UNAIR NEWS – ¶«¾©ÈÈ lost another its best professor. Emeritus professor and pioneer of Indonesian physical anthropology Prof. Dr. Habil Josef Glinka, SVD passed away on Thursday, August 30 at Vincentius A Paulo Catholic Hospital, Surabaya, East Java.
During his lifetime, Prof. Glinka made many academic contributions to the development of anthropology, not only in UNAIR, but also in Indonesia. Together with Lie Gwan Liong or known familiarly as Adi Sukadana, Prof. Glinka pioneered the establishment of UNAIR’s Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP) Social Anthropology Program in 1985.
In their early weeks, with Adi Sukadana, Prof. Glinka taught up to 14 hours per week. He taught not only in FISIP, but also in Faculty of Medicine (FK) and the Faculty of Dental Medicine (FKG) UNAIR. Prof. Glinka was then known as a physical anthropologist, while Adi Sukadana was a cultural anthropologist.
After 27 years developing anthropology at , in 2012, Prof. Glinka expected retirement for physical reasons as he was no longer strong to go up and down stairs. Even so, he is still often asked by lecturers and students for consultation, sharing of knowledge, being guest examiners in doctoral exam, and being speakers in seminars.
Prof. Glinka got a professorship from Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, in 1977. He was an anthropologist graduated from Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland, who wrote a doctoral dissertation about Indonesia. The pastor who graduated from the SVD High Seminary in Pieniezno (Poland) in 1957 taught at Ledalero High Seminary, Flores from 1966 to 1985.
In 1984, with the approval of Prof. Glinka, Adi Sukadana wrote a letter to the leader of Prof. Glinka in Rome. After being approved, in February 1984, Prof. Glinka then moved to Surabaya until he died at the age of 86 years.
In June 2016, when he was interviewed by UNAIR NEWS, Prof. Glinka claimed to have written a will that he will donated all anthropology books as learning material and anthropological references in UNAIR.
Prof. Glinka is also known as a polyglot. He speaks nine languages ​. Four of them he could master well. It was German and Polish that he had acquired from infancy. In addition, he spoke Indonesian, English, Hebrew, Greek and French.
Goodbye, Prof. Glinka. Your legacy will linger and, each of your thoughts and research will also leads humanity to better civilization. (*)
Author: Binti Q. Maruroh
Editor: Feri Fenoria Rifa’i
