Dear Editor,
I would like to call your attention to the fact that the name “Bilkent Computer Center (BCC),” is no longer an adequate description for an organization that provides Information Technology (IT) services for learning, teaching, research, scholarship, and administration. The current name is “centered” on “computers”, which might previously have been sufficient, but in this age of the “Information Superhighway,” computing is much more than “number-crunching”-it has become the environment in which we do our work.
To support my argument, I looked at how similar or comparable organizations are named at ten top US universities. The results are revealing, in that the word “computer” appears in not a single one of them. In some Turkish universities, there is confusion. The Turkish name “Bilgi-İşlem Merkezi” becomes “Computer Center” in English. “Information Processing” is a step ahead of "computer center," but still, it does not take networking into account. Hence, my call becomes all the more significant because Bilkent, being one of the leading higher education and research institution of Turkey, must take the initiative and set an example for other Turkish universities. Finally, one might ask: “If you are asking for a change, then what do you propose as replacement?”
Although I came up with some alternatives, it would not be in the true spirit of interactivity to impose one. Why not organize a competition, and let everyone have a say? Only then shall the focus be “centered” on “people.” (The unabridged version of this letter may be found at: http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~akpinar/bcc2its.htm)

Kürsad Akpinar, PhD Candidate,
Department of History