Rectorate Handover Ceremony was Held at Üsküdar University...

Prof. Nazife Güngör became the new rector of Üsküdar University. Prof. Nazife Güngör was appointed as the rector of Üsküdar University according to the decision of the Official Gazette published on March 14, 2023. With the decision of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 12 university rectors were appointed. According to the official decision, Prof. Nazife Güngör, Dean of the Faculty of Communication, was appointed to the Rectorate of Üsküdar University, which was established by Prof. Nevzat Tarhan in 2011. Known for her books and articles that shape the field of communication, Prof. Göngör became the first female rector of Üsküdar University. Üsküdar University Rectorate Handover Ceremony was held at Nermin Tarhan Conference Hall with the participation of academic and administrative staff. Prof. Mehmet Zelka, whose term of office expired, was replaced by the new Rector Prof. Nazife Güngör.

"In life, we need to be one of those who either learn, teach or support these acts"

At the handover ceremony of the Rectorate, Prof. Mehmet Zelka, who has been serving as the Deputy Rector since 2019, took the floor first. Expressing his feelings and thoughts about his academic years, Zelka talked about the process of starting the academy. Prof. Zelka said that "When we decided to start this academic life 45 years ago, a committee gathered and asked us questions to evaluate our decision. There were very appealing alternatives. They asked why you prefer academic life when those alternatives are there. Since we believe that we can provide better service in the institution you are here, and if we are in this institution, we will contribute to the training of people who will perform their duties there. Of course, there is advice that sheds light on us in a way during this life process. This advice was: 'In life, you should either learn, teach or support these acts.' Don't be the fourth one. We tried to follow this advice. We tried to learn. There is no end to this. We will continue as long as our life lasts long enough. They first offered me to wear the robe about sixteen years ago. It was fortunate to perform the duty of rector there in Skopje between 2007-2010. The Balkans are places where each of us can find a part from ourselves. In this respect, we felt like we were in our hometown there again. I returned from there at the end of 2010. In late 2010, some group of friends visited us on one occasion. When they offered to work together, we considered it a natural duty for us. We started to work at this Üsküdar University at the beginning of 2011 before the university was officially established. We are now in March, and 12 years have passed. Time passes very quickly. It was such a fortune.".

"The alms of knowledge are given by teaching knowledge to those who do not know"

Prof. Mehmet Zelka said to the students that the aim of education and training was not to get a diploma and stated that the spiritual dimension of the work done was very strong. Prof. Zelka said "Your goal should not be to get a diploma and place it on a wall. As emphasized in our culture, the important thing is to be useful to people. To strive to be useful is to work. When this is the case, this is one of the greatest responsibilities of scientists when contributing to the teaching process. That is, to teach knowledge because the alms of knowledge are given by teaching knowledge to those who do not know. Otherwise it is a burden. With an original analogy, that is, people who have knowledge but do not transfer their knowledge to their surroundings and do not benefit from their surroundings… I ask for your forgiveness and I’ll share the example as the original version. They liken it to a book-laden donkey. Of course, we need to get rid of it, we need to make efforts to be useful. I used to recommend this to my students. I would make this advice to myself. Definitely do not measure and evaluate the cost of your work with the three or five cents you receive. The cost of the work done here is too great to be measured in terms of matter because the person you are addressing and contributing to raise is equivalent to the universe. If it can be measured, it is an asset of value. The service rendered to it should never, ever be measured by the three or five cents received. When this happens, the heart is also involved".

"If the heart is involved in the work done, it is possible to achieve more profound and beautiful results"

Emphasizing the participation of the power of heart in every work, Prof. Mehmet Zelka expressed his gratitude to Üsküdar University for the contributions it made to him. Prof. Zelka said that "People are often talked about muscle strength and brain power. There is a third power of man that I have not seen in almost any of the economics books but that I have seen in other works. This power is the 'power of the heart'. If the heart is involved in a job, it is in everything. If the heart is involved in every work, it is possible to achieve more profound and beautiful results. The presence of dear professor Tarhan during the performance of this duty is an extraordinary convenience for us. It has been a remarkable opportunity. I would like to express my gratitude to them for their contributions. Furkan Tarhan, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, and his members are again admirable in every sense of their approach to this issue and that they constantly follow their own approach. Thank you, as well. I would like to express my gratitude to all of our fellows we work with, our deans, directors, academic friends and administrative staff. During this time, they have made significant contributions to the performance of our duty. I thank you all individually for your contributions and express my gratitude. Thank you.".

