METU Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department reached its 50th anniversary. Without any doubt this is an important anniversary for Turkey. To understand why this is important, it is worthwhile to remember that the number of Electrical engineers registered to Turkish Chamber of Electrical Engineers was just 921 in 1958 when METU was established. Today, in 2008 this number has reached 39 515. In the past 50 years METU EE department graduated 6575 students with BS degree, 2049 with MS degree and in the same period 162 students received PhD degree. These numbers are important, however one must keep in mind that these degrees are received by brightest brains of Turkey. Nowadays the number of universities in Turkey is in excess of 150. Certainly METU’s performance would make its founders proud and it is a fact that METU is one of the best universities in Turkey and it is one of the the first hundred establishments remembered in in the world, when educational matters are discussed.

What made the METU experiment so successful, what is the reason behind for not repeating the same success in other universities established in the same years? Certainly this matter deserves attention. Let us hope that the reasons for METU’s success is analyzed soon and useful lessons are learned.

I stepped into METU campus in 1996, and witnessed its growth in 42 years of its 50 year journey, first as a student and later as a staff member. Preparation of this book required plenty of effort, I put in this effort with feelings of gratitude for the happy years here and not with feelings of another duty to be completed. Certainly, Prof. Dr. Özay Oral must be remembered at this point, who lead the effort to prepare the first prospectus of the department in 1983. The second prospectus was printed in 1988 on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of EE department. I contributed to oth books. This third one required a greater effort than the other two. We are in the age of internet and some of the staff members think it is enough to have information on the internet. However, can internet based information replace a book waiting for attention on a library shelf, with its lovely scent? I am rather old fashioned on this matter.

The preparations for this kind of book, first necessitates gathering of information from staff members. Before the information is gathered we often witnessed reaching the end of a year. So everything starts once again form the beginning. How can we forget those who departed meanwhile? To gather this information it is necessary to head for dusty archives. Once the information is gathered the format of the articles must be arranged, the contents must be reviewed to comply with the set regulation. In addition to complete the content photographs are needed. The cover page and other material needs to be prepared, of course opinions are needed to evaluate the material as a consequence lots of effort is needed.

Because this is the 50th anniversary of the department, we felt that articles are needed to describe the early days from early staff members as well as photographs. Fortunately we managed to reach some photographs. Retired staff members; Prof. Rumeli, Ergül, Yüksel and one of our graduates Arıak contributed with articles. I thank them for all of us for their contributions.

In this endeavor to prepare the 50th anniversary book, some friends encouraged us to complete the book and also helped in every step of the work. In this respect Dr. Candan, Dr.Bozdağı Akar,
Dr. Diker Yücel and Dr. Akan must be acknowledged. Acknowlegments also go to Dr. Colyer, Dr. Hızal and Dr. Ergül for providing photographs from their archieve.

Finally to have the material printed finance is needed. Thanks go to our graduates who generously contributed for realizing this book. You can find the contributers in the advertisement pages at the end of the book. Thanks also go to Assistant Chair of EE department Dr. Demir for his support at this stage of the process.

There is no need for further words, we hope that you shuffle the pages with pleasure and find a piece of yourself in it.. Hoping for many more 50 years.

H. Bülent Ertan

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