Bahçeşehir Proposes "Joint Work" to All Universities

The Directors of the Graduate Schools of Social Sciences of 20 universities in Istanbul discussed their problems for the first time at a meeting organized by Bahçeşehir University. The meeting resulted in a decision to hold a workshop in October.

The opening speech of the meeting, held on the evening of 14 September at Bahçeşehir University C Terrace, was delivered by Burak Küntay, Director of the Bahçeşehir University Graduate School of Social Sciences and Advisor to the President for Graduate Schools and Graduate Programs. Küntay began his speech by stating that the graduate school system in Türkiye does not match the system in the world and that work should be carried out in this direction. Küntay said, "Graduate education is important for a better Türkiye. To be more productive in this regard, frequent meetings are needed," and handed the floor to Bahçeşehir University President Şenay Yalçın.

Yalçın's idea that "graduate schools should produce projects in unity and that there should be course-taking across universities" was also welcomed by the graduate school directors at the table. "Other universities should also be able to benefit from Bahçeşehir University's rich library, laboratories should be shared among universities, when needed teaching and transfers across universities should be enabled, joint thesis advisors should be provided, joint projects should be possible, a joint doctoral program could be opened, and we could work together on study abroad," said Yalçın, adding that it is possible for all universities to benefit from the facilities of the Research Methods School opened within Bahçeşehir University. Yalçın concluded, "As Bahçeşehir University, we are taking the first step so that all this can happen and all universities can apply to the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) together."

At the meeting, attended by about 30 people, the graduate school directors of other universities also introduced themselves and their schools and presented their views on the main idea of the meeting. All graduate school directors declared that they agreed with the idea of "taking part in a joint effort."

At the end of the evening, it was decided to hold a workshop in October-November. The topics to be discussed at the workshop were set as follows:

- Preparing an agenda on graduate school problems and working on it for 2 days
- Publishing a Graduate School of Social Sciences journal
- Solving the interdisciplinarity problem
- Addressing the issue of language in education
- Addressing the issue of theses
- Addressing YÖK-related matters