# Yuhara Sukra

Yuhara Sukra (born 6 July 1933) is an Indonesian veterinarian and a professor of embriology at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture. He also served as the Director of Research and Community Service Development and Director of Private Colleges at the Directorate General of Higher Education.

## Early life and education

Yuhara was born on 6 July 1933 in Cikaroya, Warungkondang, Cianjur, West Java. Yuhara was raised by his aunt in Bandung until he was seven. He then moved to Sukabumi, where he lived with his uncle and aunt who lives there and attended the Pasundan Lagere School in 1942. Less than a year later, Yuhara returned to his parents in Warungkondang and finished his second and third grade at a village school in the nearby village. He completed his fourth and fifth grade at a people's school in Warungkondang.
Yuhara completed his fifth grade in elementary school in the midst of the Indonesian National Revolution. Warungkodang was occupied by the Dutch forces, and Yuhara's family evacuated to Sukabumi. Upon recommendation from Suseno, the headmaster of a technical school in Sukabumi, Yuhara skipped sixth grade and immediately enter junior high school. He changed his birth year from 1934 to 1933 in order to enter junior high school.
As Yuhara was much younger than his classmates in junior high school, he was unable to do physical work. By his second year, Yuhara moved to a pro-Indonesian junior high school. After completing junior high school, Yuhara studied at the Pembangunan High School in Bogor for three months before moving to the private Pembina High School. Yuhara took his final exam at the 1st Bogor State Highschool and received his high school diploma from the school in 1953. He then taught arithmetic and history at the Taman Dewasa High School in Sukabumi and attended a Dutch language course for a year.
Yuhara received a scholarship to study veterinary medicine at the University of Indonesia in Bogor in 1954. He completed his propaedeutics exam in 1955 and received his doctorandus in 1959. He then underwent co-assistance at the Karawang Veterinary Service and the Madiun Veterinary Service for a year. Yuhara graduated as a veterinarian from the university in 1960.
Yuhara had been working as an assistant lecturer since he completed his propaedeutics exam in 1957. He entered civil service after receiving his doctorandus in 1959 and began teaching veterinary medicine at the University of Indonesia in 1960. After his marriage in 1961, Yuhara lived at his parents-in-law house in Sukabumi and had to commute from Sukabumi to Bogor by bus or train. Several years after teaching, the university received a scholarship grant under the Kentucky Contract Team to send Indonesian lecturers to the University of Kentucky. A number of IPB lecturers, including Yuhara, received this scholarship.
Before departing, Yuhara had to attend English language course at noon and a lecture on American ethics at night. Yuhara departed to the United States in June 1963 and began his master's studies in September after taking a two-month English language course in the university. Yuhara's master advisor, A. Brauer, suddenly died in November 1964, and Yuhara became one of his pallbearer. As the last foreign student to be advised by Braurer, Brauer's widow insisted on Yuhara to take some of his personal belongings home. During his master studies, Yuhara became an unpaid instructor for medical technology and premedical students in the University of Kentucky.
Yuhara received his master's degree in April 1965 with his thesis titled The Development of Chick Spleen Embryos as Studied on Chorio-Allantoic Graft. By the government, Yuhara was instructed to return to Indonesia due to the worsening relations between Indonesia and the United States. Due to this, he refused the offer to continue his doctoral studies from the Kentucky Contract Team.
In 1971, Yuhara received a scholarship from the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities to continue his doctorate program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW) in a sandwich system. H.R. Bird, a professor from the university's Department of Poultry Science, was appointed as Yuhara's advisor. After completing his practical research at IPB, Yuhara was sent to UW to complete his doctoral thesis. His thesis, titled Effect of selenium and mercury on gross morphology and histopathology of chick embryos, was defended at IPB, with senate chairman Andi Hakim Nasution as his main examiner. He received his doctorate in 1977 and was appointed as a full professor in veterinary medicine the same year.

