“Women always become an important subject in family, work environment, even in the community. Therefore, they should demonstrate their abilities to progress, be independent, and be in equal position with men”. That was a statement from Prof. Dr. Dyah Mutiarin, S.IP., M.Si, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY), who was recently promoted as a professor in governmental science and became the first female professor in UMY. The statement also broke society’s stigma towards women’s role in public. For her, women should have an important position in the decision-making, especially in shaping the university’s future.

Her interest in governmental science took her to do several types of research about Government and Public Policy. In detail, the research conducted by the Head of the Institute for Research and Innovation focused on governmental management and public policies innovation. In her opinion, the adaptive, innovative, and responsible government (agile government) was needed to manage public policy, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. “To handle the Covid-19 pandemic, the central and local government have declared a policy, but the policy usually changes, then also has innovations from the experience in the field. Undoubtedly, it required an active, agile, and nimble bureaucratic model in government. However, this bureaucratic model also requires community involvement to control the policy,” she admitted on the official UMY site (5/11).

Dyah expected that the professor appointment and the first female professor in UMY she achieved could be motivation to her fellow lecturers. “I hope that the university continues to support human resource to keep developing,” she concluded.