The Harvard Club of Turkey

A Snapshot of Harvard Extension School Abroad

by Christopher S. Queen, Dean of Students and Alumni Relations

Tolga Tugular, Dean Raymond Comeau, and Zeynep Bodur

On a balmy summer evening in 1991, ten Harvard alumni and alumnae gathered on a terrace overlooking the minarets and highrise apartments of downtown Istanbul. "They were filled with all the hope you would expect of the founders of a promising new organization," recalls Raymond Comeau, Assistant Dean of Continuing Education and Director of the CSS Program, an invited guest. The founders were Turkish business managers and professionals, recent graduates of Harvard graduate schools, including the Business and Law Schools. But the guiding spirit of the meeting was Zeynep Bodur, a 1991 graduate of the Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management (CSS) Program at the Harvard Extension School, and her CSS friends Tolga and Melis Tugular, Ayse Cerid, and Ömer Tangün.

The founding of the Harvard Club of Turkey at the initiative of CSS alumni(ae) must be added to the long list of Harvard Extension School "firsts." Dean Michael Shinagel put this achievement in perspective in his remarks to the Harvard Extension Alumni Association (HEAA) in 2002: "In recent years the number of international students in CSS courses has increased steadily, growing from 25 percent in 1995–96 to 35 percent in 2000–01. Since international students come to complete the CSS in one academic year, they take eight courses, which is more than their American counterparts. This accounts for a larger percentage of CSS enrollments: a 42 percent increase in 1995–96 rose to 54 percent in 2000–01. Likewise, the number of international CSS candidates and graduates has grown dramatically, reaching 70 percent in recent years. Indeed, from 1995 to 2001 the CSS Program produced graduates from 74 foreign countries. The leading countries producing CSS graduates were Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, and Spain."

The rise of international students in the CSS Program and the unexpected presence of Turkey--a country with a unique language and culture--on a list of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, cannot fully explain the remarkable meeting of vision, leadership, and bonhomie on the terrace of the Kale Group Building on an Istanbul evening in July 1991. To understand this moment in history, it is necessary to know the people involved and understand their motives, expectations, and beliefs.

In her personal statement for the CSS Program application in June 1990, Zeynep Bodur tells her story--one that resonates with the stories of many of her international counterparts in the CSS Program today. "I graduated as an industrial engineer from Istanbul Technical University, finishing my studies in July 1989. I'm the only child of a family that owns and runs a construction materials conglomerate in Turkey, the Kale Group Companies. The main theme of my life (on which my father has had a great impact) has been, and still is, to be a successful manager. After completing my undergraduate studies and working as an assistant manager in the family business, I decided to come to the US to attend the CSS Program. I strongly believe that this program will broaden my viewpoint in relation to international trade. Harvard Extension School, as a branch of Harvard University, the most well-known and established university of management science in the world, will contribute to shaping my future career and personal life."

The second person involved in the founding of the Harvard Club of Turkey is Dean Raymond Comeau. Following the Certificate Awarding Ceremony at the Harvard Commencement in 1991, Zeynep Bodur introduced members of her family to Dean Comeau. Her parents invited Comeau and his wife, Jean, to visit them in Turkey that summer. The Comeaus gratefully accepted this invitation and began a crash course in Turkish language, history, and culture. "We were terribly excited at the prospect of visiting Istanbul, the modern successor to ancient Byzantium and medieval Constantinople, that lies at the geographic crossroads of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, as well as the religious crossroads of western Christianity and the world of Islam." Yet central to the Comeau's first trip to Turkey would not be the discovery of wonders of the world like the Blue Mosque and the former Orthodox basilica, Hagia Sophia, but the founding of a new Harvard Alumni Association chapter in a country with many Harvard graduates, but no Harvard Club. (Brazil, Mexico, Spain, and most of the other countries with significant Harvard Extension School alumni(ae) presence have longstanding Clubs.)

"The founding of the Harvard Club of Turkey was really quite spontaneous, an afterthought as we planned our visit," Dean Comeau recalls. "We wondered out loud if there were a Harvard alumni(ae) organization in Turkey, and Bodur and some of our other CSS graduates said ‘No, why don't we start one?'" Soon a group of Harvard graduates assembled--Zeynep Bodur, Erol Aksoy, Mustafa Aysan, Ayse Cerid, Ahmet Kocabyk, Hüsnü Özyegin, Esin Taboglu, Ömer Tangün, and Tolga and Melis Tuglular, among others--meeting on the lovely terrace atop the Kale Group Building, courtesy of the Bodur family. Mustafa Aysan, a graduate of the Harvard Business School, volunteered to become the Club's first president, and Bodur was named the first general secretary.

Today, a dozen years after this historic evening, the Harvard Club of Turkey has 100 active members. Once again, Harvard Extension School graduates make up the core of the organization, comprising approximately 50 percent of the members. The balance of the membership are alumni(ae) from the Harvard Business School, the Harvard Law School, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Kennedy School of Government, and several MIT graduates, who are welcome as honorary members. Current officers include Cüneyt Yüksel, LLM '94, President, and Senol Sonek, CSS '96, General Secretary. The group meets monthly at the Marmara Hotel and in members' homes in Istanbul to socialize and to hear distinguished speakers from public and academic life. Recent guests have included Ismail Cem, the former Turkish Foreign Minister, speaking on Iraq, Cyprus, and the European Union; Sabih Tansal, President of Bogazici University, speaking on advances in higher education; and David Arnett, the US Consul General for Turkey, on the war in Iraq.

Today's CSS alumni(ae) continue to come from countries throughout the world, with Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Greece, Canada, France, and the Philippines heading the list. Yet the spirited Harvard graduates of Turkey must surely top the list in their devotion to their alma mater.