Does your university have a student union?

Gadjah Mada University provides facilities to develop students’ talents, interests, potential, creativity, innovation, and identity as well as improve student achievement through student communities within the Gadjah Mada University environment. The university understands the significance of student unions and encourages their activities in the Rector’s Regulation Number 20 2020. As mentioned in Article 5A, this gives students the right to establish student unions under the supervision of the Directorate of Student Affairs (Article 5A). 

UGM currently has 76 university-level student organizations, comprising 50 Student Activity Units (UKM) and 26 student communities. These organizations play a crucial role in building student character and providing a platform for creativity, ingenuity, and talent. Through organizational activities, students not only learn to organize but also develop leadership, communication, and teamwork skills. 

The UGM Directorate of Student Affairs held a consolidation event for student organization advisors and administrators to strengthen the synergy between university leadership, advisors, and student organization administrators. This event also served as a forum for aligning perceptions regarding the direction of student organization development within UGM, while also serving as a strategic space for building open, constructive, and sustainable communication. This forum provided an open space for each student organization to express ideas and thoughts regarding student governance.

The Student Executive Board (BEM) KM UGM is one of the university’s student unions that acts as a forum for activism and self-development of UGM students. BEM KM facilitates various activities that support the academic, social, and leadership capacity of UGM students. There are several points of the Student Executive Board agenda:

1. Student Affairs: Inclusive student services to accommodate and become a medium of access for students’ basic needs, development, and welfare.
2. Community: Containing community service to encourage development and ignite community welfare.
3. Movement: Presenting issue-based movements in the corridor of an advocative paradigm that is active, participatory, and impactful.
4. Internal: Building an internal organisation based on the principles of mutual cooperation, humanism, adaptiveness, and creating participatory, transparent, and accountable organisational governance.
5. External: Creating relationships with entities outside BEM through collaborative, egalitarian, and humanist principles.

The student unions provide a platform for students to engage in the learning governance environment as well as carry out good organisational practices, including providing governance input to the university, support for students (e.g. scholarship platform), and organising social activities (knowledge dissemination, advocacy, service programmes, and various forms of community empowerment activities.

Source: Student Executive Board

The student union elects its leadership, allowing students to vote. In UGM, the election of the Student Executive Board is organised by the Student General Election Commission.

Sources:

1. Student Executive Board
2. Rector’s Regulation Number 20 2020
3. Directorate of Student Affairs
4. UGM currently has 76 university-level student organizations, comprising 50 Student Activity Units (UKM) and 26 student communities.
5. The UGM Directorate of Student Affairs held a consolidation event
6. Student General Election Commission