UT is celebrating its 35^th anniversary, holding a series of competitions from Aug. 28 through Sept. 5 at its campus in Pondok Cabe, South Tangerang.

Called “Academic Discussions and Sports and Arts Week”, or Disporseni, the annual event engages UT students from across Indonesia. But this year’s tournament is different from previous ones – eight regular universities are also taking part.

They are Ahmad Dahlan University in Yogyakarta, Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University in Jakarta, Merdeka University in Malang, University of Muhammadiyah Jakarta (UMJ), Pakuan University in Bogor, Pamulang University, National Development University (UPN) Veteran, and Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University in Banten.

The 2019 Disporseni opened with a celebration displaying various traditional dances performed by UT students from various regions across Indonesia. That represented the cultural diversity of UT in particular and Indonesia in general. 

It reflects one of the main goals of the 2019 Disporseni: to enhance partnerships among universities and to promote tolerance.

“We hope to host an open house for other universities,” said UT rector Ojat Darojat at the event’s opening ceremony. “We’d like to form stronger ties with other universities and other college students, too.”

UT already had various academic partnerships with other universities but the interactions were mostly done online. “This is our chance to meet them [students from other universities] in real life, not just in cyberspace,” said Lintang Patria, the 2019 Disporseni steering committee chief.

UT provides open and distance education for people in impoverished and remote regions, offering over 30 study programs. Among them are Indonesian language and literature, mathematics, law, business administration, English translation, statistics and biology. The university also has master’s programs in such fields as administration, management, fisheries management and mathematics.

The UT headquarters is in Greater Jakarta. However, it has 39 offices and one center for overseas student management, teaching over 400,000 students through distance-learning, which means they rarely meet each other face-to-face. The weeklong competition event is also an ideal opportunity for UT students to mingle and get to know each other.

The tournament includes debate, information technology, badminton, table tennis, chess, dance and choir competitions. This year, the theme is “Strengthening the Unity of the Nation through Sportsmanship and Creativity”.

And each competition has a catchy slogan to embody the sportsmanship from the main theme. Chess, for example, has a motto saying, “You may get a headache from playing chess but still be sportive”.

“I hope that the participants will uphold the sportsmanship learned from this competition into their daily life,” said Ismunandar, the director general of learning and student affairs of the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry.

He noted that as a big country with diverse cultures and ethnicities, Indonesia needs to preserve its unity.

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