Prof. Nazife Güngör: "Our primary task is to make the world a much more humane world"

Prof. Nazife Güngör, who started her speech at the Rectorate handover ceremony by referring to the challenging period our country has been going through, stressed the importance of producing and putting forward values suitable for people. Prof. Güngör said "We are in a beautiful university, a university whose system has been established, whose university structure has been completed to an important extent and which is coming to a certain place in Türkiye and even in the world. It is an honor for me to be able to serve in the next period with such a valuable duty. Of course, humanity is going through challenging days, in fact, humanity is giving its own difficult test. Humanity is actually facing a tough test of not producing properly. Working and producing are the most important condition of being human, and it is my most sacred value. The reason is that it is production that makes man human. We are born into a world, if we cannot influence the life we are born into in this world as human beings, if we do not try to change it, if we try to move forward in it by adapting and struggling in it, it means not being able to be the subject of our own life as an individual, as a human being. Therefore, it is due to the fact that man does not attach human value to themselves and cannot carry out the production processes effectively. If we are human, if we have come into this world, if we are born into this world, our primary task is to take that world towards a much more human world. The primary way to do this is to work, to produce, to produce value. There it is the production of both material and intangible value that produces value. When all of them are synthesized, human value is produced.".

“The most fundamental value of a university is science”

Defining the most fundamental value of a university as science, Rector Prof. Nazife Güngör highlighted the production of human equity in ensuring institutional continuity. Güngör said, “As a University, we are a university that is encouraged constantly to product under the leadership of Prof. Nevzat Tarhan. Remember that, Professor Tarhan mentions project in all the meetings. The reason behind this is actually to produce. If we are within a university, a structure, that structure must produce its resource to reinforce that structure and to sustain it. The most fundamental value of a university is science. It will produce its scientific equity, it will produce its material equity resources through scientific value, it will have presence in the world and in Türkiye in terms of academia by producing scientific value and it will continue its path by getting stronger. One of the most important activities of a university is education. Education is an important service, the most valuable thing is to contribute to human capital, to increase and strengthen human capital. Thus, this is achieved through educational institutions. We, as a university, must ideally provide education in the highest quality. One of the most important tasks of a university is to produce its own human equity. If we cannot prepare our assistants and young academicians for the future under the roof of this university, then we will not have a strong structure with continuity going forward. Therefore, institutional continuity and the academic strengthening of the institution for the continuation requires that those who grew up, should give effort to those who are growing, and those who are growing up should do their best to carry them to their own level and even beyond their own levels.".

"The university should serve the society and humanity in which it exists"

Stating that one of the important functions of the university is to 'serve the society and humanity in which it exists’, Güngör said that a campus that are isolated within itself are degenerating and moving away from social problems. Güngör said, "Every value we create and produce at the university has social reflections. It must be transferred to society. Therefore, a university is a scientific institution, an educational institution, but at the same time an institution that produces a social value. Therefore, as it has always been important here and will always be emphasized in the future, it is necessary to give great importance to university-society collaborations, to produce value for the society, and to reflect the knowledge to be produced here to the society. If you keep a campus isolated within itself, it makes no sense. It has meaning in itself, but if it has no reflection, it degenerates within itself. Those isolated structures are doomed to contract, shrink and explode inward over time. Therefore, we have to open up to the outside, spread to the society, touch the people and listen to the problems, and produce some solution proposals and make contributions outside the campus.".

Prof. Nevzat Tarhan: "We make the work valuable because we attach meaning to the work we do."

