Jakarta (ANTARA) - The conferral of honorary professorships has long\ngenerated more controversy among the public than acceptance or\nrecognition of their appropriateness.<\/p>\n
A fundamental error we seldom dissect is the equating of \u201cprofessor\u201d\nwith \u201cguru besar\u201d (great teacher). Yet ontologically and semantically,\nprofessor is not identical to guru besar.<\/p>\n
Language constructs reality; it does not merely describe it. When we\nchose the term \u201cguru besar\u201d as the translation for the highest academic\nfunctional rank, we were constructing a sacred reality. Moreover, the\nconsequences are profoundly serious \u2014 they can damage, even destroy,\nacademic integrity.<\/p>\n
The word \u201cguru\u201d in Indonesian culture carries broad and deep moral\nweight \u2014 one who is heeded and emulated. The word \u201cguru\u201d in Indonesian\nalso has deeply rooted Sanskrit origins, meaning \u201cheavy, venerable,\nweighty in knowledge and wisdom,\u201d and is even considered a\nrepresentation of the Divine, capable of dispelling darkness (gu) from\none\u2019s students (ru).<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the attribute \u201cbesar\u201d (great) further reinforces the\nweight of spirituality, exemplarity, and wisdom that clearly transcends\nadministrative-technical-structural dimensions. Indeed, in older\nMalay\/Indonesian usage, something of high standing was often called\n\u201cbesar\u201d (for instance, \u201ctuan besar,\u201d meaning great lord).<\/p>\n
When the professorship \u2014 which is fundamentally an accumulation of\nresearch achievements and academic teaching in classrooms and\nlaboratories (as reflected in its credit point requirements) \u2014 is\npackaged with the label \u201cguru besar\u201d (a moral-cultural status),\ndistortion occurs.<\/p>\n
People no longer focus their efforts on genuine expertise but instead\nchase social prestige and mystique. This is what drives the blind\npursuit of this academic rank, even to the point of breaching ethical\nboundaries, because what is being hunted is the title of \u201ca teacher\nrevered by society,\u201d not intellectual responsibility.<\/p>\n
Historically, this equivalence is rooted in the post-independence\neffort to indigenise colonial terminology. During the Dutch East Indies\nera, the highest university position was called \u201choogleraar\u201d (literally\n\u201chigh teacher,\u201d from hoog = high, leraar = teacher). Its Indonesian\nequivalent became \u201cguru besar.\u201d Unfortunately, this choice overlooked\nthe fact that in its country of origin, hoogleraar was a position with\nresearch-based duties (Tauchid Komara Yuda, 2025), not a lifelong title\nof mystical nobility. When identified with \u201cprofessor,\u201d the term\nunderwent hyper-sacralisation.<\/p>\n
We have become trapped in a linguistic romanticism that is no longer\nrelevant to the times. Today there are research professors at the\nNational Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) who formally have no\nobligation to teach students on campus, or honorary professors who are\noften appointed for contributions deemed to lie outside the academic\nworld.<\/p>\n
If they do not teach, then semantically, where does the \u201cguru\u201d\n(teacher) element reside? Is it not absurd and an affront to our own\ncommon sense when we utter the term \u201chonorary guru besar\u201d? Attaching the\ndesignation \u201cguru besar\u201d in this context is not merely a functional\nmisnomer \u2014 it also proves that the label has shifted into nothing more\nthan a social trophy, no longer an educational mandate.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/professor-is-not-guru-besar-1771834545", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }