Humaniversity: Is the heart part of 'human capital'?

It is the beginning of the year and as a loyal and seasoned USM staf, we (me and wife) were at the Vice Chancellor's annual speech again this morning.

We came as early as 8.45am and as we walked inside the almost empty hall I counted, we were the fourth and fifth person to be seated somewhere at the front row of the Dewan Budaya.

En. Mohamad, the emcee warned that VC's speech could take longer then usual as the slides were at least a hundred when he counted them last night at the rehearsal.

It was indeed a long a winding speech. The first hour (or so) was mainly a recap of what has happened the previous year (2010). But some of what was said today was also a repetition of what was mentioned the previous year.

I believe it was deliberated -- that VC wanted to emphasize the importance of a point he made last year regarding the concept of challenging the status quo as he showed again the newspaper clip of the statement by the Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan.

But the main point vis-à-vis the title or theme of the speech: Humaniversity: Transformation to Humanise the University was brilliantly conveyed in a series of slides on the plans to transform the university into what it was set out to be.

The conclusion, 'To Humanise the University' as pointed out by the VC among others were:

~ The university is not a business. It is not a factory.

~ the university must seek to right the balance by transforming the prevailing situation to ensure core ethos of humanity is restored

~ the focus is on the enhancement of the core ethos of the university.

~ to transform the university as an urgent universally accepted commitment.

The VC's speech was also filled with quotes, excerpts and citations from the Qur'an, the Hadith, philosophy and a media practitioner.

Among others which caught my attention was the Prophet Muhammad saying: "Surely there is in the body a small piece of flesh; if it is good, the whole body is good, and if it is corrupted, the whole body is corrupted, and that is surely the heart (qalbu)".

Below the hadith is a question: Is the heart part of 'human capital'?

The other quote was by the internationally famous media mogul Rupert Murdoch (pic below) who said: "We've been living in the Western world way above our means. We've been on a great binge and it's come to an end and we have to live through the correction."

The hall was filled to the brim. Some sat on the stairs and some sat on the aisles at the side of the hall. Some just lingered outside waiting for a chance to get into the crowded hall as those already in ushered their way to chance a better place to a seat.

Towards the end, the VC's speech was a bit bland as he speedup a bit and skipped a few slides as if trying to catch-up on something more important. But the crowd was not perturbed. Most waited until the end.

After the speech, I asked my wife how long did it take VC to finish. She said about 45 minutes.

Strange, I thought it took much longer. I lost my attention span roughly half an hour through it and then regained it back 10 minutes later. The gentlemen beside us dozed off a few minutes in between the speech.

I tried to look if Prof Lik Meng was around as he usually sat at the aisle beside us (today) with his faithful DSLR. Anyway, he got to his update blog first today and wrote: it took the VC about one and half hour.

Nonetheless, altogether it was a great speech, easy to digest and definitely better than the year before. The video clips and multimedia presentations were also a great support to the overall speech.

After the VC's speech there was a promotional talk on a new telecoms product and Internet service by the CEO of YTL Communications, Mr Wing K. Lee and also an MoU signing ceremony between USM and YTL Communications.

The company was represented by its parent corporation, YTL Managing Director, Tan Sri Dato' Francis Yeoh.

We left before Mr Wing (pic right) finished his talk as our nervous system was already working hard sending alert signals between the brain and the stomach.

Outside the hall, we felt relieved as nasi bariyani was there waiting for us.

As part of our responsibility in fulfilling the needs of 'human capital' the bariyani was easily digested.

Related article: Humanise the University by Bernard E. Meland