Indonesian scholar comes to USU to teach
USU has been chosen to host an Indonesian scholar as part of the Fulbright Visiting Scholar program.
Senior lecturer from the University of Mataram in Indonesia, Dr. Suhubdy is one of 850 foreign faculty and professionals who will be conducting research and teaching in the United States as part of the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program in the 2008/2009 academic year.
Suhubdy’s research while at Utah State consists of looking for ways to advance the productivity of Indonesia’s open lands for the production of dairy and beef.
Suhubdy came to Utah this year and has been working with Fred Provenza from the department of wildland resources. He’s also working with USU’s Behavioral Education for Human, Animal, Vegetation and Ecosystem Management group.
Lack of information about rangelands in Indonesia led Suhubdy to form the Research Center for Tropical Rangelands and Grazing Animal Production Systems. Suhubdy said this center helps Indonesia do the research it needs to keep up with the changing world.
The Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program’s Web site states the program was established in 1946. Since then it has provided opportunities for scholars from around the world to experience and observe other countries political, economic, cultural and educational institutions. According to the program’s Web site, they want to encourage scholars and students to exchange ideas and to commence in joint ventures of interest to the welfare of mankind.
Suhubdy said he first heard about the Fulbright program when he read an article in an Indonesian newspaper. He had to wait two years before being selected for the school year, he said. But Suhubdy said his ties with USU go back 10 years to, in 1998, while working on his undergraduate degree in Australia, he met USU professor for wildland resources Fred Provenza.
“I kept his business card and when the Fulbright application process asked me to have a recommendation from a U.S. institution I contacted him,” Suhubdy said.
Provenza is now the mentor for Suhubdy while he is at USU.
Although Suhudby hasn’t yet begun to teach classes here at USU, he said he’s prepared for that challenge.
“I’m ready to teach, give seminars or just give general lectures about agriculture, livestock production and the nature of rangelands and grasslands of Indonesia,” he said.
At his home university in West Nusa Tenggara Indonesia, Suhubdy said he works in the animal science department teaching ruminant nutrition, tropical feed science, technology and research methods and biostatistics.
The research center he established in 2000 focuses on three types of work: research, education and extension.
“We want to inform Indonesians about the importance of rangelands and grasslands in the supporting of livestock, wild animals and the source of life,” Suhubdy said.
The research center is run almost entirely on his private funds, skills and scientific material. He said they receive a small amount of funding from Indonesia’s National Education Department and also from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency.
“The center that I established for (Indonesia’s) current situation functions as a window of communicating to people, scientists and research centers overseas,” Suhubdy said.
Suhubdy said he is currently doing a lot of reading, which he calls “the first stage,” he will then continue to do field work and begin to lecture. He said he is beginning to get involved in doing research projects with the people of the animal science, dairy and veterinary science departments.
“USU is the best place to study. When I go back to Indonesia I will tell my people and colleagues to come here.”
–c.h.j@aggiemail.usu.edu