Rector
Prof. Dr. Dursun Koçer
Dear Academicians, Dear Staff Members and Dear Students,
Istanbul Kültür University was founded 12 years ago under the organisation of Kültür Educational Foundation by the President of The Board of Trustees, Fahamettin AKINGÜÇ, MSc. in Civil Engineering, and the Founder Rector, Prof. Dr. Önder ÖZTUNALI. Our university not only provides education and research in international standards, but also aims to educate new generations to protect the national values leading to a contemporary world, and also bears the principle of taking knowledge to the public. After being founded on the “Kültür family tradition and accumulation” of fifty years, Kültür University, with a history of 12 years, is an institution of an understanding based on ATATÜRK’s Principles and Revolutions.
One of the most important features distinguishing universities from other institutions is that universities form “their own peculiar traditions”. If these traditions are to be expressed in today’s understanding, they can be considered to be forming the “organisational culture”. The identity of a university consists of written rules, which are essential documents of organisational management, and traditions, which are, sometimes, even more important than written documents. In Turkey, where laws and regulations are continuously changing, universities can protect their identity, keep up with competition, increase their level of education and research, and possess ethical values only by adopting organisational culture by their staff, from the rector to the youngest staff member. Laws and regulations are written documents used to manage organisations without chaos; but universities are organisations where these laws and regulations are supported, furnished and strengthened by academic traditions. Real universities are organisations where laws and traditions come together to create synergy. In these places laws and regulations create order; and traditions create sense of belonging, respect, sense of responsibility and enthusiasm to work.
This process, which we can name our organisational culture or “the Culture of Kültür”, was started by our President’s and our Founder Rector’s, whom we always remember with respect, vast managerial experience and tolerance, was increased by our Second Rector, Prof. Dr Tamer KOÇEL, and reached an envied level based on respect, far away from fight, with high academic targets, far away from temporary benefits, and strictly focused on ethical rules. This fact has an important role in the 12-year development of our university, which we should be proud of. By using the gained experiences, we will continue to work round the clock with the contributions of the family of Istanbul Kültür University, to take our university to even higher levels.
Universities have three main universal duties. Education-teaching, research and merging with the society; in other words bringing knowledge to the society. These duties increasingly gain more importance as higher education expands, competition increases and the society expects new things from universities. These three duties must be handled and worked on innovatively in order to pass through this process successfully and make university more original. With significant improvement towards institutionalisation in its second decade, our university should be managed with long-term plans in this ruthless, and sometimes unethical, competition environment. It is inevitable that a university with original aims in its future has an innovative perspective on all aspects and with all the personnel. We believe that we will successfully internalise this approach in our next decade.
Our departments and Application-Research Centers are core units making our university original, making it stronger and enriching the academic environment. That is why we place extreme importance on “5-year strategic plan” which is to be prepared by the Departments and Application-Research Centers. With the help of this plan, which will be completed and announced soon, the road map for our university will be prepared, and the operations of our university will be structured in such a way that the operations will be INDEPENDENT OF PEOPLE, but PEOPLE WILL BE DEPENDENT on them. This plan will also have some prospects for the following 5 years. Our Department Heads and Department Personnel will have new duties within this understanding. For this 5-year strategic plan, the Departments will prepare projects in terms of education- teaching, research, scientific publications, activities and communication with the public, which are based on objective data, which have clear objectives, which are highly feasible, which do not only utilize resources but also create resources. Our Departments and academicians will be able to utilize university resources according to their successfully completed projects, especially according to their international research projects, cooperations and activities.
Every effort is made in order to make our Department Heads and academic boards carry out their duties meticulously, and problems are solved before they reach upper management levels. Academic peace in the Department, trust, and most importantly, our relations that are based on respect and kindness with our students; application of laws, regulations and directions completely and objectively are our indispensable principles. It is, therefore, the duty of the Secretary General and the offices, the Directors of the Vocational Schools and the Institutes, the Deans, the Vice Rectors and the Rector to remove the barriers in front of our Departments and Centers, and thus, make them carry out their duties successfully. My 40-year academic life has given me this feedback: The more meetings an institution has, the slower the work is done, sometimes not done at all. Too many meetings may mean a weakness in institutionalisation. Kültür University does not want to have personnel rushing from one meeting to another in an exhausted way, but it does want to have personnel having their own sense of responsibility and spending all their energy to their work. For this reason, starting from the upper management, new distributions of responsibility have started. For instance, job descriptions of the Vice Rectors have been clearly made and they have “EXECUTIVE” power at our university. They implement their decisions on behalf of the Rector, find urgent solutions to the problems reaching them, and inform the Rector regularly.
