Republic of turkey

7. STRATEGIC CHOICES AT UNIVERSITIES ON LIFE AND MANAGEMENT CULTURE

One of the main aims of the universities is to educate students. One part of this aim is about equipping students with knowledge and skills in order to create excitement in doing research; and the other part is to provide the development of the citizenship and the life culture. While the first part of this academic function is realized in the classrooms, laboratories, libraries of the universities in the guidance of university dons, the second function takes place in the environment that universities provide through students’ influencing each other within their life experiences. The quality of being a microcosm of the university becomes important in this sense as well.

The strategic choices that universities have to make in order to possess the quality of being such an environment for students are these:

1. The directory should try to develop a managing culture, which struggles to provide communicational rationalism within horizontal relationships rather than trying to develop rationalism within strict hierarchical relationships

2. To struggle in order to be able to increase the living quality at the university

3. The relationship between the university don and the student should be established on the basis of mutual love and respect

4. Students should be able to have the opportunity to develop a free and honest life experience within equal relationships and with their self-will while they continue their education.

5. Students should be able to organize a lot of activities such as art, thinking, sports or different kinds of hobbies (that make life meaningful) independently without losing their pioneer roles.

6. Students’ awareness about societal responsibilities should be increased and this should be started with NGO (non-governmental organization) and with NGO logic.

• In business world today hierarchal business models can not be met. Instead of these, total quality management systems, where horizontal relationships are dominant are come across more frequently. This kind of governance model, which gives importance to mutual interaction based on this kind of horizontal relationships, is the most appropriate one for the universities. In the relationships established in the academic life, one side of the relationship can not demand any dominance over the other by depending on either the importance of the function ascribed in the management or on the respectability, which is obtained by academic successes. Each result, which constitute within a relationship is determined by the methods of the world of science. A man of science, who is at the very beginning of his academic life, can violate a theory of an experienced and famous man of science. The power and the creativity of an academic group stems from these kinds of relationships, which are not based upon superior titles. That is why, the academic institutions, where there are frozen hierarchies, display a stagnant view. They cannot realize the functions that they are supposed to realize.

• Naturally, the existence of such horizontal relationships is not an obstacle against showing love and respect of the university staff to each other. There are a lot of reasons for university staff to show love and respect to each other at the university, where a lot of successes are realized and self-sacrifices take place. Undoubtedly, this accumulation of respectability will affect these relationships. This is a natural way of respect towards their effort and successes. In fact, these are the authentic love and respect. However, if one side of the relationship starts to perceive to respectability as a right and utilizes this in reinforcing his/her status in management there will be doubts about whether the love and the respect in this group is sincere or not. At a university, where the claims of juniority and dominance do not take place the first condition to increase the life quality will have been realized. In an environment like this the student will have the chance to educate himself as an active citizen of a democratic society and will feel the satisfaction of it.

• The services presented to the university students such as accommodation, nutrition, health, sports or entertainment are among the important factors which increase the life quality. Although it is observed that our universities to be in a great thrust, it is still hard to say that these services have reached the required level. In presenting these services, although increasing tendency of privatization has brought some advances in the quality of presented services, at the same time they have caused the inequalities among students to appear more evidently. This situation creates a lot of difficulties in the formation of university microcosm. In the past, universities tended to help students with low income by benefiting the incomes left to the universities. However, it was hindered thinking that it complicated the financial inspection of the government.

• The years passed at the university and the life quality there, have great significance both in terms of societal development and individual livings. Life quality has a lot to do with the culture of university management. However, the first and the most important part of the management culture is constituted by the relationship between the student and the university don in the classroom. The basic condition of this relationship is that the university don should try to approach students as grown-up individuals and to create an environment in the classroom, where students can question and discuss things freely among each other. The university dons should not forget that each and every word and behaviour in the classroom will be recorded to their brains, they will affect their behaviours in the future and it will constitute a role model for the students.

• Classrooms and in more general sense the relationship between the university don and the students should base on punctuality, transparency and accountability.

The university don, who attends his/her lessons on time, who does not impede his lessons and who tries to make up for it when he has to, who allows his/her students to analyze their exam papers and who listens to their objections patiently, who does not refrain from explaining the method of calculating the semester grade, who can treat all of his students equally and who can be sensitive to his/her students’ academic and other problems will constitute a perfect role model for the students.

To ask students’ opinions about courses and exams either formally or informally, to be sensitive to their criticisms and to improve the quality of education is very important in terms of establishing democracy culture. To try to represent students in different academic boards is an effective way, as well.

• When the graduate students are added to the undergraduate students between 17-22 age group, university students constitute a group from 17 to 25 ages. This range of age is very important in terms of many respects of the human life. In this period, life is constituted both inside and around the university. The students at this age group can be called as mature and they have got the right to behave freely. Although students have some inequalities, stemmed from family roots, at universities they all have the equal rights. The students form life experiences through relationships among themselves while they learn together in this environment. In order to make this experience an honest and unforgettable one, they should establish a relationship based on mutual love and respect. However, the recent experiences of Turkey show that if it is not taken seriously, the life at the university can turn out to be a bad and conflicting one. This will certainly mean that the students will miss an important life experience. In order to make this experience gain positive qualities students should pay great effort themselves as well as the struggles of the management.

The main pre-condition in order to hold students, who all come from different environments, together, is that the opportunity equality in society should be established. This pre-condition provides people with an opportunity to listen and understand each other in these young and matured ages and it is also important that students can be sensitive towards societal problems.

Again in this respect, it is observed that there is a great lack of foreign university dons and foreign university students. However, the unity of people from different cultures is important in terms of educating a peaceful, sensitive to human rights and tolerant community leaders. The changing programs within the Bologna process and the protocols among universities towards this aim will be able to compensate the shortage.

• The university environment should be improved since the university students do not get trained by the help of the courses but by the help of the university environment in which they live. From one point, the university administration provides an infrastructure for this improvement and from the other point there are the students who deal with different hobbies, sports, arts. These kinds of activities are performed by the clubs which are organized by the students. These clubs both will help the students have different areas of interest which will make their social life meaningful and will help them develop their capacity to organize and work together.

In recent years, such activities as spring festivals and student congresses have become very common and there have been a remarkable increase in the number and the activity of the student clubs. Liveliness that is created in the social life of the universities and socialization of the students can be considered to be a positive development. On the other hand, it is observed that there has been a decline in the direct interest of the student in the state problems in last 25 years.

However, in order to effectively take place in life after the graduation of the students from university, the students should be closely interested in the state problems; should be able to discuss the state problems among themselves in a free way and in depth without being dogmatic and using violence. The necessity that the students who constitute the major part of today’s universities should be concerned with social problems and political processes related with them since the society’s expectations from the universities include “creating strong bridges with the society and contributing to the regional and national development” becomes obvious.

• It is clear that the micro cosmos of the universities is the most appropriate environment in order to increase the awareness of the students about the social responsibilities. Today, what is expected from the students is to create a contact with their environment within the sense of a non governmental organization not to fulfil their responsibilities in a selective attitude. Some of the universities started to play a forerunner role about this matter. It will be useful to make these kinds of practices more common. The university and its students should be considered in a closer relationship. The relationship between the society and the university should be considered in a broader framework than the relationship between university and business. The universities should be immediately freed from being an institution which has strict entrance and exit surveillance and is surrounded as if they were military institutions, and should be unified with the society in a broader framework. In the short run, public days, festivals and public conferences should be organized. Continuous training centres should be made more common for the purpose of lifelong education and their positive contributions to the reciprocal interaction process.