Ankara University

Established 1946 
Type: Public 
Rector: Nusret Aras, M.D. 
Faculty: 15 
Staff: 3,720 
Students: 44,906 
Location: Ankara, Turkey 
Website: www.ankara.edu.tr/ 

History

Ankara University was founded by Atatürk himself in order to set the foundation for the teachings of his revolution so that they would get stronger and spread wider, and to make sure that the principles of a modern society, such as science and enlightenment, were held dear and protected.

The first and most impressive performance of the young Republic in the field of higher education was to establish the following higher education institutions: The School of Law, to train judiciaries who were to realize the new order of law in the secular and democratic Republic (1925); the Institute of Technology for Agriculture, to lead the modernization of Turkish agriculture (1933);the School of Language, History and Geography, to establish a bridge between the language and culture of Turkey and those of the rest of the world, and to conduct research on the rich culture of Anatolia (1935); and the already existing School of Political Sciences, designed to train top level public administrators under the name of Mekteb-i Mülkiye since 1859, and which was later on moved to Ankara in 1936 upon the directive of Atatürk. Mention must be made of the schools whose preparation stage was started by Atatürk, yet their establishment was postponed until the beginning of the 1940’s due to the Second World War. Among those schools were the Schools of Medicine and of Science.

Ankara University, comprising the Faculty of Law (1925), the Faculty of Language, History and Geography (1935), the Faculty of Science (1943), and the Faculty of Medicine (1945), was established officially in 1946. The University acquired the Faculties of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine which previously belonged to the Institute of Technology for Agriculture. The School of Divinity was founded in 1949 and the Faculty of Political Sciences in 1950, then came the School of Pharmacy in 1960, and in 1963 the School of Dentistry which later became a Faculty in 1977, the Faculty of Educational Sciences in 1965, and the Faculty of Communication in 1965. The Çankiri Faculty of Forestry and the Health Education Faculty were opened to education in 1996.

Organization

These are the 15 faculties in which the university is divided into:

• Faculty of Agriculture
• Faculty of Communication
• Faculty of Dental Medicine
• Faculty of Divinity
• Faculty of Educational Sciences
• Faculty of Engineering
• Faculty of Foresty in Çankiri
• Faculty of Health Educaiton
• Faculty of Law
• Faculty of Letters
• Faculty of Medicine
• Faculty of Pharmacy
• Faculty of Political Sciences
• Faculty of Science
• Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

Notable alumni

• Bülent Arinç - Speaker of the parliament
• Deniz Baykal - Politician
• Osman Birsen - CEO of Istanbul Stock Exchange
• Cengiz Çandar - Journalist
• Hikmet Çetin - Former speaker of the parliament
• Can Dündar - Journalist
• Muammer Güler - Governor of Istanbul
• Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu - Secretary-General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference
• Erdal Inönü - Academics and politician
• Ahmet Taner Kislali - Intellectual and former government minister
• Ferit Melen - Former Prime minister
• Adnan Menderes - Former Prime minister
• Murathan Mungan - Author
• Tahsin Özgüç - Archaeologist
• Ahmet Necdet Sezer - President of Turkey (2000-2007)
• Cemal Süreya - Poet
• Tülay Tugcu - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Turkey