Building Civilisation Begins on Campus
Amid political turmoil, global economic slowdown, technological disruption, the climate crisis and prolonged geopolitical conflict, one fundamental question deserves to be asked: where, in truth, is the civilisation of the future built?
Some would point to the state, parliament or the market as the primary actors. Others believe change is born of economic power, technological advancement or military superiority. All of these play important roles. Yet history shows that civilisations which endure almost always begin in spaces of knowledge. It is from there that ideas, values and leadership emerge, subsequently moving society.
No great civilisation has grown without a campus, madrasa, academy or centre of learning at its heart. Athens produced the philosophers who laid the foundations of Western thought. Baghdad under the Abbasids made the Bayt al-Hikmah a centre of translation, research and scientific innovation.
Cordoba fostered an intellectual tradition that brought Muslims, Jews and Christians together in scholarly dialogue. Al-Azhar has been a global reference for Islamic thought for more than a thousand years. All of this reveals one common pattern: civilisation flourishes when knowledge occupies an honoured place in public life.
Indonesia possesses capital no less significant. For more than six decades, the State Islamic Religious Higher Education Institutions (PTKIN) have produced millions of alumni now spread across nearly every sector of life. They serve as ulama, judges, academics, bureaucrats, diplomats, teachers, politicians, journalists, activists, entrepreneurs and community leaders across the regions. This remarkably extensive network is, in truth, one of the nation’s strategic strengths, one that has not yet been fully recognised as an asset for national development.
Agents of Change
To date, the success of higher education institutions has often been measured through internal academic indicators such as accreditation, the number of scholarly publications, ranking improvements or student graduation rates. All of these measures matter, as they reflect the quality of academic governance. Even so, they do not sufficiently capture the extent to which a campus is able to transform society through its ideas and its alumni.
At its core, a campus is not merely a place that produces graduates. A campus is a space for character formation, a laboratory of leadership, and at the same time a centre from which ideas emerge that influence the direction of the nation. When students graduate, the campus’s journey of service in fact only enters its next chapter. A university’s reputation is ultimately determined not only by what is taught in lecture halls. What also matters is the tangible contribution of its alumni in answering society’s problems.
It is in this context that alumni become the extended arm of the campus in the public sphere. Through them, academic values are transformed into policy, public services, social innovation and leadership whose benefits are felt by the wider community. The relationship between campus and alumni therefore cannot be understood as a ceremonial bond that ends with reunions or nostalgic gatherings. It is an intellectual partnership that continues throughout life.