IKU Head of the Board of Trustees Dr. Bahar Akıngüç Günver who spoke at the opening of the ceremony said, “Students showed resilience despite restrictions. Their achievements and loyalty to their goals are admirable. I am sure it was not easy to prepare for university exams under these conditions. They have achieved the hard. During this period, they experienced a very sudden change that deeply affected their lessons, their communication with their teachers and their friendship relations. They experienced all the sensitive processes of the transition to distance education with us. However, we overcame all these barriers altogether, and welcomed the new normal together. "

Dr. Günver continued her words as follows:

“First of all, we dealt with many difficulties experienced not only in our country but also in the world with the responsibility and sensitivity of being an educational institution. We tried to work hard within our means in areas where we can contribute to improvement. Today, this time period, this experience is also a testimony, a threshold. In this process, we need solidarity more than ever. Let's keep our hope. We will heal together. Face-to-face education will have its own flow when the best possible conditions are met and matured. However, on the condition that we maintain our momentum regarding distance education regarding the use of technology in education and business processes.”

IKU Rector Prof Dr. Erhan Güzel, who explained that they made the academic opening this year face to face despite the pandemic, said, “We are used to this hall being filled with excitement and enthusiasm, but we do not lose our enthusiasm and excitement under these conditions.We will continue distance education in the first semester, we will not be face-to-face, but thanks to the technological infrastructure and structuring that our university has, we organize our education and training in the best way."

Enes Tekçe, student from the Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, who attended the Orientation Program stated that “The face-to-face Orientation process is quite good for us because we can meet our friends here. When we were entering university, our temperatures were taken and were asked about our HES codes. At the same time, we are sitting according to the social distance rules. The reason why I came to this Orientation Program was to meet my classmates, my lecturers and to see the university environment.”

Also, Damla Yaren Karaoğlu, student from the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design, said “I am here to meet my friends and my lecturers. Face-to-face Orientation Program is an advantage for us because in this period, there is no way for us to have a face-to-face education.”

Stating that they organised both online and face-to-face Orientation Programs for the new Academic Year, Dr. Neslihan Fatma Er, Head of the IKU Student’s Life, Career, Alumni Support Unit (Kültür Point) and Distance Education Application Unit, also said “Every year we are making an application called ‘Peer Mentorship’ for our students. Every freshman meets with their peer mentors from upper-classes right after the students’ register processes are complete. This year we have organised this meeting online. We saw that our students are extremely excited. As a result, we wanted to host our students here. We divided our students in accordance with their faculties. We have carried out the programs we created specifically for them according to the social distance and hygiene rules. Therefore, we wanted to greet our students with short and effective program. We invited our students, who were not able to join to the face-to-face program, via online broadcasts.”

Stating that they were already ready for the Distance Education system, Dr. Er, also said that “We have easily adapted into the Distance Education System which has started in March 23rd. The reason why it was easy because we have already prepared our infrastructure for these situations. As university we were ready for this. We used to give this system’s orientation to our students even in the past years. From the moment we started to this online process we immediately shared this information to our students from the websites we created.”

Informing about the Virtual Counter application which has been created for to become an answer and solution for students’ needs and questions, Dr. Neslihan Fatma Er states that “Our starting point was to think about the services we give to our students and if we could transfer them into the digital area. 

Our Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Relations, Assoc. Dr. Çağla Gül Yesevi participated as a speaker in the panel titled "Normalization with Gulf Countries from the Perspective of Israel" organized online by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (ORSAM) on September 24, 2020.

Our Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, International Trade and Finance Department faculty member Assist. Prof. Nebile Korucu Gümüşoğlu will present her paper titled " Casual Relations among Financial Development, Economic Growth, Poverty, Inequality and Inflation" at the 19th Middle East Economic Association (MEEA) conference, which will be held at Istanbul Piri Reis University with the theme "International Trade and Sustainable Development in MENA Region" on 9-11 October 2020.

The Department of English Language and Literature will organize an Orientation Program at the Ataköy campus on Monday, October 12 at 15:00 in order to meet the students who will start their education in the 2020-2021 academic year, and to provide information about the courses, principles and operation of the department.

Istanbul Kültür University Kültür Point will start on October 16th and hold the "Philosophy of Mathematics and Thought Workshop" every Friday until December 25, 2020. To think about the unthinkable based on what is thought / discuss the ways of reaching the result by not questioning. Numan Aydın will participate as an instructor in the event, which will be organized through CATS Collaborate, in order to convey ideas from the past to the present and the future using mathematical symbols.

Istanbul Kültür University Faculty of Architecture Department of Architecture organizes various workshops for students in the 2020-2021 academic year. We expect the participation of our students.

Our workshops to be held in the 2020-2021 Fall semester:

1. Take a part - 17 October 2020

2. Geometry Workshop - 24 October 2020

3. Experiencing Istanbul Workshop – 7 November 2020

IKU is where I started my academic life. I have experienced many firsts in my life under this roof. I joined the Kültür family in September 2007 as a research assistant. I am entering my fourteenth year at Kültür University. It is an adventure from research assistant to associate professor. In our assistantship, we were trying to write our theses besides intensive administrative work. I enjoy lecturing and being with my students. IKU is a place where I create, produce, write my books, articles and prepare my projects. It's a very important part of my identity.

What I want to emphasize and explain is that I am always supported in this institution. I also saw this in the project I conducted within IKU. IKU is a place where I spend a large part of my life with my colleagues and valuable students that I love and enjoy.

I think we had a successful pandemic process as a university and as academics. Everyone at the university worked devotedly in this sense. After a week of break, we switched to distance education. For myself, I learned a lot from the distance education process. I was excited to learn new technologies. I started lecturing with a new system. I tried to make my lessons interesting by applying different teaching methods. I think these are important achievements. The world is entering a new era and distance education will open new windows for us. In the future, in the post-pandemic period, perhaps this way, we will be able to reach students from different parts of the world.

The widespread adoption of information technologies (IT) characterising the recent competitive advantage scenario has been of great interest to researchers and practitioners. An important management question today is whether the anticipated economic benefits of information technology are being realised. There have been contradictory findings in the literature regarding its impact on firms'productivity. While the debate known as the “IT productivity” paradox still endures, empirical studies have not shown consistent results to clarify how IT offers benefits to the owning firms. The primary research questions are whether and how IT capabilities can create competitive advantage and enhance firm performance through supply chain relationships (channel capabilities). A quantitative approach for data collection and analysis is used.