Dear Kültür Family,
Every New Year's preparation is an introspection for me; it is a confrontation where I evaluate my life, my decisions and my priorities. Last year, while I was getting ready to welcome 2020, I created a dictionary. I drew on doubt, anxiety, fear, prejudice, regret, and wrote in capital letters hope, production, communication, dialogue, democracy, equality, family. In 2020, which was under the shadow of the pandemic, I tried to give the right of every word I wrote down in my life. Besides, while revising the words in the dictionary; as a self-criticism, I realized that I missed some of them. For example, health, solidarity, courage and risk ... In this sense, 2020 was a year where I wrote, did not write, postponed, forgot, knew or thought I knew the essence, value and meaning of all the words I knew better every day.
Dear Kültür Family,
We are now preparing to welcome a new year. 2021 will be a year that will require individual and social challenges and our responsibilities will increase. We have to rethink our roles not only against ourselves and our family, but towards the environment in which we live, especially in order to achieve individual and mass recovery. To pass the pandemic exam, we must reread the message of our education, research and social responsibility mission.
In this process, our priority is our student, due to our job and service area. At the undergraduate level, our second year students have only been able to experience the atmosphere of university life for 6 months so far. Our students, who started their associate degree education in 2019, will graduate from the university by distance education in the scenario where the conditions continue remotely. Another critical topic is our students who will graduate this year. In addition to the economic crisis, they will seek jobs in an increasingly different work culture. The excitement of graduation has already left its place to anxiety of finding a job. Our graduates, who received their diplomas in the 2019-2020 academic year, when the pandemic crisis and the new normal intertwined, are also an important part of our circle of responsibility. In summary, understanding the needs of our youth and working to meet them within our means under the conditions created by the pandemic is one of our most important agenda items in 2021.
In 2021, our responsibility to each other will increase in terms of personnel relations. Physical, mental and emotional, the pressure of the crisis is obvious. In addition, our work and private life balances are intertwined. I am aware of the superhuman effort of our academic staff while teaching in this complex, distance education conditions. Remote working is a very sensitive issue for our administrative staff. It is not easy to deal with the various challenges of running daily operations, business and communication processes remotely. I would like to thank my teammates who worked devotedly throughout the year in all these topics.
As Kültür Family, we will focus on managing the side effects of the pandemic crisis in the most gentle way in terms of students, graduates and staff. In addition, we have a lot of work to do so that the city, region and country where we live as a university in 2021 can come out of this crisis with the least damage. In summary, 2021 will be the year in which hard work, production, and problem solving is not a choice but an obligation for Kültür Family.
My Dear Kültür Family,
In this phase, the vaccine news from the science world give hope to mankind for take them to safer shores once again. As İstanbul Kültür University we have created a particular heading about vaccine studies in our 2021 budget for the safety and health of our personnel. In this context, we follow health and safety policies and procedures with precision in our country and higher education. At the point of need, I would like to share with you that we have allocated the resources needed for the Kültür Family to access the vaccine. In addition, due to the course of the second wave, it was decided to extend the off-campus work, which was determined until January 4, 2021, until January 11, 2021. Information on our working system will be regularly shared by the General Secretariat.
My Dear Kültür Family,
Yes, it has been a difficult year for us. The decisions taken and implemented with the side effects of the pandemic crisis deeply affected the management, staff and sometimes students. However, as Kültür Family, we have also achieved good things together. With the contributions of our Alumni Association, we transformed the burden of the pandemic in education and health into a story of mobilization. As Kültür Family, we have started a project in which we have a presence at all levels. During the sharpest period of restrictions, we continued to hold our values. We celebrated our children, our youth, our teachers, our Republic. We hailed together 61 years of Kultur College, which inspired our founding Foundation. Besides these, we have had difficulties together. There have been decisions, practices that we have criticized, questioned and even judged this year. Differences of opinion, communication accidents caused by crisis pressure, Road differences that have a fairly heavy emotional burden... In a nutshell, it was difficult. Will it be any easier? It's too early to say anything right now. However, I sincerely believe that in 2021, no matter how challenging the conditions are, we can overcome them together.
My Dear Kültür Family,
Even in the most positive scenarios, the economic side effects of pandemic will continue. Therefore, 2021, will be a year where we will use our sources cautiously. In this context, let's not stop dealing with issues from a calm, constructive and rational perspective. Let's divide our loads to maintain our standards in education and service quality. Let's continue to maintain our social sensibility. Let's feed the solidarity projects that we started in 2020 with new, creative and constructive ideas in 2021.
Despite the difficult conditions we are in, I am in favour of trusting people and the world, keeping alive the hope that everything can be improved, pushing all available opportunities for ourselves, for our family, for the sustainability of our business. With the pandemic, our view of time and space changed, transformed, evolved to another point. There are many details that will be criticized, changed, improved, and there will be. We have a long way to go in the tone of our communication, the instruments we use, the way we look at work and do business, as much information as the world we learn, a lot of work we will achieve together in 2021. But first comes health.
I congratulate you on your new year with my sincere wishes on behalf of my personal and Akıngüç family, and wish you a healthy, beautiful year in which we will be together with our loved ones.
Dr. Bahar Akıngüç Günver
İKÜ Chairperson of the Board of Trustees
