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[rema]

This post is to confirm many of the negative opinions stated about Yasar University in Izmir. Two years ago my husband and I joined the faculty of Yasar, my husband as an assistant professor in the Faculty of Engineering and I in the then School of Foreign Languages. As a Jordanian raised in the UK I was subjected to some of the worst racial and religious slurs that I have ever had to endure, not only from my students but also from my co-workers. As a practicing Muslim I asked if there was a room where I might pray and from that moment on my life was made a living hell. After 2 months of daily abuse and back biting I decided to call it quits. Yasar hounded me for breach of contract and even went so far as to threaten my husband. At the end of the first semester my husband also left, his dissatisfaction was due to the low standards of his students and fellow professors few of whom could speak English despite claiming to have obtained postgraduate degrees from the USA and the UK. I had a Polish friend who was an Erasmus student at Yasar who returned home after two months because she claimed that all the lectures were in Turkish despite having been assured that the language of instruction was English. The comments about the bad behavior of the students and lack of facilities or back up from the administration all ring true, it was certainly the case when I was their victim.

One point that I must take issue with is the view that Izmir is an unfriendly city, outside of Yasar I made good Turkish friends and I thought the city quite pretty and the restaurants and night life good but yes very expensive. It is a shame that an institution like Yasar is allowed to continue, it is a stain on the Turkish academic system and no credit to Turkey.

I honestly hope that these posts will warn others from what is a truly hateful place. After we had left Izmir we discovered that the Rector of Yasar was the same man who had been Dean of Arts at Eastern Mediterranean University Northern Cyprus when all the negative posts about that University appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Had we known this before we would never have joined Yasar.

On a positive note for all those still trapped there is life after Yasar and it can only be better.