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It had long been an objective of the founder to establish a private university distinguished by its high quality education and research. The founder, himself an academic by profession, had earlier contributed to the establishment of numerous public institutions of higher learning and served as rector of Ankara University, chairman of the board of trustees of Middle East Technical University and founder and first rector of Hacettepe University. Hacettepe had its beginnings in a two-room pediatric clinic opened by Ihsan Dogramaci in a slum area of Ankara in February 1954. He developed this clinic first into an Institute of Child Health in 1958, and then into the Hacettepe Faculty of Medicine. In 1967 it became a full-fledged university.
Preparations for Bilkent University had begun as early as 1967, with the purchase of a large tract of land to the west of Ankara. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the above mentioned foundations undertook construction, on the future site of Bilkent, of the buildings which now house administrative offices, the faculty of engineering, the computer center and the library. Residences for academic staff also began to be built. Construction of cafeterias, student dormitories, an English language preparatory school and a student union followed in rapid succession.
Following Bilkent's chartering in late 1984, Ihsan Dogramaci recruited administrators; the deans of engineering and sciences, humanities, economics and administrative sciences, music and fine arts; the director of the computer center; the li brarian; and the director of the School of English Language as well as senior academic staff members. He selected English as the medium of instruction. For the benefit of entering students not proficient in English, he established full-time English study'. With buildings well under way and vital staff appointed, he proceeded to gather together members of the faculties of internationally prominent universities to serve as an advisory committee for the structuring of the academic programs. From the outset, the design of the university structure provided for student union representatives to be voting members of the administrative committees of various schools, as well as of the university senate. Beginning in the second year of instruction Ihsan Dogramaci instituted the practice of student evaluation of courses and instructors, not a common practice in Turkey.
In October 1986 Bilkent University admitted its first students. That year there were 386 undergraduate and graduate students. Currently there are about 10,000 students in seven faculties, two four-year professional schools, two two- year vocational schools and the School of English Language plus five graduate schools (called institutes). Among them are foreign students from 22 countries.
The Career Development and Placement Center, another service established at the incentive of Bilkent's founder early in the University's development, helps fina l-year students to acquire the skills necessary to apply successfully for a job. The Center arranges interviews between representatives of major corporations and students seeking employment.
In order to provide broader opportunities to the students and academic staff at Bilkent, Ihsan Dogramaci initiated joint activities with Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities in the United States. In addition to faculty and student visits between Bilkent and the U.S. campuses, joint seminars and research projects have been undertaken.
To meet the expanding needs of the University, construction has continued throughout the seven years since the admission of the first students. New buildings and facilities include two gymnasiums; the faculties of humanities and letters, of economics and administrative sciences, of art, design and architecture, of science, of music and performing arts; a music hall for the Bilkent Orchestra; a secondary school, a preschool and nursery; new dining facilities; two health centers and a pharmacy; and recently the East Campus, which provides additional classroom space, eating facilities and student and faculty housing.
Each year, more than 1,300,000 high-school graduates apply for entrance to the 57 Turkish universities. The applicants take a two-stage examination, and Bilkent gets many of the very best. For example, in 1995, 55 of the top one-hundred scorers in the mathematics category of the national competitive university entrance examination chose and were admitted to Bilkent. During the last six years, of the top 20 scorers in math, more than half have selected Bilkent. Similarly, in 1995, 23 of the top one-hundred scorers in quantitative/verbal category and 22 of the top one-hundred scorers in the social sciences category have preferred to study at Bilkent. In the field of arts, Emre Sen, a third year student in the Faculty of Music won the Albert Roussel Award at the Sixt h International Rome Piano Competition in 1995, and received a scholarship for t he Ecole Normale de Music in Paris.
In national rankings of universities by academic
staff publications listed in the ISI Citation Indexes, Bilkent continues
to be first in number of published papers per faculty member. Each summer
the University hosts a variety of international scientific workshops and
symposia as well as the Bilkent International Music Summer School, which
has attracted young musicians from 26 countries on four continents. Bilkent's
accomplishments in this short span of time serve as an indication of its
challenging and ever brighter future.
THE HOME PAGE OF BILKENT IS :
HTTP://WWW.BILKENT.EDU.TR