Speaking in the context of the establishment stages, goals and principles of Üsküdar University in his speech at the Rectorate handover ceremony, President of Üsküdar University, Chairman of the Supreme Council of Directors, Psychiatrist Prof. Nevzat Tarhan pointed out that one of his biggest goals is to progress by adding meaning to high goals. Tarhan said, "Since the actual establishment of the University in 2011, we have handed over the flag of the Rectorate to Prof. Mehmet Zelka in 2019. In 2023, Prof. Nazife Güngör is now taking over the flag. Since the foundation of the university, we have done a lot in a really short time, we have achieved better and faster results than I expected, both in terms of the quality of the students and the competence of the lecturers and our brand value in the society. It is necessary to continue to develop and continue to do so. What is important here is that it is in accordance with the vision, mission and quality standards, that these are not only on a piece of paper, but are actually put into practice and that it is teamwork. We have four principles; criticizability, libertarianism, pluralism and participation. We have used these principles as our core values and we continue to do so. To those who ask, we say that as a university, we are like the United Nations because universities have certain goals. The values we attach importance to, competence, merit, diligence and justice can only be achieved with people who care about these four concepts and those who care about this and this as a management philosophy. Since we attach meaning to the work we do up to our capillaries, we make this work valuable, we succeed in overcoming ourselves. There are 24 most important golden values of human, one of those golden values is that transcendence, that is, one can move forward by adding meaning to goals higher than themselves. We have determined this as a vision.".

“The most important production of a university is to train human”

Pointing out that the most important production of a university is to train people, Prof. Tarhan emphasized that they have achieved good results in this regard. Prof. Tarhan said "There is a global competition that we can compete with in the world, there are global trends that need to foresee some things in advance. By foreseeing global trends, we can do some things if we are proactive. Thus, we tried to establish behavioral sciences, engineering sciences and neurosciences, biological sciences and social sciences within a certain philosophy as the founding theme when the university was first established. There is a rule in innovation. According to that rule, if a person has 100 hours, if they spare 85 hours to that work, they should devote 15 hours to thinking about that job, to separate the thought about the thought, and if one does this, they will make their job better. We emphasized this as a vision, and we gave importance to teamwork as a mission. The important production of a university is to train people, to train good professionals. We have achieved good results in this regard, and then being restorative is very important. We cannot solve people like this by dividing them into groups. We need to build horizontal coalitions, not vertical ones, which is why Türkiye needs this. As the university administration, we think that we can only move forward by communicating, and we can solve the problems between them through communication. Most of the problems stem from a lack of communication, therefore, it is very important to be able to keep communication alive, and it is quite important to be able to reflect that on even our capillaries like this. For this reason, I think that Nazife Güngör will continue the good services she has done in the Faculty of Communication within these vision, mission and quality standards, so I wish that her period will be well, fortunate and fruitful.".

Prof. Mehmet Zelka was presented with a plaque of appreciation

Following the speeches, President of Üsküdar University Prof. Nevzat Tarhan presented a plaque of appreciation to Prof. Mehmet Zelka, who has been serving as the Deputy Rector since 2019.

Prof. Nazife Güngör was dressed in the Rector robe by Prof. Nevzat Tarhan...

In the last stage of the ceremony, President of Üsküdar University Prof. Nevzat Tarhan attire the rector's robe to the new Rector Prof. Nazife Güngör. At the ceremony, Prof. Nazife Güngör's autobiography was shared with the participants.

Those who attended the ceremony are as follows; Üsküdar University Chairman of the Board of Trustees Furkan Tarhan, NPİSTANBUL Brain Hospital and Üsküdar University Board Member Fırat Tarhan, Vice Rectors Prof. Sevil Atasoy, Prof. Hikmet Koçak, Prof. Muhsin Konuk, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences Prof. Osman Çerezci, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences Prof. Arif Aktuğ Ertekin, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Prof. Haydar Sur,  Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry Prof. Yumuşhan Günay, Director of the Vocational School of Health Services, Director of the  Graduate School of Sciences Assoc. Prof. Mesut Karahan, Director of the Institute for Sufi Studies Prof. Elif Erhan, Advisors to the Rector Prof. Deniz Ülke Arıboğan, Prof. Tayfun Uzbay, Prof. Sırrı Akbaba, Prof. İsmail Barış, Prof. Şefik Dursun, Asst. Prof. Serdar Karagöz and Emine Dönmez, Secretary General Selçuk Uysaler, Deputy Secretary General Ayşe Öztürk and Asil Barış Bağ.

In addition, all department heads and administrative staff of Üsküdar University as well as many academicians attended the ceremony.

The ceremony ended after a group photo shoot.

Üsküdar News Agency (ÜNA)