Prof. John Freely began his speech by giving some examples of change occurred in the previous Robert College, the current Boğaziçi University: He pointed to the increased number of women at the University nowadays, adding that his chairman is a woman (in the department of physics), that his dean is woman etc..

He also talked about the major nationalities of students in the foundation years of RC, where most of the students were Bulgarians, Greeks and Armenians by adding that the first two Prime Minesters of Bulgaria graduated from RC.

In the foundation years [1960’s] there was a Bektashi tekke at Hisarüstü. Nafi Baba Tekke was built before Mehmed The Conqueror’s conquest of Istanbul. Therefore some graduates of RC have a relation with the bektashi order. For example; Süheyla Artemer’s husband. An other case is Nuri Eren, consul in US, who is also a descendant of the bektashi order.

I can also give the example of a Bektashi master, when his sons immigrated to the USA, they got American names, adding “Baba” as their surnames, such as John Baba, Michael Baba.

I was born in Brooklyn, NYC. My father was a tram driver, he lost his job and went back to Ireland. My grandfather was an Irish soldier, he went to Constantinople at the Crimean War, and two years before his death he wrote a book called “Victorial Journey around the World”.

I arrived in Istanbul in 1960, at that time RC was a part of American Missonary Board. This was a chain from the Middle East extending to China. But RC was not a conventional missonary school.

It had founders , such as Cyrus Hamlin, who was an idealist dedicating his life to the education of young men and women. These founders worked for a very mediocre salary like 200 USD.

Cyrus Hamlin was independent. Before RC, he gave seminars in Bebek to the Armenians & Greeks. His project was to enlighten Greeks, Armenians etc…

The main difference between RC and BU is, in RC, teachers and students were living together in campus, while in Boğaziçi University now, teachers are just coming to campus during their office hours and lectures.

In RC, there were some permanent non-academic staff like the barber, the carpenter etc, who were mostly from minorities. Haçik was the first barber in RC. When I came back to RC in 1993, he visited me, he was retired. Badroz was an Armenian too. Those were the most interesting communities in Istanbul at that time, and they were all living in Hisarüstü.

Fevzi Çakmak’s son Ahmet Çakmak was in RC too; he was retired five years ago. Hüseyin Pektaş was the 1st Turkish student in RC, he graduated around 1904-1906. He was a secratary in Lozan Treaty.

In 1958, RC became “Yüksek Okul”, and started to be accepted official by the State, as well.

A false assumption about BU is that only rich people go to BU; whereas, the truth is definitely not like this: I myself can give examles of a farmer and a butcher who educated their sons at BU.

Untill 1950’s no catholic was accepted to RC, hence this shows that American Board had severe problems with other missionary groups, unlike with muslims. They were not fithing with muslims, no competion with them.

Cyrus Hamlin was working hard just for the sake of enlightenment, therefore conversion was small; we do have a negligible number of conversion to christianity in RC.

I worked as physicist in Princeton, where there were no blacks, no jews, no women, this kind of prejudice were! Think about the multicultural, multiethnic society of RC.

I come from Long Island. In Long Island we have a saying “autoguida”, means self educated people. I am one of them. I define myself as an autodidact learner, who has worked on varying subjects and who gets high pleasure about it.

I have now become the oldest professor in Boğaziçi University as my colleague, Mr. Ercüment Atabay, retired 5 years ago.

When we speak about change to a state university in 1970s, the main reason was fiscal. WASP people have one main principle: “do not waist capital”. The last seven years of RC were very difficult. It was Nihat Erim’s time, I forgot the name of the minister of Education. I found the documents in NY.

While writing my book, I worked in the archives in NY. I can easily say that Hamlin was successful. Robert College survived the Balkan War, the 1st WW… It was like a miracle.