TURKEY: Earthquake binds university to its community

When an earthquqe hit the Marmara region, killing 17,000, Sakarya University played a leading role in the aftermath. Ten years on, providing services to the local community has become part of its mission.

Perched on a hill outside the town of Adapazari, the university's main campus was not too badly damaged by the earthquake and the number of casualties was reduced by the fact the earthquake struck during the summer holidays.

"Even so we lost 25 students and some staff, and buildings in other campuses in the city were very badly damaged," says Rector Mehmet Durman. Teaching and other academic activity was forced to stop for six months and students initially lived in tents because of the lack of accommodation.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, university staff and students helped dig people out of the rubble. As offers of help came in from the rest of Turkey and abroad, the university took on coordinating the efforts of relief agencies.

Engineers and geo-physicists were then involved surveying the buildings in Adapazari to evaluate those that were beyond repair and which could be repaired. A team of academics provided the city council with a two-year plan of how to reactivate the local economy.

Life slowly returned to normal in Sakarya province but university management had been profoundly affected by the experience of helping deal with the disaster: "We learned a lot from NGOs from abroad and decided we should set up a structured relationship between the university and NGOs and see how we could serve local people, not just during unusual circumstances but during normal circumstances too," says Durman.

The university now has a range of projects to serve the local community, including a joint initiative with a German NGO to train people to look after the elderly. Voluntary work has become an option on all student curricula and this counts towards a student's final qualification.

In 2003, Sakarya University started offering online distance learning and today has around 10,000 people enrolled. The following year, the university opened its centre for continuing education to provide short courses for professional development along with less formal evening classes of music, DIY or how to play the guitar.

One of the institution's three vice-rectors is specifically in charge of services to the community. This has been an explicit part of the university's strategic mission since 2007.

"We very much see ourselves as a big civil organisation in education rather than the conventional understanding of a university," says Durman, "Obviously we do carry out training and research but this has to be done in close cooperation with society. The earthquake gave us the opportunity to come much closer to our community."

rebecca.warden@uw-news.com