Academic culture as a subsystem of universities plays an important role in efforts to build and develop the culture and civilization of society and the nation as a whole. University quality indicators now and even more so in the third millennium will be determined by the quality of the academic community in developing and building this academic culture. Academic culture is actually a universal culture in academic life. That is, it is owned by everyone who involves himself in academic activities. Building a strong academic culture of university is not an easy job. Socialization efforts are needed for academic activities, so that there is a habit among academics to carry out the norms of these academic activities.
If the socialization is carried out continuously, then it will become a tradition and culture for individuals in the campus community. Academic norms are the result of learning and practice and are not innate. The ownership of academic culture should be the idol of all academics, namely lecturers and students. The highest academic degree for a lecturer is the achievement of academic ability at the level of a professor. As for students, if they are able to achieve the highest academic achievements.
For lecturers, in order to achieve the academic degree of the professor, he must cultivate himself to carry out academic actions supporting the achievement of the professor’s degree. He must carry out educational and teaching activities with all his devices well, by continuing to hunt for cutting-edge references. He must conduct research to support scientific work, write in scientific journals, attend seminars at various levels and forums, and others. He must also do community service to improve knowledge, skills, and community welfare.
For students, the factors that can produce academic achievement are programmatic learning activities, tips for hunting for actual and up-to-date references, substantial academic discussions, and so on. By carrying out such activities, it is hoped that a quality culture can be developed which can gradually become a habit in the behavior of academics and students in the educational process in universities.
Therefore, without carrying out academic activities, it is impossible for an academic to obtain academic normative values. It may be that he is able to talk about these academic norms and values in front of the forum but without the process of learning and practice those norms never materialize in the practice of daily life. Even on the contrary, he does not hesitate to commit violations within a certain territory both realized and unconscious. It is also possible that academic values only touch the cognitive realm, not to the point of touching the attitude and practical skills realm. This kind of phenomenon can happen to an academic, who forever only leaves a name in carrying out lectures, writing scientific papers, research, community service, and lately there is often the purchase of academic degrees that are not clear.
To build an academic culture within a university, there are several prerequisites that must be met. First, there are human resources, especially teaching staff who have academic excellence and have a high dedication to scientific development. Second, mastering a superior academic tradition, through the preparation of an actual, realistic, and forward-oriented curriculum. Taught through a dialogue, free, and objective teaching-learning process, and then developed in discussions, seminars, research, book publishing and scientific journals, which are disseminated to the public. Third, the availability of adequate academic facilities and infrastructure, such as a cool campus environment, a complete library, and a modern laboratory.
Coaching and development of appreciation of discipline, sense of responsibility, desire to produce an innovative and creative work that is best and so on is often effectively realized through the development of examples of transparency. The desire to produce something better, the occurrence of the atmosphere and academic culture of fellow academicians and so on can foster and develop internal awareness in each academic community.
The development of academic culture becomes a meeting point between character development efforts and improving the quality of results from the educational process. Character is an integral part of academic culture, given the necessary and potentially developed character of any academic activity. The characteristics of the development of student academic culture, can be seen from the development; (1) Reading habits and addition of knowledge and insight, (2) Writing habits, (3) Scientific discussions, (4) Optimization of student organizations, (5) The process of teaching and learning Academic norms are the result of the learning and practice process. This can be done by the community or individuals as part of the academic environment through engineering environmental factors. Among them, it can be done through strategies that include: (1) transparency, (2) interventions, (3) habituation that is carried out consistently, and (4) strengthening.
In other words, the development and formation of academic culture requires the development of transparency that is transmitted, intervention through the process of learning, training, continuous habituation in the long term which is carried out consistently and strengthening and must be accompanied by noble values applied by universities.
The role of cultural development is not only reflected in the opportunity of the academic community to study and appreciate the culture of performance but also the development and appreciation of the cultural intellectual and moral behavior of the academic community in welcoming the future situation.
Presumably, it is easily realized that university plays an instrumental role in realizing the efforts and achievements of the academic culture. Higher education is a forum for intellectual and moral development that underlies the ability to master science and culture in a broad sense. The role of cultural development is not only reflected in the opportunity of the academic community to study and appreciate the culture of performance but also the development and appreciation of the cultural intellectual and moral behavior of the academic community in welcoming the future situation.
In the end, university as an academic cultural center is bound to ethics. The ethics they embrace are pioneered in a habit that provides opportunities for the community to develop intellectual capital and cultural capital optimally. For this reason, the ethics that must be guided and at the same time developed are:
- Always curious. This is very important because it is a motivator that encourages a person to solve a problem and the starting point for the growth of science.
- Research, that is, always trying to find mistakes or errors for the achievement of a perfection.
- Rational, meaning in solving a problem found always using logical thoughts and scales and conducting critical research in accordance with the rules of science.
- Objective, meaning in bringing up something, must be in accordance with the actual circumstances accompanied by authentic evidence without any manipulation and deflection due to intimidation of certain parties.
- Honestly, it means acting in accordance with reality without engineering and without anything covered with the intention of seeking personal gain.
- Innovative, namely having the creativity or ability to create something new either in the form of ideas or real works.
- Open, meaning biased to accept new ideas from the other party without any allusions.
- Productive, intellectuals are not only great at spawning ideas, but also must be accompanied by real work and application in society.
- Multidimensional means that culture can have very complex impacts.
If it can be developed optimally, especially among lecturers and students, academic culture is realized. In a sense, they have the same ideal frame of mind, guidelines or benchmarks to fill and actualize their label as citizens of the academic community, which is a collection of famous people who are considered wise and wise to advance science.