## Career in IPB

By the time of his return, the veterinary and agriculture faculty of the University of Indonesia were merged to form the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB). Yuhara was appointed as the deputy dean for academic affairs of IPB's veterinary faculty from 1967 until 1971. During his tenure as deputy dean, Yuhara also chaired the embriology major, zoology major, and the secretary of IPB's development agency.
Around the same time as his appointment as the first deputy dean, Yuhara also led the embriology section in IPB's zoology department. The embriology section was previously merged with the histology section but was split in 1967 following the departure of the section's chair, Soenarjo Sastrohadinoto, to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky. All of the items and specimens of the previous section were taken over by the histology section, and Yuhara's embriology section had to start from scratch. With the assistance of the Kentucky Contract Team, the section began obtaining the required biological specimens and tools to conduct experiments. Yuhara also developed an embriology laboratorium using funds from the United States Agency for International Development as well as recruiting permanent lecturers from IPB and visiting lecturers from the United States.
Aside from teaching in IPB, Yuhara also taught at the Airlangga University in the 1970s and the Tokyo University of Agriculture in the early 1990s.

## In the Department of Education and Culture

Shortly after the formation of the Directorate General of Higher Education in the Department of Education and Culture, Yuhara was entrusted to chair a team to manage doctoral programmes in higher education institutes in Indonesia in 1976. The team itself was formed to implement the plan of director general Makaminan Makagiansar to produce four hundred doctorates in Indonesia. Based on this plan, Indonesia would be divided into ten different higher education regions, with forty doctors being assigned in each region to develop the higher education. Yuhara's proposal for this plan involves foreign scholarships, short-term loans, and developing doctoral programs in Indonesia. The team consisted of prominent academics, including Sujudi (later health minister) from the University of Indonesia and Augustinus Alexander Loedin (later chief of health research and development agency) from the Airlangga University. Yuhara served in this position for 25 years until late 2001. At the end of his tenure, the amount of postgraduate lecturers increased from 11% of the total amount of lecturers in 1976 to 40% in 2000.
Alongside with his position as team chair, on 24 August 1981 Yuhara was appointed as the Director of Research and Community Service Development in the Directorate General of Higher Education. During his six-year tenure in this position, Yuhara had to face the transition to a new long-term plan in higher education in 1986, as well as budget tightening via what was known as the "belt policy". The directorate also issued a guidebook on developing research programs in 1984, where research proposals would be selected by the university before being brought upon to the directorate for further examination.
The directorate was responsible in implementing the government's Wawasan Nusantara geopolitical vision. The directorate held lectures and seminars to disseminate the vision to universities and departments, as well as formulating an atlas on Wawasan Nusantara. The atlas was completed at the end of Yuhara's term in 1987.
In 1987, Yuhara was appointed as the Director of Private Colleges, replacing the retiring Soekisno Hadikoemoro. Throughout his tenure, Yuhara expanded the number of private colleges coordinating agency from nine to twelve. Yuhara established a growth center in four out of these twelve agencies, which acts as a joint laboratory for private colleges under the jurisdiction of the agency. Under his supervision, the number of private colleges in Indonesia increased significantly. Yuhara also introduced major changes in private college system by simplifying requirements for the establishment of private colleges as well as abolishing "local" graduation ceremony and academic ranks.
Yuhara also assigned several civil servant lecturers to teach in private colleges. Some of these lecturers, alongside private college lecturers, were sent by the directorate for overseas education and training with foreign aid funds. Among those who were sent by the directorate were Abdul Malik Fadjar, who would later become the Minister of National Education. With the assistance of the directorate, several private colleges received the Austrian-made Computer Numerical Control device. Yuhara ended his tenure as Director of Private Colleges in 1993 and was replaced by Sambas Wirakusumah. Sukadji then became a member of the National Accreditation Body for Higher Education in December 1994 and served for two terms until August 2003.

## Later life

In 1998, during Abdul Malik Fadjar's tenure as religion minister, Yuhara assisted him in developing the curriculum of Islamic institutes under the supervision of the Department of Religious Affairs and became an assessor for postgraduate program in Islamic institutes. Yuhara retired as a civil service lecturer on 31 July 2003. He then joined the Gunadarma University and became the university's postgraduate program coordinator.

## Personal life

Yuhara was married to Amalia Sukra in September 1961.