Turkey :: Programs and Activities :: GAP (Southeastern Anatolia Project)
This project was planned to develop important linkages between the campuses of SUNY and Turkish universities in Ankara and in Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey's poorest region. While the overreaching goal of the "Southeastern Anatolia Project * " is to contribute to the tremendously ambitious, multi-sectoral sustainable development in the region, three specific goals were outlined in the original project plans and remain as its core:
- Design and develop cooperative programs for teaching and research in such fields as English as a Foreign Language (EFL), agricultural science and veterinary medicine, environmental science and forestry, and computer science and information management through combination of faculty, administrators, and advanced student exchanges.
- Support faculty and curriculum development through the establishment of cooperative teaching and research with a view toward long range collaboration between the SUNY system and Turkish universities in southeastern Anatolia and in Ankara.
- Equip the targeted universities with educational materials that will enable them to improve their services to surrounding communities in the GAP region. These materials may include, where feasible, distance learning technologies and interactive instructional techniques.
Activities/ Methods of Reaching Goals:
The project utilizes two activities to create and strengthen the linkages between the participating SUNY institutions and Turkish universities.
- The first, and heart of the project, is a faculty development component aimed at assisting the relatively new universities in Southeastern Anatolia to bring well-qualified junior professors to teach in this remote region of Turkey. The Turkish Higher Education Council has agreed to provide 75 doctoral level scholarships for this project at a rhythm of 25 per year over three years. These scholarships recipients will study in one of the fields identified for this project (as listed in the first goal above) as part of collaborative doctoral program between partner SUNY and partner Turkish institutions. The program, commonly known by academics as a "sandwich program," will involve approximately two years of courses at one of SUNY's university research centers, its College of Environmental Science and Forestry, or the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. After completing the coursework, each student will solicit and form a dissertation committee which will include faculty members from both partner institutions, and then he/she will return to Turkey for research in the Southeastern Anatolia region. Following research, the student will either remain in Turkey or return to New York for dissertation writing and defense, all the while being supervised by faculty members from both SUNY and Turkish institution.
- The second activity of this project was labeled "technical consultancy" visits and will include travel by faculty members with expertise in the areas related to the doctoral students' research. These academics and scholars will closely supervise and advise (programmatically, academically, and technically) the graduate students, ensuring a quality education, while also identifying specific collaborative research interests and curriculum enhancements within the context of the GAP project and region.
The purpose of the technical consultancies includes two other facets:
- to begin undertaking joint research studies on the identified subjects while visiting the partner institution; and
- to work together to develop joint proposals for further funds.
As the linkages are created, faculty members from our technical colleges will work in these areas, requiring travel to Turkey and thus utilizing grant funds as planned.
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