Soft Opening of Griya Mahasiswa UMS

[Surakarta, March 21, 2023] The inauguration of Griya Mahasiswa as the central building for UMS student organizations was held in conjunction with a series of other events that enlivened the soft opening, namely the procession to Griya Mahasiswa which was led by MENWA and then followed by hundreds of members of student organizations from various UKM UMS campus. The Soft Opening of Griya Mahasiswa was even more lively with the Marching Band group playing musical instruments accompanying the steps of hundreds of University-level UKM members who followed the procession to their ‘new home’. 

The event began at 09.30 Tuesday morning (3/21/23), members representing each organization gathered at the GOR Campus 2 UMS which then walked to their ‘new home’ or Griya Mahasiswa which is located on campus 1 UMS. Upon their arrival, before entering the Griya Mahasiswa building, Mr. Ahmad Kholid Alghofari as the Head of the UMS Student Affairs Bureau inaugurated the Griya Mahasiswa building as a center for University-level UKM activities. The construction of Griya Mahasiswa itself was completed in 1 year and was completed exactly as planned, namely in March 2023.

In front of the Griya Mahasiswa Building, the head of the UMS Student Affairs Bureau, Ahmad Kholid Alghofari said, “Alhamdulillah, today 30 university-level UKMs can enter the new building. Each UKM gets a large room with air conditioning for meetings with a capacity that can accommodate many people”. He also emphasized that there are other facilities, such as volleyball or three on three basketball for sports and there are plans to add facilities such as wall climbing. 

The inauguration ceremony went smoothly, after the event was over the members of each organization began to enter the new building with happy cheers after their long wait. They expressed their satisfaction with the design and facilities available in the building.  This building comes in 4 floors with approximately 30 student organization rooms with sizes 37-90 m2 according to the needs of the organization as well as to accommodate hundreds of students. In addition, each room is designed to be semi-open, with the potential for light and good ventilation. 

In the past, before it was renovated, when the rainy season came, the Griya Mahasiswa area was often flooded up to knee-deep which eventually made students have to move things in the building to another place, according to Priyono-the UMS architect who built Griya Mahasiswa-so in his innovation, Griya Mahasiswa was renovated with a building shape like the letter “U” which requires less energy use in order to implement a “green campus”. 

Vice Chancellor III of UMS, Ihwan Susila, S.E., M. Si., Ph. D., hopes that the construction of Griya Mahasiswa can realize the development of UMS organizations and students even more rapidly considering that in the previous year, UMS UKM ranked 14th from one of the assessments held at universities in Indonesia even though the organization building still tends to be rundown and messy, but the spirit of student organizations since long ago has succeeded in bringing UMS UKM with good assessments to this day. “Now with the existence of Griya Mahasiswa, I hope it can be a house of achievement and a house of change for you (students) to focus more on their respective UKM,” he said.

Writer : Nada Utari Rusmanda (Dentistry ’21)

Reporter: Muhammad Bayu Adi Sukarno (Accounting ’21)

Editor : Shafaa Azka Indradi (Psychology ’21)