I would also like to give you information on another topic, which I find very important, about the upper management. We have got valuable academicians, experts and bureaucrats with high expertise levels, either working at our outside our university. We have started to use the system of “RECTOR’S ADVISOR” actively at our university to enable these experts to utilize their expertise and experience for our university. In a rapidly changing competitive environment, selected or appointed upper level managers may sometimes not be efficient to create and maintain an innovative perspective at a university. I believe that upper level managers should internalise this practice and not be scared of it. There is certainly need for valuable advisors to contribute more perspectives and provide solutions. Universities are the places where not only knowledge is shared but also authority is shared toward production.
We are also continuing to work in order to make our university adapt to the rapidly changing communication technology and use the most advanced technology in terms of hardware and software. All our units are working hard to apply a system in which bureaucracy is reduced, academicians are away from administrative work, workflow is made faster, all the statistics are accessible to everyone through academic and administrative reservoirs, and in which an ”institutional memory” is formed, which I find crucial.
The management system that I mention, Institutional Resource Planning (IRP); Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), integrates all the units and functions in an institution, and meets the needs of these units and functions in a computerised environment form one single database, and facilitates information sharing, coordination and workflow. This system also has a modular structure, and has the capabilities to meet the university needs and make projections for the future.
The university’s potential of scientific studies and publication is increasing quickly. It is not possible for us to be satisfied with this level. It is inevitable to establish a unit for improving both the quality and the quantity of our publication and especially for assisting international research projects and publication. The process of establishing “SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH COORDINATION UNIT”, which is going to help researchers for preparing projects about EU and improve international relations and regulate the sources under the authority of a vice president connected to Presidency, has nearly ended.
Without any doubt the most dynamic part of this university is our students. It is our priority that our students’ having a fine and qualified education process and their starting to their jobs in a well equipped and energetic way. In the university aside from improving laboratories and application facilities, students clubs are in a process of development, too. However, as in every field of our education we are not satisfied with this level. Besides our projects which are due to be started, our students can easily convey their all academic and social demands and suggestions to the all levels of authority from their counsellor teachers to the President of the university. The students of this university should not forget the idea that we are only happy if all of the members of this university are happy.
The number of students exceeding 7000 is a big responsibility and a burden for both the registrar office and the related vice president of the school. It is not possible to accomplish this vital mission by a few devoted people. Therefore, the system of “Dean of Student” is going to be applied in a very short time.
Besides being the most important representatives of the university, the graduates of a university are the most efficient source of “Feedback” for a university. Therefore, “Communication with Graduates” as a unit, which is planned to provide to detect the cross-sections between the contents of educating-teaching activities and business life and to make improvements within the programmes and to make the process of finding job opportunities for the new graduates more efficient, is going to be established. This unit is going to make cooperation with “Institutional Communication Unit” which is going to be restructured and improved.
Without any doubt, physical and financial bases are needed for producing and spreading the information. It is not possible to make this happen if we are deprived of our buildings, equipments and the financial facilities which supply these things. However, it is only possible to make these facilities available with the help of academic staff’s performance and administrative staff’s support. For a long time the concepts of “Human resources” and “Human Capital” have been mostly used in both academic and popular literature and it is mostly stated that human capital has been the most valuable existence for the institutions. This concept in the industry is without any doubt valid for the universities, too. As the aim of our existence is producing and spreading the information, it is very typical of us to have a capital which is made up human resources; instructors and administrative staff supporting them. While making plans about human resources which are this much important to us, we make more realistic and careful movements. As we aim to be together with our employees for long years, we try to have an efficient budget planning for both academic and administrative staff. Also, we give necessary support to our employees’ career development, and give importance to provide research facilities especially for young academicians. Therefore in order to gather all these efforts together and to perform more efficiently one of the administrative renewals in 2009 is going to be to establish “Human Resources Unit”.
The efforts to compensate the need of a place for our developing university are being carried out with the head of board of trustees. I want to state that there will be good news about the THIRD CAMPUS in the forthcoming days.
Istanbul Kültür University, being in accordance with its name and aim of existence, is an educational institute which carries out educating-teaching activities, is devoted to Principles and Reforms of Atatürk and always has active roles in carrying our national values and cultural wealth to a universal format.
We are continuing our journey without sacrificing our principles with the support of our growing family and friends.
With Best regards
Prof. Dr. Dursun KOÇER
Rector
