|
Bilkent University is a private university located in Ankara, Turkey and one of the finest universities in the country. It was founded on October 20, 1984 by Ihsan Dogramaci. The name Bilkent is an acronym of Bilim Kenti, Turkish for City of Science.
Currently (2003-2004) there are over 10,000 students in nine faculties, two four-year professional schools, two two-year vocational schools and the School of English Language plus six graduate schools (called institutes). Among them are foreign students from 72 countries. With funds from the endowments provided by the founder, the university each year awards full scholarships to over 2,500 students of high academic achievement.
To promote the enrichment of teaching and research programs, Bilkent University entered into collaborative projects and exchange programs with many universities abroad. Bilkent has student exchange agreements with the University of California system, Purdue, Johns Hopkins, University of Maine, University of Texas at Austin, University of Missouri, Bowling Green State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Carthage College, Franklin and Marshall College in the US; University of Laval and McGill University in Canada; and Tel-Aviv University in Israel. Bilkent is a member of NIBES (Network of International Business and Economic Schools) and exchange programs are established with Pforzheim University in Germany and the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Clarmont and the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Lille of France. The university also has a communications office at 600 Madison Avenue in New York City, equipped with interactive video conferencing capabilities. A number of courses are delivered through this office via satellite connection.
To meet the expanding needs of the university, construction has continued throughout the years since the admission of the first students. New buildings and facilities include two gymnasiums; the Faculties of Humanities and Letters, Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, Art, Design and Architecture, Science, the Computer Center, and Music and Performing Arts; a Concert Hall for the Bilkent Academic Symphony Orchestra; a secondary school, a preschool and nursery; new dining facilities; two health centers and a pharmacy; and the East Campus which has additional classroom space, catering facilities, and student and faculty housing.
Each year, more than 1,600,000 high-school graduates take the national examination to enter the 53 public and 25 private universities in Turkey. Every year, Bilkent University gets the biggest portion of top scorers. As an example, in the 2004 examination, 34 of the top 100 scorers, and 4 of top 10 scorers chose various departments of Bilkent University.
There are also some non-Turkish faculty staff. Some of them were working in prominent universities in North America and Europe when they received offers from Bilkent University. The University has a policy of keeping a low number of academic staff in order to keep the wages high. As an immediate result, Bilkent has a very high figure of published papers per faculty member (source: ISI Citation Indexes) and ranks high internationally.
External links
|
