My Dear Kültür Family,
We are leaving the first month of the year behind. As of February, we are on the verge of a new beginning. Due to the second wave, we switched working from home in December 2020. As of Monday, February 1, 2021, we are returning to our Ataköy Campus with our senior management, academic and administrative staff which we determined as 63 employees in the first phase.
On Friday 29th January 2021, as part of returning to campus, our offices and common areas in our Ataköy campus were disinfected. Entering to our campuses will be made with the HES code. Our working hours will be implemented as 10: 00-16: 00 with the decision of the Istanbul Governorship dated 01.12.2020. I kindly request that the guidelines shared by KOVKOM in our visitor and working principles be followed precisely. Our main expectation is that our colleagues who will continue their business processes remotely are both in contact with and accessible to campus teams. I trust all my colleagues very much at this point, and I wish the new beginning to bring health and well-being for our university.
My Dear Kültür Family,
The spring semester course period will start on Monday, February 15, 2021, according to our academic calendar. There is currently no decision taken regarding the opening of the university for face-to-face education in the spring semester. However, our Department of Corporate Communications, in the first week of January, conducted a survey titled "Your Expectations from 2021" to our followers on our social media accounts. When we look at the results, the first expectation is that the university will open.
At our university, the restrictions regarding going out and using public transportation for young people under the age of 20, covering the age group of our preparatory, 1st and 2nd grade students, are currently in progress. Taking these factors into consideration, we are working on the formulas to offer our students hybrid education opportunities. Until February 15, 2021, we will continue our plans and share the developments with you, by taking into account all the headlines and the course of the pandemic.
My Dear Kültür Family,
Turkey Barometer New Year Report published by Ipsos Research. The report also contains thought-provoking results regarding the expectations and happiness of young people. According to the report, the satisfaction of the students representing the 18-24 age group about the current state of Turkey is 20 percent. The research draws attention to the fact that the satisfaction and expectation levels of young people are more negative than other age groups. In the study, Turkey's most important problem was asked to the participants. Accordingly, in December 2020 Turkey's most important problem (45%) is the economy and the coronavirus, the proportion of those who think that education is an important issue is just 2 percent. On the other hand, last week, Abbas Güçlü from Milliyet Newspaper included two articles in his column: "Is it the end of universities?" on January 27, 2021, and "Is the golden age of universities coming to an end?" on January 29, 2021. I share the contents with you without commenting on them and I am curious about what you think.
My Dear Kültür Family,
We are going through a different time period that there is no reference. As education labourers, we should all think about the message given by all these statistics and opinions. The coronavirus has changed our priorities, the balance of our rankings of urgency and importance in life. In one of the meetings we held in the first phase of the pandemic, our Faculty of Law Dean Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Bahri Öztürk, translated an idiom from German and shared it with us: “Necessity Makes You Creative”. In the age of necessity, we need to push the boundaries of creativity, to discuss, talk and share more in order to maintain our balance in the world of force majeure, to increase the expectations and happiness levels of the youth, to revive the idea of "education is the top of everything" and to bring education to the place it deserves in the country's agenda. Another need of us is to be able to maintain our balance in economic, psychological and social aspects.
As I review all these, I thought of the past. When we were teaching kids to ride a bike, we would tell them they had to turn the pedals to keep them in balance. Stay in motion and always look ahead. In our Honorary President Master of Civil Engineering Fahamettin Akıngüç’s saying, "Let's not stop, we fall if we stop".
Let it be a nice, healthy month for all of us that new beginnings will inspire
Regards,
Dr. Bahar Akıngüç Günver
İKÜ Head of the Board of Trustees
