?If they are righteous before God, then they can do a lot of useful thing for many people, for this nation, for everyone.?
UPH Festival held from 16-20 August 2008 is part of the Pelita Harapan Foundation?s effort to build this nation?s young generation as individuals who are not only intellectually superior and skilled but also faithful in God, as well as showing integrity and godly character.
Hidalgo Ban Garcia PhD, the university?s director for spiritual counseling explained that UPH Festival is a concrete move to create balance between the mastery of sciences following international standard and the mentality-spirituality development of the young generation.
?What we do in this UPH Festival 15 is not only for the sake of the university, but more than that, for Indonesia because we are forging a skilful generation needed by this nation.?
He specifically refers to this famous private university?s approach to propagate holistic and transformative education to produce graduates internationally-acclaimed and having integrity, serving as the role model for the society.
That kind of education should be started from a state of mind and heart full of joy and enthusiasm to enhance creativity and accomplishment internationally.
The reason behind UPH Festival is replace the ?hazing? tradition, feared by most students in the past.
Dr. Garcia explained that through UPH Festival, the new students are directed to be righteous before God as the source of all knowledge. ?Because without God, they can do nothing?.
?If they are righteous before God, then they can do a lot of useful thing for many people, for this nation, for everyone.?
This approach is important to prevent the students strayed by misleading perception, like the humanism and naturalism. ?Humans often tries to be ?God? for themselves (humanistic), denying the existence of God because they are enticed by the materialism (naturalistic)?, explained Dr. Garcia.
In the celebration of Indonesia?s 63rd Independence Day, the people need to be freed and enlightened from that kind of perspective because all that is ?misleading lie?, he added.
This year UPH Festival was attended by tens of thousands of students, teachers and lecturers, parents, high school students and general public. The same festival was also held at UPH Surabaya from 19-23 August 2008.
CampusAsia/Addensa Hanys Salmi
