{"id":1699,"date":"2021-06-23T08:17:41","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T08:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/?page_id=1699"},"modified":"2021-07-16T18:34:07","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T18:34:07","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bilkent University welcomed its very first students at the start of the 1986\u201387 academic year.  At the time of its ceremonial opening on October 10, 1986, Bilkent University consisted of three faculties \u2013 Engineering<\/strong>; Science and Letters<\/strong>; and Music and Fine Arts <\/strong>\u2013 and also a School of Computer Technology<\/em><\/strong> with an associate degree program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The School of Computer Technology <\/em>was envisaged as offering a two-year program designed around a vocational and application-oriented curriculum. With a cohort of only 29 students \u2013 9 of whom were to become Bilkent\u2019s very first graduates two years later \u2013 the School\u2019s beginnings were modest. However, following an arduous journey of almost thirty-five years \u2013 a period of steady growth and unending transformation \u2013 that fledgling school is today a Faculty of Applied Sciences (FAS)<\/em><\/strong>, offering hundreds of students a rich array of degrees through its two departments: the Department of Information Systems and Technologies (CTIS)<\/em> and the Department of Tourism and Hotel Management (THM<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Founding to the End of the \u201980s<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The School of Computer Technology <\/em>was restructured immediately, initially to comply with national legislation regarding higher education. In addition, the school\u2019s name was soon changed to the Vocational School of Technical Sciences<\/em>. This reorganization and renaming were the first of many changes that would come to pass in subsequent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 1987, there began efforts to launch new two-year vocational programs planned for two new departments set up under the purview of the school, joining the original Department of Computer Technology<\/em>. These were the Department of Tourism and Hotel Services (THS)<\/em> and the Department of Bureau Management (BMS)<\/em>.  Both were conceived with the aim of training and cultivating a young, highly professional, technically skilled and bilingual workforce. With the inception of these two new departments, the name of the school was changed to, simply, the Vocational School<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1988, the School of Tourism and Hotel Management (STHM) <\/em>offering a four-year undergraduate program through the Department of Tourism and Hotel <\/em>Management<\/em> (THM) was inaugurated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201990s \u2013 Part One: New Buildings, New Programs, and a Thriving Academic Institution<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The School of Tourism and Hotel Management<\/em> and the Vocational School<\/em> moved to their very own home in early 1991. The newly erected buildings R and C, situated on Bilkent\u2019s East Campus, gave the schools the space and means to transition into institutional maturity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1992, the Department of Computer-Aided Accounting (CAA)<\/em>, and, in 1993, the Department of Commerce and Administration<\/em> (CAD)<\/em> were set up under the Vocational School<\/em>\u2019s aegis; both offered two-year programs. In the subsequent academic year of 1993\u201394, the school and its five two-year programs were reorganized and restructured into two new vocational schools: the Vocational School of Tourism and Hotel Services (VSTHS)<\/em>, which offered only the associate degree in tourism and hotel services; and the Vocational School of Computer Technology and Office Management (VSCTOM)<\/em>, which offered the remaining four two-year degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To increase the number of degrees in the fields of tourism and hospitality, and to expand the scope of instruction to prepare students for the expanding demands of this industry, a new four-year program under the School of Tourism and Hotel Management <\/em>was set up: the Department of Computer Technology in Tourism (CTT)<\/em>.The following year, the Department of Office Management in Tourism<\/em> (OMT)<\/em> was set up, introducing a third four-year program of study under the purview of the four-year school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201990s \u2013 Part Two: Growing, Transforming, and Adapting on the Way to the New Millennium<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In the second half of the 1990s, the curricula of the programs offered by the Department of Computer Technology in Tourism<\/em> and the Department of Office Management in Tourism<\/em> were revised and expanded to accord better with existing trends and to anticipate future needs in the targeted fields of work. The programs these two departments offered gradually developed into, respectively, Information Technologies <\/em>and Business Information Management.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result of this evolution, the Department of Computer Technology in Tourism <\/em>became the Department of Computer Technology and Information Systems,<\/em> and the Department of Office Management in Tourism<\/em> became the Department of Business Information Management.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2000s \u2013 Final Stage of the Journey: The School Becomes a Faculty<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

During the first decade of the new millennium, all three schools went through a process of streamlining. As demand from prospective students was seen to decrease, the two-year vocational programs were discontinued, and admission to these programs came to an end as of 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, the name of the School of Tourism and Hotel Management <\/em>was changed to the School of Applied Technology and Management (SATM)<\/em>, due to the transformation of two of its three departments into programs that provided education outside the field of tourism and hotel management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its founding, the constant evolution and growth of what was initially envisioned as a modest School of Computer Technology <\/em>had been guided with an eye to future trends as well as existing demands of the market. When the impact of the substantial and sometimes dramatic changes in the way individuals and global communities lived, worked, communicated, and vacationed began to be felt following the turn of the millennium, the schools already possessed the necessary vision and tradition to remain a leading, and stable, institution. This vision and spirit had been encoded into the school\u2019s essence back in 1986 and 1987, when Bilkent\u2019s founder, \u0130hsan Do\u011framac\u0131, facilitated the introduction of degrees in computer technology and tourism and hospitality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, Kamer Rodoplu, director of the School of Applied Technology and Management<\/em>, proposed to the university administration that the school become a faculty and submitted an extensive report explaining the reasons for such a change and the idea behind it. Discussion of the matter continued for over a year, with the University Senate deliberating on the proposal in February 2020. Approval by the Board of Trustees followed in April 2020. An official request was then made to Turkey\u2019s Higher Education Council, which the General Assembly voted favorably on in early August 2020. The final step was a Presidential Decree published in the Official Gazette on August 22, 2020, making official the establishment of the new Faculty of Applied Sciences (FAS)<\/em><\/strong> with two departments: the Department of Information Systems and Technologies (CTIS)<\/em> and the Department of Tourism and Hotel Management (THM)<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bilkent University welcomed its very first students at the start of the 1986\u201387 academic year.  At the time of its ceremonial opening on October 10, 1986, Bilkent University consisted of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1699","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1699"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1729,"href":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1699\/revisions\/1729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fas.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}