Run, Sevim, merit is coming to the academy!

The academic community is a strange place.

Universities, which are among the institutions where the principle of merit should be applied most sensitively, are for some reason resisting this.

In other words, they are holding out.

Master professors believe that university positions are rightfully theirs by family inheritance.

Of course, coming from an academic family is an important genetic transmission and a factor that provides benefits as a legacy.

However, this legacy transfer does not always yield positive results in the Turkish Academy.

Examples like the son of a former rector who does not possess a particularly brilliant intellect are not rare at all.

Are there no good ones?

Of course there are, and they are in the majority.

The candle has mostly shed light on its base.

The pear has fallen near the pear tree.

Prof. Dr. Ali Umut Türkcan, the son of the famous Mülkiye professor Prof. Dr. Ergun Tükcan—with whom I started at Anadolu University and who was my guest house and later housemate—is one of the rare academics who has successfully managed this legacy transfer.

It is easily understood that the content of his research and work comes not only from current examinations but from his deep-rooted origins.

The academic aura and substance he has created also contain the flavor of the pollen he distilled from around Professor Ergun.

But this situation does not always yield such results.

Due to the academic power of their families, offspring who grow up idle with the comfort of "I'll find a position at the university anyway" can set both themselves and the institution on fire, and can also destroy their family's reputation.

Religious communities (cemaats) are another problem.

They are obsessed with academic positions in order to usurp them from academic families, despite being incompetent.

They have wandered around cosmic rooms enough for this cause, and they have even stolen the questions for every exam.

Afterward, they flourished and progressed with fake research, recycled journals, and turnstile articles, only to eventually hit a wall and shatter into pieces.

They shouldn't cry in vain; I personally witnessed them stealing Rutgers University exam questions in 1995.

I studied at the Stevens Institute of Technology on my own merit and with a Stevens scholarship, not with stolen questions.

Of course, the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) must have seen what I know and have seen, as it is trying to take certain measures.

Just like 30 years ago.

If academic promotion began to be carried out 30 years ago in light of qualitative data in international scientific journals, now, while being more current, academic promotions will be carried out in light of similar data.

Academics who took the academic promotion data that changed 30 years ago seriously and built their research teams in light of qualitative data both became very successful and quickly became professors.

Those who could not break the pentagon of spouse, friend, relative, community, and politics both failed, rotted themselves, and damaged the reputation of their institutions.

Those who made merit their motto became known and recognized in the international arena as well.

They became fourth-generation academics.

YÖK is now working on merit again.

In academic promotion, it is highlighting scientific production, patents, projects, social contribution, competition, and entrepreneurship.

It is also seriously focusing on the issue of "fake" publications produced for money that do not receive citations, which is the primary cancer cell of academic decay in recent times.

In today's world, where university rankings have gained importance in international student preferences, YÖK must implement these updates.

It could start with the reinstatement of the oral jury in the associate professorship exam within a current framework.