Dear Esteemed Colleagues and Esteemed Students,

During the 18 years since the foundation of Istanbul Commerce University in 2001, thousands of graduates have found their much-deserved and distinguished positions in business life. Through their educational role, our academics have contributed to society both socially and culturally through as well as to academia with thousands of articles, projects and books.

For our university, the purpose of educational activities is to equip our students with professional and academic knowledge, and to teach them how to increase their capacity to use and apply the knowledge they have learned.

With its devoted educational staff and its constantly-developing facilities, our university gives great importance to equipping our students with the information and skills that will help them to adapt to changing global conditions.

The accumulation of knowledge that we have access to and that we contribute to should not be seen as a privilege to be used against the interests of society nor as a reason for contempt and or a means of oppression. On the contrary, universities have a duty to contribute scientifically to the academic world, the country, society and humanity.

While aligning themselves with the requirements of academia, science and technology, universities must keep in mind their obligation to contribute to society and to seek ‘truth’ and to avoid the ideological barriers that narrow down our intellectual view of the world. At the same time, they must also consider it their duty to collect and evaluate knowledge, synthesizing it through analytical thought and drawing conclusions from it in every field to benefit society and our country.

We are aware of the demands that a true university must fulfil. The principles compelled by both our cultural roots, reference values and modern management apply to most universities. Where there is efficiency, expertise, justice, fairness and veracity, there is no room for favoritism, deficiency, injustice, unfairness or spuriousness. Good systems that operate on accurate strategies, planning, result and solution-oriented work, accountability and transparency will always advance. Those systems that do the opposite will always be condemned to setbacks, both on a small and a large scale.

One of the main goals of higher education must be to build productive structures, without complexes and fit to meet the necessities of increasing competition, both in our country and worldwide. Under the framework of such a production model, we need to create reflexes and mechanisms that will produce strategies, plans, ideas and innovation. By avoiding imitation, these mechanisms will give importance to originality and protect their products in the current economic structures.

The university must embrace the local alongside the universal; it must, in the very least, respect both. From this aspect, universities are centers that refresh social memory, that collect, protect, produce, and convey knowledge to the benefit of society, putting knowledge at its service.

As with all universities, our university has a duty to:

• Prepare our students for life through higher-education,
• Ensure that that they have professional information, analytical thinking skills and handcraft,
• Teach students how to express their ideas in a civilized way,
• Equip them with the self-confidence and knowledge to express their ideas and to defend themselves and society,
• Improve production potential,
• Improve their potential for success and survival both in the country and in the international arena,
• Teach professions by:
  • giving them the love of their chosen profession,
  • giving them confidence and responsibility,
  • making sure that our students become just, fair and responsible individuals,
  • Ensuring that they become professionals who can use initiative in their own field,
  • Creating an environment that raises citizens who are socially-responsible.

Today, during the last months of 2019, our university is advancing towards its much-deserved place. We have taken all the necessary steps for our internationalization process.

We are working hard to ensure sustainability by founding an institute of higher education that is resolute in global competition. By developing international programs, partnerships and collaborative protocols and agreements, and through student and personnel exchanges, we are also creating a conjuncture where our country can meet with the world.

With the confidence of a father whose two children have graduated from Istanbul Commerce University, I invite the parents and the student candidates who are dreaming of pursuing a higher-education to our university.