No ordinary college

No ordinary college

Not many colleges in the country have a strong and influential
association of alumni, and even fewer of these associations meet
regularly. And perhaps only one college in Indonesia has an
alumni association which can get the country's president to open
its congress: the Bandung Institute of Technology. But then ITB,
as the revered college is popularly known by its Indonesian
acronym, is not an ordinary college.

It is not for nothing that President Soeharto addressed the
gathering of the ITB alumni association at the State Palace on
Tuesday. It is a recognition of the role that ITB and its alumni
has played in society in the 77 years of its existence, and is
expected to continue playing into the next century.

ITB, founded in 1920 by the Dutch colonial government, is more
than a place for young people to study technology, although that
is one of its chief missions. It is much more than a center of
excellence, although this too is undoubtedly one of its visions.

ITB is also much more than an institute that has consistently
supplied many of the country's past and present leaders in all
walks of life, including in politics and business. Topping the
ITB's hall of fame is no other than Insinyur (Engineer) Sukarno,
the country's first president. Presently, 11 out of the 40
members of President Soeharto's cabinet are ITB graduates.

Given the contribution that its alumni have given to the
development of Indonesia, including in the struggle for
independence in the 1940s, ITB has become an institution.

Many old ITB graduates returned to Bandung this week to touch
base with their alma mater. They met and discussed what role the
college should play in society in the third millennium. The
question that was asked now is, can ITB maintain the role that it
has played, and can it keep its tradition in these changing
times?

The rapid growth of private universities, some of them with
financial clout, no doubt will challenge the position of ITB and
other state-run colleges like University of Indonesia which have
dominated the academic scene in Indonesia. ITB can no longer take
for granted its leading position. It will probably become one of
many centers of excellence in Indonesia, which is a healthy and
welcomed development for the country.

There is one tradition in ITB however that seems to have
disappeared: Campus politics. ITB had been known in the past as a
hotbed of student politics. The young Sukarno did much of his
political reading and debating during his days in Bandung in the
1920s. Many of his political visions and concepts that he applied
during his presidency were developed there. ITB students were
also in the thick of things during the student demonstrations in
1966 which, ironically, led to the downfall of Sukarno.

Some of the current political leaders who hail from ITB used
their campus as a springboard to launch their political careers.
After Sukarno's downfall, college life throughout Indonesia
continued to be restless in the early years of the New Order
until the heavy military clamp down to quell student revolts in
1978. Life in campuses has never been the same since then. A few
years later, traditional campus politics, as they were known
then, vanished with the introduction of the government's
normalization of campus life in all universities in the country.
Campuses are strictly for studying, and any politicking should be
conducted outside.

As the ITB alumni gathered in Bandung and as they elected
their new leader this week, these questions were begging: With
the present academic environment, can ITB continue to furnish the
country with its future political leaders? Are we not depriving
the nation of one of its traditional sources of political
leaders?

The answers will be clear in a few years time when the new
crop of young politicians begin to emerge. But then can we really
take this risk at a time when good leadership is becoming scarce
in this country? Will ITB be content with only supplying
technocrats, technologists, engineers and artists, but not
political leaders, to the community that has nurtured it?

The greatest service that the ITB alumni, especially those who
are in positions of power and influence, can give to their old
college is to help maintain ITB's tradition that has made it one
of the greatest higher learning institutes in the country.