What Aristotle said is the most appropriate sentence to describe the process of undergoing education, where all stages are carried out with difficulty in order to achieve the desired dreams and ideals. Education is actually not a preparation for life but the story of life itself. The relevance of the realization of the meaning of the sentence feels very fitting when juxtaposed with the Covid-19 pandemic, which requires us all to learn anywhere, anytime, and with anyone.

The synergy between universities and the industrial world, which opens wide campus gates for the process of building and improving graduate competencies through information and experience sharing mechanisms, as well as knowledge transfer, is the main marker of higher education in responding to disruption. The Universitas Sumatera Utara is one of them who took this path to minimize the slowdown in progress made possible by the inaccuracy in responding to the impact of the pandemic. This synergy makes the pace of learning activities at USU even more exciting and fast-paced in the fast lane of MBKM rolled out by Kemendikbudristek.

The Universitas Sumatera Utara, which was once lined up as one of the universities in Indonesia in the top 10 universities with the highest number of professors based on Higher Education Statistics data issued by the Directorate General of Higher Education of the Ministry of Research and Technology, certainly has a great burden to translate the demands of the community for the availability of educational institutions that are like a Candradimuka crater; strict and firm on results orientation, producing the best graduates with a set of important educational policies and steps that are innovative, responsive and in line with the times.

Professor is the highest functional position of a lecturer, who has authority in his scientific field and is functioned to implement the Tridharma of Higher Education properly. With 175 professors currently, Universitas Sumatera Utara is now ready to spur the important role of professors in boosting the quality of Tri Dharma Perguruan Tinggi activities.

USU Rector Dr. Muryanto Amin stated that the number of professors owned by USU must certainly continue to be added to meet the proportional requirements for the number of professors as an indicator set in assessing the quality of the Tri Dharma of Higher Education. It is not easy to achieve the ideal number of professors that must be met by every university in Indonesia due to the limitations of each campus. Nevertheless, on the shoulders of these professors is the responsibility to become a role model in fostering other lecturers to conduct research, write articles to be published in reputable international journals, or have one innovation product. Through the Council of Professors, USU also strongly hopes that the mentoring program can be carried out by each professor to produce tri dharma activities for other lecturers who still find it difficult to have quality research, publications, and innovations, so that they can have a good AD Scientist Index.

This was conveyed by USU Rector Dr. Muryanto Amin in his remarks at the inauguration procession of the first Universitas Sumatera Utara Professor in 2022, which was held in a hybrid manner last Thursday (10/2/2022). Slightly different from the previous implementation in the Covid-19 pandemic era, the inauguration in early February not only looked more festive but what was striking was the number of professors who were inaugurated quite a lot, namely 4 professors at once. The choice of venue, which in the previous implementation was always held at the Student Center, this time the USU Auditorium, with a larger capacity, was appointed as the place for the inauguration of the 4 lecturers.

The Rector emphasized that teaching, research, and community service activities must be carried out in line or in harmony, integrated with each other, and can be applied in classrooms. The results of research and community service must be enriched in the classroom by taking into account the wishes of the industry and the interests of the community.

“Classrooms must be designed collaboratively and participatively, not dominated by lecturers and certain books whose information development and dissemination are very limited. Classrooms must be a medium for students and lecturers to leapfrog social impact, inspire (sharing), develop new ways of thinking (training), develop knowledge (tutoring), hone skills (workshops), provide experience (project assigments), do mentoring, and facilitate development (incubating).

Therefore, continued by Dr. Muryanto, classrooms must be filled with the results of research and community service of lecturers, inviting practitioner lecturers into the classroom and providing inspiration for students. According to him, students must be taught from an early age to collaborate, discuss, and work in groups to provide ideas to find problems in society. Lecturers must act as mentors and facilitators for students to provide space for them to express their passions. In order for lecturers to act as mentors and facilitators, each lecturer must have one research, one community service, and one publication or innovation product each year. Currently, the Universitas Sumatera Utara has only achieved 0.85 output per lecturer. This means that USU must work hard to achieve at least 1 output per lecturer.

To pursue this target, the Universitas Sumatera Utara will establish LIPI HKI in the near future, which is tasked with assisting articles as the output of lecturer research from writing manuscripts to being accepted in reputable international journals. Another new institution is USU Entreprise which will be tasked with assisting lecturers' research outputs for IPR and innovation products to be downstreamed and commercialized.

The importance of the role of research and publications in boosting the performance and reputation of universities is also agreed by one of the 4 newly inaugurated professors, Prof. Dr. Drs. Jonner Hasugian, M.Si. Starting from his inaugural speech entitled “Dampak Kebijakan Pemerintah Terhadap Produktivitas Publikasi Ilmiah Indonesia di Dunia Internasional: Analisis Bibliometrik Deskriptif Memanfaatkan Basis Data Scimago Journal dan Country Rank,” he hopes that USU's international publications in the coming years will increase and USU can have reputable international journals.

“The incentives that USU has provided so far are actually quite good and have a big role in encouraging lecturers' interest in increasing international journal publications. So, another thing that is urgent for the Universitas Sumatera Utara to do at this time is to encourage and facilitate each faculty and study program, especially those with superior and A accreditation, to publish their international journals. Thus, the scientific publications of lecturers from research results will increase,” he said.

For the number of researches throughout 2021, the Head of the USU Research Institute, Prof. Dr. Robert Sibarani, MS, described the achievements of the institution he leads, where there was an increase in the number of researches conducted by USU lecturers, which amounted to 889 researches from the previous year in 2020 which was only around 732 researches. The performance of the USU Research Institute, which inherited and was ranked as an Independent Research Institute from the previous year, in 2021 succeeded in increasing the realization rate of lecturer publications by 94.8%, with the number of patents granted above 100 percent.

With this achievement, the Universitas Sumatera Utara will be more optimistic about improving its performance, especially in the fields of research, teaching, scientific publications, and community service, which are the main focus of realizing campus internationalization. All efforts and hardships in improving the quality of education in this country are efforts that will bloom in time. As Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” (RJ)