How to be a world-class, community-engaged university

The AsiaEngage network was launched this month with a secretariat at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, or UKM. University World News spoke to Vice-chancellor Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin on what it means to be part of the network and how UKM incorporates community engagement without jeopardising its aspirations of becoming a world-class university.

UWN: What does it mean for your institution to be part of the regional structure? What changes will you have to make institutionally?

Sharifah: When I first came in as vice-chancellor it was about transforming UKM and we had so much to do internally. But we also know that internationalisation is important so we have a plan to have a presence and to be recognised abroad.

How do you actually do this? AsiaEngage is one way. Community engagement is one of our strengths at UKM and we are confident of leading on it regionally or even internationally. So having the secretariat here means we can lead, be part of the region, the ASEAN [Association of South East Asian Nations] and Asia.

UWN: AsiaEngage is part of the Talloires Network of community engaged institutions, but how will it be different and how will it reflect the situation in ASEAN?

Sharifah: We’ve always said the Asian way is different. The Arab network Ma’an has a very strong Arab Spring focus. Unlike the Arab world, Asia has had benevolent dictators. Our leaders were elected, but they were elected again and again and again and they used the opportunity to do something for the country.

I don’t think the Arab dictators did that. So when the Arab Spring came along I was not surprised. They really needed to be overthrown, some of them. But in Asia, our leaders went off gracefully or they lost in elections. In the meantime they did their responsibility to the people. That’s the Asian way.

However, in the Asian region there is a lot of poverty and marginalisation of groups of people. There are rich countries in Asia, but even in the rich countries there are poor people. And there are countries with lots of resources but coming up, like the Communist states. So we do have a mission.

In ASEAN we are talking about the ASEAN community by 2015. If we look at the three pillars that ASEAN is trying to put in place – socio-cultural community, economic community and political-security community – AsiaEngage can leverage on what ASEAN is trying to do.

If we in the region work on community engagement in terms of political security, in terms of economic development and in terms of socio-cultural issues, I think we should be alright with this sort of vision.

UWN: Why is it important to have a deputy vice-chancellor for community engagement?

Sharifah: When I was previously deputy director in the ministry [of education], department of higher education, we were already talking about university-industry partnerships and how we can operationalise this idea.

In the ministry we had an idea that one of the deputy vice-chancellors at public universities should take on this responsibility. So we wrote a paper for the approval of cabinet, and by the time it was approved, I was already at this university as vice-chancellor, so I could implement it here.

Once I had a deputy vice-chancellor of industry and community engagement established, I had to make sure it trickled down to the faculties and institutes. Now they have their own sections on industry and community partnerships. You have to reinforce anything you are going to do with proper structures. And with that comes funding – these people are paid allowances to do community work.

UWN: But you also broke ground in other ways with this appointment, as the deputy vice-chancellor is not from an ethnic Malay background, and is also a woman…

Sharifah: It is important to tell you a little bit about Malaysia. In our public universities, the leadership appears to be held by people from the Malay race. I don’t think it’s to do with race, it’s just that a lot of us are in public universities, so you rise to the professorial level and in administration and so on, and then you are selected and appointed as vice-chancellor.

But we are also aware that we need to appear to be very multiracial. So when we made this proposal we also thought it’s a good idea to make sure it is not a Malay. I am race-blind. It just so happened in UKM we had a good candidate. I knew Professor Saran [Kaur Gill] was very capable so I recommended her for the position. It’s a kind of affirmative action, but it was also a candidate with good background.

UWN: Going back to setting up the relevant structures for community and industry engagements, how do you marry that with the research culture in the university?

Sharifah: It has to be a package. You have the deputy vice-chancellor [for industry and community engagement]. Then you have the heads of industry-community partnerships in the faculties, so there is a structure. The governance must include policies, procedures, plans, goals and so on. You have to develop all this.

How do you integrate this with the other two missions that we have: research and teaching? Because we are a research university we look at publications. But it does not mean only scientific publications. As long as you do research, even if it’s in the community area, you can do research and publish.

The deputy vice-chancellor gets some funding from the research grant we have as a research university, for her to encourage people in the units to submit proposals on research that is community-oriented.

In addition, we ask her to secure funding from elsewhere. So she works with industry and so on. So some of it will be scientific research as with Sime Darby, which is very industry focused. But she can also work with NGOs and other funding agencies, to work on community projects.

Research is important for us. I don’t think you should only be doing community service. As a university we should be providing models of service rather than becoming a service organisation. People should come and see how we do it and then they should replicate.

We should be the place to generate ideas, to show how, and that is done through research. I don’t see how, by doing this, you deprive people of becoming good researchers or deprive people of contributing to the research university.

UWN: As a research university, how do you balance this with the demands of research?

Sharifah: In our evaluations and staff appraisal, we set minimum targets. We say as a research university 50% [of academics’ time] must be for research, 30% must be teaching, and 20% must be service.

Research institutes will have a lot of research, so they do 70% research and maybe reduce their service and teaching. That will be compensated by faculties that have more teaching. But at the end of the day, they must together meet the university target.

I don’t think other universities do this but this is how we do it. We want people to understand that if I am doing more research, then my colleague will have to do more teaching. So you have to compensate.

The faculties have to monitor and make sure individual members achieve their targets. But it’s up to them to juggle it around. For those doing research we expect more publications compared to those doing teaching, who might have the minimum requirements for publication. But everyone understands it’s their responsibility to meet their targets.

UWN: How does this fit in with your aspirations to rise in international rankings?

Sharifah: You must know what the indicators are. The rankings we are looking at are QS and THE [Times Higher Education]. If you are a research university you must understand that publications, citations, are important in the scientific world so we make sure that target is met.

And we set indicators. If the amount of time you’re spending on research is 50%, how many publications would that be? And that changes from year to year, because when we start we’re going to start low. Then as we progress, the targets become higher for publications.

And we are meeting them. We can see our graph going up. When this game of rankings started we were hardly above the nought-point-whatever line. But now we have gone higher.

In fact in South East Asia, Malaysia has overtaken Singapore in the rate of change. Malaysia has made tremendous strides in the publications and citations area. And the graph is still going up.

UWN: And community service does not detract from that?

Sharifah: No, it doesn’t. And I believe that when you do community engagement, research must be at the back of your mind – you must do it in a scientific way.

Apart from the impact on that community you are working with, you must see it as a way of communicating, from your research, the results and the outcomes, so that it can be applied to other communities.

If you are talking about community engagement without having research in mind, I think you are on the wrong track. That’s why we say integration is very important. But it’s not only about research; it’s also about teaching. You must use community engagement for your students to learn.

The community is the classroom – a very important classroom.

* Q&As are edited for length and clarity