Dear students;
We, as the components that make up a university, namely teaching staff, students, academic and administrative staff, know that the university is not just an ideal, it is not just a social institution, it is not just a place to earn our bread and prepares us for the profession. The university is also a living space, a life process; it is a rare community of people from different places, with different social positions, dates and characters. Therefore, it is a valuable meeting place. Transferring the knowledge and culture of the past to the generations that will establish the future together with the new, the university is an experience and development environment that spans the most beautiful four-five years of youth. Yes, the social world we live in contains contradictions. State intervention, capital accumulation and other social power relations, demolitions and restarts, and attitudes and ideas that are not easy to reconcile with each other pass through the university institution. On the other hand, as an ideal, the university tradition is an institutional and social space that strives to uncover the unique potential of the individual, aims to allow the formation of mental development and civic virtues, and therefore strives to protect and develop academic autonomy and freedom. The term 'university' (universitas) already includes an ideal historically; means a community that is gathered with a curiosity to read, research and learn around books, with the ability to live and learn together in diversity and variation with its teachers and students. The university is angled from the local to 'universal' by its name.
We, social scientists, do not consider the university education process as a mere information transfer and memorizing learning process. As the Department of Political Science and International Relations, which is a department within the Faculty of Social Sciences, we say that it is necessary to look in a multidimensional and relational way to the social relations, institutions, traditions, formations, economy, political thought and human discourse and action in the country and the world we live in. In fact, we know that the personal is always public, we care to envision the personal history and social history together, we connect the concepts with everyday life. In today's world, where communication and consciousness technologies are so developed, access to information is so easy, and even the abundance of information is confusing, we think that two problems have gained importance: First, how to distinguish the important from the accumulation of information; How to distinguish good, right, fair and beautiful?
How should he achieve such a map of meaning that allows us to evaluate reality and experience an understanding process that nurtures knowledge and creative power? Second, how should he be able to use academic, vocational and technical education and universal knowledge together creatively and develop the potential of personal competence while living and doing the profession? In principle, targeting these two objectives is the shared responsibility of a university environment, lecturers and students, especially social sciences and humanities!
The concept of genuine policy is about the capacity to establish partnerships between people, the search for 'common good' and the collective creativity towards it. For this, it is necessary to establish a non-violent encounter environment in order to freely express and mutually resolve the needs and expectations of various individuals and groups, and the possible conflicts between them. This (social, physical, virtual, institutional) encounter area is, in principle, a democratic life and struggle area where words and actions are made visible from private to public, where they can be expressed in the middle of each other, open to discussion and negotiation. In this respect, although it has different qualities from the ancient Greek democracy to today, the principle of democratic legitimacy, which is universally accepted, is 'the existence of the public sphere': Citizens’ defining the basic problems of the community they live in, learning about them, to be able to clearly express all kinds of tools, verbal, literary, audiovisual, and ideas in discussion through action… In short, deepening and securing the environment, space and rights for 'equal participation' and 'free speech' in society. What I mean is that, university is also a public space!
Therefore, let us say a “welcome” to university as a community; to this public space, which is based on mutual respect, where sensitivity must be shown about the rights and responsibilities of living with others in an environment of free education, work and living. If our department can arouse passion for learning about local, national, supranational policy theories, history and philosophy: critically evaluating the world and human relations; to search and develop new manners to shape today and future; how happy it is for all of us. I hope you invent very suitable learning and life styles that intersect the expectations of the society with you and your own wishes, desires and truths!
Assoc. Prof. Pınar SAYAN
Political Science and International Relations, Head of Department
This content was updated on 18/11/2024.