TECH ANNOUNCE

Description:

TEXAS TECH TO OFFER TURKISH LANGUAGE CLASS

LUBBOCK--Texas Tech will offer its first
ever Turkish language course during the upcoming
fall semester.

The course is sponsored by the Fulbright Commission
and will be part of their Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship program. Texas Tech's Fulbright
instructor for Turkish language and culture is
Sultan Turkan, a graduate of Bosphoros University
in Istanbul, Turkey. In addition to the language
course, she will also be teaching a class on Turkish culture.

An informational meeting about the course is
scheduled for Tuesday (Aug. 26) at 3 p.m. in the
Qualia Room in the basement of Texas Tech's Foreign Languages Building.

The course on Turkish culture will utilize Texas
Tech's Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative, which is available online at http://aton.ttu.edu and which
inspired this initiative. The archive, which has
received more than 300,000 visitors since it went
online earlier this year, is a repository of
narratives, anecdotes and folk tales, many
collected from villages and rural areas of Turkey.
Some of the narratives were published as far back
as the early 19th century, and some of them are
so rare that they cannot be found anywhere else.

The Fulbright Commission has sent nine Turkish
students to American universities, including
Texas Tech, to teach the Turkish language this
fall and spring. The Department of Classical and
Modern Languages and Literatures is committed
to the establishment of an ongoing Turkish
program.

Texas Tech University enjoys multiple connections
to Turkey. Through official exchange agreements, a
number of TTU professors have taught at METU (Middle
East Technical University) in Ankara. 32 people
from Karadeniz University in Trabzon on the Black
Sea participated in a faculty development program
at Tech, during which they finished their graduate
degrees. Cordial relationships have been maintained
with a number of these Tech graduates who are
currently on the Karadeniz faculty. Turkey is
among the top 10 countries sending students to
Tech for many years.


Outside of the university in the 1980's there was
a group called the West Texas-Turkish Organization.
Now there is an official and very active Texas Tech
Turkish Club and this group turned out recently
to meet and greet Sultan Turkan. According to Osman Taviloglu, President of the Club, more Turkish
speakers were gathered under one roof on that occasion
than ever before. The active support of this group resulted in the call for the meeting set for
Tuesday, Aug. 26, at which non-Turkish speaking
friends will accompany club members to hear
about the details of the language and culture
courses offered this fall.

A crowning honor for the entire Lubbock community
was the six year presence of Gürer
Aykal as the outstanding Musical Director/Conductor
of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Aykal
is officially designated a "National Treasure" of
Turkey and his positive impact on our area was
immense.

Jacque Behrens, Director of International
Recruitment at the International
Cultural Center, has plans to apply for a
Fulbright-Hayes Faculty Study Grant to
Turkey in the near future. The Department of
Education encourages faculty through this
program to visit diverse parts of a country
and then incorporate information gained into their curriculum development. Tech faculty interested in
this opportunity are encouraged to meet Sultan
Turkan and learn of the details
of the new Texas Tech Turkish Program.


CONTACT: Sultan Turkan, Fulbright instructor