President Erdoğan directly appoints rector for first time to Istanbul's Boğaziçi University

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Nov. 12 appointed a rector to Istanbul's prestigious Boğaziçi University, marking the first such move after he was given the authority to directly appoint rectors following the latest state of emergency decree.

The presidency said in a statement that Professor Mehmed Özkan was appointed as Boğaziçi University's new rector.  Özkan, who is a lecturer at the university's biomedical engineering department, was not among the candidates for rectorship elections in July. The authority to directly appoint rectors without having to consider the preferences of academics was given to the president after the imposition of a state of emergency decree on Oct. 29.  In a press announcement on Nov. 1, some 350 academics at the university denounced the changes, recalling that the university chose its rector on July 12, reelecting the popular current rector Gülay Barbarosoğlu, who won 86 percent of the vote on a turnout of 90 percent.  The regulation brings an end to the practice introduced in 1992, which states that rector candidates are elected by the academics at the universities in question before being presented to the president, who can either accept the recommendation or choose another scholar as rector. It was also a part of an omnibus bill that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) sought to pass after the attempted July 15 coup, widely believed to have been masterminded by followers of the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, but was retracted after the opposition parties fought against it. According to the new regulation, the president will choose from three rector candidates determined by Turkey's Higher Education Board (YÖK) for state universities. However, the president will be able to appoint a rector directly...