Mulyo Hadi Purnomo is not an unknown name for broadcasting activists in Central Java and Indonesia. He is also a lecturer at Department of Indonesian Literature, Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University and is active as an arts activist in Semarang. He has served as Chairman of Semarang Arts Council and has been involved in the production of several theater movies. As an Undip academic, an arts activist, as well as the Deputy Chairperson of Central Indonesian Broadcasting Commission, Mulyo revealed that the mandates he carried are for the benefit of many people or life for others. “I want my life to bring benefits for other people, in any field, even if being an artist I want to be an artist who can really entertain. As being an academic or an intellectual, I try to be the one who can convey my knowledge well to students. When I become a commissioner of Indonesian Broadcasting Commission, of course I should carry out this work well. Trust the best possible and live this life with full of sincerity,” he said.
Literary education plays an important role in encouraging and developing critical thinking insights and opening people’s understanding of social, political and cultural realities. According to Mulyo, from literary works, we can learn other people’s life experiences and hone our inner sensitivity or conscience. “Reading literary works is not merely reading the first page to the end, but getting the message and value contained in a work, besides that it will increase our critical thinking ability towards problems and then analyze them,” he said. “In literary works, for example novels, there are many life lessons that can be used as experiences and usually the ending is always a good story, indeed cliches, but from there many lessons can be learned that everything goes through processes,” he continued.
Talking about literary life at Undip, according to him, the Faculty of Humanities does not educate students to become writers but to become literary critics. If the students also have the ability in writing poetry, writing short stories and even publishing novels, those could be such effects of liking or fond of reading literary works which are good points. He hopes that Undip’s progress towards a World Class University, Undip would be continued to develop, build and follow up on cooperation or MoUs with other parties since these are advantages for Undip. “The collaboration is carried out so that Undip’s name can become increasingly popular in the international world, besides that lecturers and students can show their existences in other countries or other campuses so that they are more recognized and be able to exchange ideas and knowledge,” he said. (Linda-Public Relations)
