1. I began my academic career in 1997 as a tutor DS41.   

This post no longer exists in most public universities as the minimum career entry level was lifted to having a master’s degree. To make ends meet, I took two other part time after-office jobs. I travelled in a 2nd hand car that breaks down almost every month. Money was so tight that all expenses were logged into a notebook. Month ends were anxious times. The annual savings that can be mustered then, when all things went well and there was no sudden need for extra cash, were a meagre RM1,000. I hit a car once – a sudden need for cash arises. There goes the annual savings. The car gets caught in a flash flood – money needed in a flash, hence no savings that year. It was tough.   

2. You learn very quickly that saving money only gets you so far. The key is to increase income. According to some, you are considered wealthy if in the event that you lost your job today, you have enough savings to carry you through for the next 6 months, or the next one year, or years ahead. Wealth scales with savings. RM1,000 lifetime savings would not last a month. I was dead poor.  
3. If you have kids, you will instinctively spare no expenses for them to have a good beginning in life. You put them ahead of everything else. You send them to the best kindergarten and buy them the best of necessities, if you can afford to. Your monthly cash balance shrinks as the expenditure list in your financial notebook grows. You tighten your belt, not the kids’. In my desperation, I tried my hand on pyramid schemes, spot trading, and freelance network installer. But there’s a rub. In order to make money, you would need to spend some first. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place. A perennial conundrum.  
4. You also carry the weight of expectations, your own and of others on your shoulders while grappling with these conundrums. You wonder when those shoulders will eventually break.  
5. But somehow you pushed on.   

And most of us, I am sure, eventually arrived at a better place.  

And we tell these stories in our own unique way in imparting the wisdoms and insights we picked up along the way as we embark on our next journey in our never-ending quest for meaning.  

For me, in 2019, USM was that new journey.  

From where I sat, the resemblance between the DS41 me and USM was uncanny.  

6. About 5 years ago, public universities were told that the new funding policy would only cover up to 70% of their annual expenses. So, for USM, whose annual budget is north of RM1bil, the financial gap presented by the policy is RM300mil per year. Put in another way, USM needs to raise RM300mil a year through various means to pay for utilities, maintenance and upkeep, facilities management, waste management, overtime claims, travelling, occupational safety, health, and environment, numerous fees, bandwidth, software subscription, cybersecurity, on campus clinics, sports facilities, and many more. This is not a trivial ask.    
7. I can understand why the policy was introduced.   

Public universities are public good, along with schools, law enforcement, national defence, healthcare, and transportation. With ever increasing pressure on the Government to maintain a certain level of services and growing costs and subsidies, something has to give. If the country is facing financial challenges, would it cut spending on healthcare or university research? Would it fund economic stimulus like better urban connectivity via MRT, or build a new Faculty of Engineering – a cost centre – somewhere?  

8. Universities who were not prepared for this change of policy saw their cash savings and endowments depleted at alarming rates to make up for annual spending deficits. Simply put, we were using our savings to ensure water, electricity, and sewerage bills were paid on time, and to ensure staff allowances are not cut. USM ran the risk of not having enough cash to cover a month’s worth of staff salaries should we experience a budget cut. Technically, we were dead poor.  
9. The Government would not allow public universities to go bankrupt as some might argue, but that does not imply that they need to give us enough for us to grow. There is a big difference between simply existing and charting new territories. The latter needs continuous investments.  
10. Faced with these challenges, I find it amazing that public universities continue to perform the way they did in many areas.  

This reminds me of a poem I stumbled across, but I will not translate the hint (pembayang) as I will not be able to preserve the prose’s beauty. 

Penakik pisau raut, 
Ambil galah batang lintabung, 
Seludang dijadikan nyiru; 

Setitik dijadikan laut, 
Sekepal dijadikan gunung, 
Alam terbentang dijadikan guru. 

A droplet becomes an ocean, 
A handful becomes a mountain, 
The sprawling universe becomes a guide. 

11. Spurred by these encouraging successes, USM pushed on.   

We did several things.  

We focused on income because there will be a limit to savings, and because we want to buy new equipment, build new facilities, introduce new programmes, for the benefit of our staff and students.  

We focused on our core business, which is teaching and learning, and introduced offshore programs, formed strategic partnerships, increased engagement with embassies in bringing more international students in, created new postgraduate programs and professional training for industries.  

We introduced micro-credentials and online distance learning.   

We formed spin offs to commercialise research products and to create high value jobs.  

We embarked on concession-based projects to build key facilities that will generate income for the university. These projects saw zero financial outlay from the university. 

Our solar on rooftop project led to hundreds of thousands of Ringgit savings on utility bills every month. 

We sought assistance from industries. Some provided up to date equipment. Some opened high end labs. Most contributed in one form or another.  

12. One important approach was in the introduction of a special budget.   

We spent money to add value that would eventually generate more money.   

We spread our spending to include internal programs such as empowerment of staff, micro-credit-financing, and milk programs for staff children to advocate against stunting and malnutrition.   

We spent on fundamental items such as digitisation, lab upgrades, and student exchanges.   

We spent on progressive projects such as advanced classrooms, modernising our fleet, and building experience centres such as Minden11800.   

And finally, we invested on advanced technologies such as virtual reality development platforms, augmented reality features, and AI chat bots.  

We tightened our belts by freezing staff recruitment, by travelling less, and if we did, we would travel economy. We froze renovations of administrator’s offices; the VC, DVCs, and Deans were not allowed to do so until all labs and lecture theatres were fully equipped and of high standards. We tightened our belts so that our kids – our students – receive the best that we can offer. We put them first. 

13. Every now and then, I hear staff relating how tired they are, how heavy the burden they have to carry in meeting all these responsibilities. They have a point and I seldom know how to respond.  

By writing this article, I hope they realise that their efforts and commitment were not in vain. Nation building is never easy. It is built upon hard work and sacrifice. I believe when we chose academia as a career, we were spurred by wanting to help others. To build a nation. 

And USM is a testament of USM staff hard work, at all levels. We have begun posting operational surplus. Surplus here meant that we met the annual RM300mil financial gap, and have some money to spare. We did this not by not spending the allocated budget, but by pushing ourselves to explore new avenues in offering our services. Whatever extra we made, we plough them back to our most important stakeholders. Our kids – our students.  

We want to escape being dead poor and we are on the right track. In some ways, these efforts will return in one form or another.   

We hope do justice to everyone – academics, students, staff, the public, and our beloved Tanahair, inshaaAllah – by continuing to tirelessly punch above our weight. 

And in doing so, we will find meaning.   

And we will tell these stories in our unique way as we guide others for the better. To create mountains from a handful of soil. To create oceans from a drop of water. Inshaa-Allah.