Chancellor & Turkish Higher Ed Leaders Plan Long-Term Cooperation

Albany - State University of New York Chancellor Robert L. King today announced that the government of Turkey has provided a $500,000 endowment to support the creation of a Turkish Studies Program at the Neil D. Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce in New York, NY.

The endowment announcement culminates a 10-day visit by the former president of Turkey, Suleyman Demirel, and Turkish Higher Education President Kemal Guruz to New York to strengthen academic and research ties between Cornell University, the SUNY College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell, Binghamton University and other SUNY campuses.  

“This is a great opportunity for students and faculty in America and Turkey, the Turkish Council of Higher Education and for the State University of New York,” said King.  “Working with former President Demirel, President Gürüz and their staffs has been a great pleasure and I would like to extend the appreciation of the State University of New York to the Republic of Turkey and the Turkish Council of Higher Education for their generosity and hard work on this very successful collaboration.”

King made the announcement at a lunch hosted by the Foreign Policy Institute in New York

In September, SUNY and the Turkish Higher Education Council successfully launched a new dual diploma program that has placed 350 Turkish students in ten dual diploma programs in six subject areas; business, economics, global and international affairs, information systems and technology, marine engineering and marine transportation and management engineering. Binghamton University, SUNY College at New Paltz and SUNY Maritime College are currently involved in the dual diploma program. More than 3,700 Turkish students applied to be accepted to this program.   

As part of the visit, Cornell University and the SUNY College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell held a seminar with Turkish development experts and engineering students to provide an overview of Cornell’s and SUNY’s involvement in providing faculty expertise to Turkey’s Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP), one of the largest hydrological and economic development projects in the world that covers an area of 75,000 square kilometers and a population of six million people in the southeastern part of Turkey.    

As another element of the visit President Guruz was presented with an honorary degree of humane letters and former President Demirel was presented with a special citation at a convocation held at Binghamton University.

The recently launched dual diploma joint program is administered by a Turkish university and its partner State University campus.  After successfully completing all required coursework, the degree recipient will receive two diplomas – one from each institution.  No student will receive the degree or either of the diplomas without satisfying the academic requirements of the dual diploma joint program. In order to earn a dual diploma, students must spend one year at the partner campus.  Students will also take advantage of distance learning technology to earn their degree.

Once established, The Turkish Studies Program at the Levin Institute will support lectures, conferences, symposia, academic research, faculty exchanges and other academic initiatives. 

The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States educating more than 410,000 students in 6,650 programs on 64 campuses.