Catatan Hadi Nur

Objects at home

From this corner a lot of ideas are born. Including this posting.

[This posting was inspired by facebook status of a friend who is a commissioner of a leading company in Indonesia]

I always find three types of people as follows:

People who always use the past tense sentence
These people are usually always tell to everybody on their achievements of the past. Usually these people are very proud of their origins.

People who always use present tense sentences
These people are very realistic and pragmatic.

People who always use the future tense sentence
These people are usually very ambitious to achieve something. Having a strong impetus for progress. However, sometimes very selfish and only thinking about himself.

Sometimes we find people who recognized and regarded as an expert, and there are also people who claim they are expert.

This is my explanation on definition of expert. For me, the expert is “someone who has mastered in his field of expertise, so that he can provide very fast response (sometimes occurs without thinking – and may emerge from the unconscious) when he got stimuli associated with his expertise“.

For example, an experienced professor who teach ‘chemical thermodynamics’ will quickly answer students’ questions (with correct answers) about the areas of his expertise without thinking hard. This professor is categorized expert in ‘chemical thermodynamics teaching’.

[The above question will be answered at the end of this posting]

What does the authoritarian boss look like? To answer this question, it is necessary to know the characters of the authoritarian boss, i.e.,

/1/ There is no consensus;
/2/ Not willing to accept suggestions from subordinates;
/3/ Self-centered;
/4/ Always ruled;
/5/ Always give sudden job;
/6/ Every decision must be obeyed;
/7/ Possess an absolute power;
/8/ Ignoring suggestions from subordinates;
/9/ Nice to be praised.

Click HERE to find out who’s the authoritarian boss. At home, we call her “BIG BOSS”.

This post is about the history of my personal website, http://www.hadinur.com. I began to know the Internet when I came to the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in 1995 as a PhD student. In 1999, when I was a postdoctoral fellow at UTM, I created a website at http://www.angelfire.com/mt/hadinur. In 2000, I created a new account in http://www.geocities.com/hadinur when I was a postdoctoral research fellow at Catalysis Research Center, Hokkaido University. After I returned to UTM, in 2003, I moved my website to http://www.ibnusina.utm.my/~hadi. In May 2007, I decided to rent a domain http://www.hadinur.com.

“… The mission of the university and its commitment are to the present and future generations, safeguarding the prosperity and welfare of the world with the best in education and scientific research. Not just for ’superficial’ rankings. ”

The above statement is probably the ideal mission and goal of universities. However, sometimes that goal has been deviated because of pressure on the universities as ‘economic goods’ which must have the selling point in the market. This issue was raised by Prof. Wiranto Arismunandar (former rector of Institut Teknologi Bandung [ITB]) when giving a speech on the world rank of ITB held in ITB East Hall on May 10, 2008. My attention is attracted by the wisdom thinking of Prof. Wiranto. The following is the first paragraph of his paper which is translated from Indonesian:

Aspiration of ITB to be World Class University (WCU) is good, but it should not make us worry and panic, because this is not the most important thing. We should be worry if the ITB is useless and can’t serve the nation-building of Indonesia. The initiator of WCU ranking must have a certain plan and the various interests, and therefore, no need to worry about that. Business, student intake, political, social, economic, and various other interests, may be a few of the many reasons that underlie such interests. It should not make us anxious and vulnerable, trapped and shackled by the ranking’s issue. The most important is, ITB must be useful for the development of Indonesia and also participate in solving problems of this nation. ITB should make itself mainstay and become a national strength to overcome various challenges, in order to make the nation prosperous, respected and independent. ITB should be proud of and preserve the honor of Indonesian people. That is why we must be more serious in implementing our duties and obligations. Thus we can obtain better results and make continuous improvements. If later ITB achieve recognition as WCU, it will make us more motivated to give the best service to our beloved country. Do not be ambitious to reach a high rank, we will be ashamed if we do not serve the country and do not do anything for the development of Indonesia.

Prof. Akhmaloka, the new Rector of ITB period of 2010-2014, also voiced the same issue. His mission as ITB rector is to bring the ITB to produce something useful to society by utilizing the local uniqueness of Indonesia.

In conclusion, one suggests that it is more important to “earthing the university” rather than pursuing the prestige ranking, because it will provide tangible benefits for society and the country.

[Click the above picture to see a larger view]

As a reviewer in several journals in the field of Catalysis, I have recommended to reject nearly 80% of manuscripts (of about 30 manuscripts) which was sent to me by the editors in the last two years. Most of the manuscripts submitted were from universities in China. I do not know, if this is a coincidence or because so many manuscripts was submitted from the Chinese university. However, I also found that the quality of some manuscripts submitted from leading universities in Europe was low.

The following are the reasons why I do not accept manuscripts for publication:
- Originality. Usually in a paper that is not original, the results is very easy to predict.
- Speculation. Discussion and conclusion are not supported by the complete set of accurate data. Because of that the jump into conclusion statement was found in the manuscript.
- Logic. The analytical technique used is not appropriate, nor logic in analyzing the data.

Richard Feynman, a Physics Nobel laureate once said that, as a scientist, he enjoys the beauty of flowers with more in-depth than an artist. Artist or ordinary people just enjoy and appreciate only the external aesthetic of flower. As a scientist he was more to enjoy the beauty of flowers – not just from the external beauty of flower – but much deeper, such as molecular structure, metabolism, biophysics and the other scientific aspects.

Based on the above view, as a lecturer and researcher, I can analogize the university as “the flower of Richard Feynman”. The university is not only viewed from just the physical facilities, but much deeper – namely the process of education and research in it. This process must be based on the ’scientific culture’. The university should consider and implement this process in order to become a respected university. There are no points of scientific publications, patents and the medals obtained from the exhibition if they only showing ‘the external beauty’ of the university – just like a flower that is only enjoyed by ordinary people who do not understand the internal beauty of the flowers, as claimed by Richard Feynman.

What are you looking for in your career?

If you are a lecturer, of course your ultimate goal is to get professorship.

If you’re a politician, certainly your goal is to become a leader; minister, president or prime minister.

Based on the above two terms; lecturer and politician, I created a new term called lecturer politician. This term is created in order to describe someone who has no intention to become an educator, albeit he is a lecturer. The lecturer politicians use their academic status (lecturer, associate professor or professor) as a vehicle in the pursuit of power, like a politician does. Their intention is not to be a good teacher and researcher, but to seek power and fame. Is this wrong intentions? The answer is actually no, because everyone is free to dream what they want to be in their future life. Usually a lecturer politician is not interested in teaching.

I once read somewhere, that teaching and research are multiplicative, and not additive, factors in one’s stature as a scientist. This means that you are a zero as a scientist if you cannot teach. Of course, it also means that you are a zero as a scientist if you do not do research. Based on this consideration, a lecturer politician is not a scientist. Usually they are just a “clever scholar” who merely quotes an opinion or ideas of other scholars. So, what is the contribution of lecturer politicians in academic world?

This page was inspired by the real existing people called the lecturer politicians, but none of these descriptions refer to one single existing person. With the existence of people like this, one argues that there is must be something wrong with our university system, for example, academic promotion without considering the actual academic achievement.