to produce 15 outstanding students who passed the final selection of IISMA 2024. The students come from a number of study programs of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, namely, Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Korean Language and Culture, Arabic Literature, English Literature, and Indonesian Language and Literature.

The Indonesian International Student Mobility Awards (IISMA) program is a mobility scholarship program held by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) for higher education students for one semester to undergo lectures at partner universities abroad. The program aims to develop communication, experience international cross-cultural exposure, increase networking opportunities, and hone individual abilities through lectures and courses taken at partner universities. Faculty of Humanities UGM has successfully sent a number of students since the IISMA program opened in 2021 to various partner universities located in various continental regions and countries such as Great Britain, Ireland, Europe, and Asia.

In 2024, there were 15 FIB UGM students who passed the final stage of the IISMA 2024 selection, namely:
1. Annaylafayza Azizah Azzahra (Cultural Anthropology ’21) = Mahidol University
2. Grace Michelle Phoebe Halim (Cultural Anthropology’22) = National University of Singapore
3. Bernadien Pramudita Tantya Kirana (Cultural Anthropology’22) = Sapienza Università di Roma
4. Realino Arya Pradipa (Cultural Anthropology’21) = Università di Pisa
5. Ananda Ariyani Agita Barus (Archaeology’21) = Université de Caen Normandie
6. Jocelyn (Korean Language and Culture’21) = University of Zagreb
7. Khasan Maulani Kiromim Baroroh (Arabic Literature’21) = University of Zagreb
8. Benedicta Angie Azaria Prasetyo Rahayu (English Literature’22) = Korea University
9. In Kristi Tikam Tirani (English Literature’21) = Mahidol University
10. Angely (English Literature’21) = National Taiwan University
11. Neysa Nasywa (English Literature’21) = Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
12. Erlangga Satrio Bintoro (English Literature’21) = University College Cork
13. Azizah Putri Chandra Kusuma (English Literature’22) = Universita degli Studi di Siena
14. Raden Roro Rachma Amalia Putri (English Literature’22) = Vytautas Magnus University
15. Imtiyaz Putri Hanifa (Indonesian Language and Literature’21) = University College Dublin

On Tuesday, March 19, 2024, the Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM held an online socialization of the FIB UGM 2024 Work Outcome Targets (TCK) by inviting a number of heads of undergraduate and postgraduate study programs at FIB UGM, lecturers, Department / Study Program administrators, and part-time staff. The TCK socialization aims to determine the achievement goals in the performance of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM. This TCK was developed into the 2023-2026 Strategic Plan which was then elaborated in the Strategic Plan Program (Renstra). A number of Renstra 2023-2026 programs include partnership cooperation in tridharma activities involving students and lecturers, development of an integrated innovation ecosystem, increasing recognition of study program excellence at the national and international levels, strengthening outstanding students, developing research resources and research that can be utilized by the community, and others.

The presentation began with remarks by the Deputy Dean for Finance, Assets, and Human Resources, Suray Agung Nugroho, S.S., M.A., Ph.D., who also explained to the invited guests about the overall Work Achievement Targets which included the 2023-2026 Strategic Plan, Strategic Plan programs, performance indicators, and targets collected. The 2023-2026 Strategic Plan program also applies to be fulfilled for each study program and department at FIB UGM. The socialization of TCK FIB UGM 2024 is expected to provide important information about detailed steps and efforts to all parties involved to improve the quality of education and Tridharma at FIB UGM and Universitas Gadjah Mada.