Istanbul Gelisim University Faculty of Fine Arts “What Have We Achieved in 2021?”

•  As the IGU Family, we were excited to start face-to-face training with you again after a long break in 2021, when great changes and new education models emerged. Our campus, faculty, classrooms, offices have regained their old lively days.

• 428 new undergraduate students joined us. With our students joining us in the new year, the number of our students as the Faculty of Fine Arts increased to 1684.

• 87% of our students who were placed in the departments of our faculty in 2021 joined us as scholarship students. Of these, 28% are students with full scholarship, 58% with 50% scholarship, and 14% with 25% scholarship. In addition, we had many students who benefited from different scholarship opportunities such as success scholarship, sibling scholarship, board of trustees scholarship.

• In order to create equal opportunities in education for prospective students who dream of university; The Come To Gelişim Scholarship, which is defined as a “special scholarship” for students by evaluating the talents, personal achievements and areas of development of the students, was put into practice this year.

• As every year, many students from different universities and departments chose to study at IGU Faculty of Fine Arts and transferred to our university this year. Last year, a total of 127 undergraduate transfer students and 74 vertical transfer students were placed in the departments of our faculty.

• By encouraging our students to specialize in different fields, we enabled 22 students to enroll in double major programs in 2021. In total, the number of students enrolled in double major programs increased to 101. 

• In 2021, we continued to work towards our internationalization goals. We had a total of 75 guest students from 17 different countries.

Attaching great importance to internationalization in education, Istanbul Gelişim University offers education opportunities to its students and graduates with international accreditation and protocols signed with foreign universities. It was examined in detail by international expert committees assigned by organizations such as AQAS, AHPGS, PEARSON, ABET and many departments were found suitable for accreditation. As IGU Faculty of Fine Arts, a total of 6 departments, namely "Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, Graphic Design, Interior Architecture, Interior Architecture and Environmental Design, Communication and Design, Radio, Television and Cinema" were accredited by AQAS.

• Together with the English-Interior Architecture and Environmental Design Department opened this year, we continued our work as 8 departments in our faculty.

• By further strengthening our academic staff with highly valued scientists who are experts in their fields, we increased the total number of permanent faculty members in our faculty to 41.

• As the Faculty of Fine Arts, within our university, which has made it a mission to consider education, research and community service activities as its main duty, we have accomplished successful projects in accordance with the principles of the accreditations we have:

In "Film Workshops" (FA), which is one of our proudest projects and which has grown with your valuable contributions, we tried to touch the lives of very talented young people in cooperation with important institutions and organizations in various cities of Turkey and invite them to the magic of cinema:

• Nusaybin Film Workshop (12-13-14 November, in cooperation with Nusaybin District Governorship (Mardin))
• Karahantepe Film Workshop (10-11-12 December, in cooperation with Şanlıurfa Metropolitan Municipality)
• Payas Film Workshop (7-8-9 January, in cooperation with Payas Municipality (Hatay))

Within the scope of Film Workshops, by providing 3-day theoretical and practical training to 25 high school students in each project; We shot films, organized galas and presented certificates to students. Beypazarı Film Workshop (Ankara) and Hozat Film Workshop (Tunceli) work continues. You can follow the entire Film Workshops (FA) on the project's Youtube and Instagram accounts.

• Apart from this, we continued to organize various events, interviews, exhibitions and workshops within the scope of 8 departments.

• We have accomplished 13 different social responsibility projects on various themes such as technology addiction, protecting stray animals, healthy eating, Covid-19 awareness, and promoting Istanbul.

This year, we continued our scientific research projects without slowing down:

• The project proposal titled “IPSUS - Climate Smart Food Innovation Using Plant and Seaweed Proteins From Upcycled Sources - Using Plant and Seaweed Proteins From Recycled Sources” project proposal of which GSF Deputy Dean Asst. Prof. Murat Doğan is the advisor EU Framework Program Scientific Research Projects SUSFOOD2- Eligible for support under FOSC 2021.

• The TÜBİTAK-Teydep Project titled "Microbial Whey Rennin Production Used in Industrial Cheese Production", whose Asst.Prof. Murat Doğan is in the project team, has been completed.

• The TÜBİTAK 1001 Research Project titled 117K317, "Decisive Factors and Possible Scenarios in the Restructuring of Historical City Centers: The Case of Istanbul Beyoğlu", in which Research Assistant Gökçe Uzgören was a PhD scholar, was completed and exhibited online on the Arafta Bir Beyoğlu website.

In line with the mission of implementing a student-centered education approach and in cooperation with our stakeholders, we organized national and international festivals and gained new stakeholders.

• We started to work on the TAYF International Short Film Festival. In the festival, where 3227 applications were made from all over the world, we included valuable names from the field of cinema to our festival as advisory board members and jury members. You can find detailed information about the festival on the TAYF Web Site.

• We held the Design Fest '21'. While 2500 participants registered for the festival, where we held 18 events online (Zoom), we reached 2300 viewers through live broadcasts on Youtube and met with approximately 5000 active viewers.

Our instructors and students returned from prestigious competitions in their professional fields with very important awards and achieved important successes.

• Melek Çetinkaya, Tuğçe Çeşmeci and Sema Arslan, students of the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema, won the first place in the TRT competition with their podcast “Portrait of a Woman”.
• Yusuf Uz, a 3rd year student at the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema, was selected 6th out of 85 films in the Ordap Association's "goodness"-themed short film competition with his short film "Vesile" and received the honorable mention.
• The second year students of the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema won the first prize in the Short Horror Film Competition organized by the Turkish American Association (TAA) with their "Dış Kapı".
• Research Assistant Eda Çekemci won the first prize at the 22nd International Izmir Short Film Festival with her short film project that she produced.
• Asst. Prof. Önder Paker and Asst. Prof. Radife Akyıldız Ongar, took part as a jury member at the 21st Frankfurt Turkish Film Festival.
• Instructor Kerem Yükseloğlu's short film "One Direction", directed by R. Hakan Arslan, received support from the Ministry of Culture.
• Produced and directed by Asst. Prof. Kemal Çipe, his mid-length film “Azer” was featured in Lift Off Global Network's 2021 selection after its success at the International Meihodo Visual Media Festival and Asian Cinematography Awards.

I congratulate each of them again and thank them for the values they have brought to our faculty.

• In 2021, we continued our winter school training for high schools, organized with the theme of "A Touch of Design and Art" and to which Asst. Prof. Nuri Sezer, Asst. Prof. Melis Boyacı, Asst. Prof. Radife Ongar and Instructor İrem Fulya Özkan contributed as educators. A total of 560 students registered for our 4-day training.

• We organized two illustration contests with the theme of “Digitalism”. We presented their awards to the winners in the high school and associate/undergraduate categories.

• With the Covid-19 Pandemic we have been experiencing since March 2020, we have experienced an important digital transformation process in the field of education. We would like you all to follow innovative courses such as "Content Production on Digital Platforms, Entrepreneurship Practices, Forward Notification, Digital Technologies, Drone Shooting Techniques, Digital Game Design, Future Environment, Smart Buildings" that we have added to our department curricula by giving importance to interdisciplinary studies and adaptation to the transformations of the era.

• We published the GSF Orientation Handbook and the GSF Student Handbook. GSF Student Handbook

• We continued our GSF e-bulletin works by including our students, and completed our promotional film shoots. GSF Promotional Films

• We strengthened our connections with our current and prospective students by activating our social media accounts. You can reach all of the activities we hold in our faculty via İGÜ GSF Youtube, İGÜ GSF Instagram, IGU GSF Twitter accounts.

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to our academics and students who have helped us achieve these successes by working with great determination even under the conditions of the pandemic.

In the academic year 2021-2022, where we have tried to reduce the effects of the ongoing pandemic since March 2020 to a bit and we met face to face, albeit limited, we have achieved significant successes with a joint effort. With the energy of our precious and enthusiastic students and the productivity of our teaching staff, we are filled with hope again with the success we have added to our faculty despite all the negativities caused by the pandemic. You can reach the news about the awards and achievements we achieved in 2021, our valuable professors who joined us, the students and teachers who carried out the very important projects I mentioned above and contributed to the success of the last year, and the news produced on the GSF Website.
 
I sincerely hope that 2022 will be a year in which our productivity increases exponentially, we continue our research and community service activities and the pleasant projects we carry out together without slowing down, and all our dreams come true.