METU graduate appointed rector to 251-year-old ITU
TÜBİTAK President Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal has become the new rector of ITU. The fact that Mandal is not an ITU graduate has been met with backlash from alumni.
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Rector applications opened by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) for ITU and 15 other universities concluded on the night of August 15, and the decision was published in the Official Gazette.
Accordingly, TÜBİTAK President Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal has become the new rector of ITU.
Born in Eskişehir in 1965, Hasan Mandal graduated from the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at METU in 1987.
Mandal, who served as Vice Rector of Sabancı University between 2011 and 2015, was appointed President of TÜBİTAK in 2018.
Following the decision, ITU alumni reacted to the appointment, stating that a 'METU graduate should not be appointed as rector to ITU.'
Many citizens on social media drew attention to the ITU-METU rivalry, commenting that the appointment was inappropriate.