Recognised as one of the fast growing university-community networks in the region, Asia-Pacific University-Community Engagement Network (APUCEN) aims to continue making meaningful changes to the surrounding community. To consolidate its efforts for excellent community engagement, APUCEN held the inaugural APUCEN@Malaysia meeting was hosted by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak on the 5th October 2012 The APUCEN@Malaysia meeting was chaired by the newly elected Chairman, Prof. Dato’ See Ching Mey, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Division of Industry and Community Engagement, Universiti Sains Malaysia. It was attended by 16 delegates from 15 Malaysian institutions of higher education. As a result of this meeting, several fruitful outcomes were achieved. Firstly, APUCEN@Malaysia renewed its commitment to promote the culture of university-community engagement in a proactive, inclusive, holistic and participatory way via proposing an APUCEN@Malaysia university-community engagement flagship project that will involve its Malaysian members. In order to become a successful university-community network hub, APUCEN@Malaysia also aimed to align with the Ministry of Higher Education to ensure that all its regional networking initiatives would benefit Malaysian higher education. Issues concerned with students volunteerism in Malaysian universities were also explored and given due attention.
1stAPUCENMalaysia meeting
Figure 1: 1st APUCEN@Malaysia Meeting hosted by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak in October 2012.