As you may have already heard, Professor Merih Celasun has become the new Dean of Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences. Meih Celasun was very kind to share with Bilkent News his background and sone of his opinions regarding his position in Bilkent.
Let's see what professor Celasun tells us about his new position.
Background: Merih Celasun completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Columbia University in New York. After he returned to Turkey, he served as Director of Economic Planning at Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı (State Planing Organization), where he worked on developmental plans and programs of Turkey. In the earky 1970s, he joined the Middle East Technical University (METU), where he taught mainly graduate courses on development, macroeconomics, and multisectoral models. At METU, Professor Celasun supervised a large number of masters theses and doctoral dissertations, and chaired the departments of Operations Research and Economics. His publications mainly dealt with the various facets of Turkey's development policy and economic performance.
Why Bilkent? Professor Celasun has recently accepted an appointment at Bilkent. He believes in Bilkent's strong sonse of institution building and solid progress in creating a center of excellence in higher education and research. He is particularly impressed with the well-balanced structure of faculty units on science and technology, social sciences, humanities and arts, and immovative professional schools, serving highly talented and motivated students.
On the Significance of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences: With respect to the significance and institutional position of his new Faculty, Merih Celasun makes the following observation: "The last decade has been an extraordinarily turbulent and exciting period in the world history. In the technological, economic, social and political sphere, we have been experiencing unprecedented changes at the local and global levels.
In this rapidly evolving context, the significance of economics, social and political institutions and international relations has sharply increased in conjunction with the need to improve our understanding of the historical developments. The overall mission of our Faculty is to educate competent professionals in these disciplines with a high potential for sustained self-development after their graduation from the university. I find this mission an exciting challenge."
Vision and Perspective: The record of educational performance and research output shows that the academic foundations have already been firmly established at Bilkent University. Our collective medium-term tasks will be to steadily improve the overall quality, enhance student-faculty interactions, reinforce international linkages, and to promote and facilitate research that conributes significantly to knowledge production, institutional design and public policy analysis.
