Associate Professor Buğra Gökçe

Our acquaintance does not go back very far.

Although our offices were in different institutions, they were very close to each other; his was at one end of the street, and mine was at the other. Thanks to this proximity, I went to visit him upon the invitation of a mutual friend.

The visit, which I had intended for a cup of tea, dragged on and on due to our shared academic backgrounds. Following that, our meetings continued with this same academic sensitivity.

Then, one night, he sent me a message; it was about the associate professorship application we had discussed during that first visit.

He had become an associate professor.

I was very happy. Because becoming an associate professor from outside academia is as difficult as going to Mars. Especially since jury members do not look very positively upon such applications. Unless you have a file at least two, or even three times stronger than an ordinary academic teaching at a university, you have no chance.

Therefore, I congratulate Mr. Assoc. Prof. Buğra Gökçe once again for his efforts.

When I realized his experience and knowledge in the field of urban transformation during our brief meetings, I convinced him to teach at the university. While he was in the 1-2 week preparation process, the news of his detention arrived, so we postponed our project to the fall semester.

Because an academic who wants to turn even the small lecture fee he would receive into scholarships for students in need, a person whose clothes feel as if they were bought at a bargain-bin price, this dervish-like individual who deals with his associate professorship application instead of dealing with kickbacks, will begin his lectures in the fall semester.