Boğaziçi University | Elected senators address an open letter to rector candidates

The open letter of the senators

"To the Rector Candidates of our University,

"Since January 2, 2021, we have been going through a period of crisis which has undermined the academic and administrative autonomy of our University and inflicted considerable damages to the university life.

"In these days leading up to the process of determining a new rector, we, the undersigned senate members, consider it to be our duty to remind our colleagues who are candidates for the position of the below points:

"Our country is obviously in need of a new governance model in higher education. We attach importance to the principles put forward in the report dated July 13, 2021, which was prepared by the Governance Structuring at Universities Working Commission (ÜYYK), a commission founded by our Senate to contribute to such a work, and addressed the future of public research universities on the basis of academic freedom and university autonomy.

"The rector to be in office in this period of transition will have important responsibilities. The text of Principles on the Functioning of Public Universities, which was put forward by Boğaziçi University in the light of its 158-year institutional tradition and 50-year experience as a public research university and was accepted at the senate meeting no. 2012/9, is a guide in this context.

"We expect that our colleagues who are candidates for the university administration undertake their loyalty to these principles.

"We would like to remind the rector candidates of some points indicated in the ÜYYK report as to the competence of the rector:

• The rector, who will encourage and protect the exercise of academic freedom, the basic right of university constituencies, must internalize the values of the university declared to the public, express them inside and outside the university and defend them, where necessary.
• The rector must embrace plurality and inclusiveness at the university as universal values and must ground on an academic governance model, where decisions are taken through the works undertaken by the councils and commissions to be formed with the participation of constituencies.
• In relation to this, the rector must always prioritize the principle of meritocracy in employing, promoting and appointing academic personnel and must put the decisions of the authorized councils into force. In doing all these, the rector must embrace it as her or his primary priority to protect and improve the autonomy of the university in terms of organization, finance and employment as well as its academic autonomy.

"The rector candidates must undertake that they will be able to abide by the values of our university, its bottom-up governance principles, principles of meritocracy and autonomy and vision of a student-oriented public research university and that they will be accountable.

"We will keep on demanding that our university be administered in the light of these principles and values.

Best regards,

Prof. Yasemin Bayyurt, the Dean of the Faculty of Education

Prof. Özlem Berk Albachten, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Prof. Ümit Bilge, the Senate Representative of the Engineering Faculty

Prof. Metin Ercan, the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences

Prof. Gülcan Erçetin, the Senate Representative of the Faculty of Education

Prof. Çiğdem Kafesçioğlu, the Senate Representative of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Prof. Cengiz Kırlı, the Director of the Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History

Prof. Ayşe Mumcu, the Senate Representative of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences

Prof. Turgut Tüzün Onay, the Director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences

Prof. Özlem Yıldırım Öktem, the Director of the School of Applied Disciplines

Prof. Can Yücesoy, the Director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering