Enthusiastic Ceremony in front of “the Portal of Knowledge”

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On the morning of 31 May 1996, the foundations of the Rumelifeneri Campus were laid. Three years later, in November 1999, on a cold fall day, government dignitaries, guests, faculty members, İstinye Campus graduates and all Koç University students who gathered in the Koç University Campus experienced the excitement. More than seven years had passed between the opening of the İstinye Campus and the start of operations at the Rumelifeneri Campus, and dreams had finally become reality.

President Prof. Dr. Seha Tiniç, who had also spoken at the opening ceremony of the İstinye Campus in 1993, restated the purpose of the establishment of Koç University: “creating a ‘center of excellence’ which contributes to science at the universal level and which trains individuals who have adopted Atatürk’s principles, who are equipped with up-to-date knowledge in their field, who have knowledge about the world, who can think freely and strategically, who are creative, self-confident, with developed leadership skills, who can compete anyplace in the world.”

Following the ceremonial speeches, among applauses ribbons tied across the Portal of Knowledge were cut, which Mozhan Khadem, the architect of the Rumelifeneri Campus had qualified as “the Threshold of the East and the West.”