A Brief History Of The METU Dorm

In a meeting he had about dormitories with a delegation from the State Planning Organization, Kemal Kurdaş, who served as the President of METU between 1961 and 1969, said: "It goes against the grain not to build dormitories on a modern university campus... Dormitories are one of the significant contributors to quality education ... The way I see it, it is an indispensable necessity for a university with a campus like METU to have a dormitory / bed capacity of at least 20-25% of its student body ..." With this in mind, METU, which was founded in 1956, started the construction of dormitories on campus to meet the accommodation needs of its students, and a total of 19 dormitories were built by 2014.

First, the construction of Type A Dormitories 1 and 2 began towards the end of 1962. Because the firm which undertook the construction of the dormitories went bankrupt, they could only be opened two years later, in 1965. Meanwhile, both male and female students had to stay in rented buildings in the city center. When Dormitories 1 and 2 opened in 1965, the male students were placed in these buildings. Initially, the students stayed in rooms for 12 people in both buildings, and after alterations to the buildings in 1973, the rooms were divided into smaller units, and 6 students began to stay in each room.

The construction of Type B Dormitories 3 and 4 started in 1966, and they were opened in 1968. Vehbi Koç had Dormitory 3 built and donated it to METU. Male students were placed in this dormitory and also in the rooms on the 1st and 2nd floors of Dormitory 4. Female students were accommodated in the rooms on the upper floors of the dormitory. Later, in 1970, Female-Student Dormitory 5 and Male-Student Dormitory 6 were completed and opened. The female students staying on the 1st and 2nd floors of Dormitory 4 were then transferred to Dormitory 5, and thus Dormitory 4 became an all-male Dormitory.

With the opening of Dormitory 7 in 1976, the female students residing in the rented buildings downtown were placed in this new dormitory.

Following the opening of Dormitory 7, Type A Dormitories 8 and 9 were opened in 1980 and 1989, respectively. (When Dormitory 8 began to serve as a Dormitory for male students, the students staying in Dormitory 6 were transferred there, and female students were placed in Dormitory 6 temporarily.) In 1994, three new dormitories and guest houses opened: METU Guest House for female students, F. Hızıroğlu Dormitory which was constructed under the sponsorship of the Faik Hızıroğlu Foundation and donated to METU, and EBİ Guest House 1, constructed under the sponsorship of EBİ, which is affiliated to the METU Development Foundation and donated to METU. In 1996, Osman Yazıcı Female-Student Guest House, which was under construction, was completed with the contribution of Anatolia Education and Social Aid Foundation. Three years later, in 1999, Sami Kırdar Guest House, which was constructed under the sponsorship of Kırdar Foundation and donated to METU, opened as the second block of METU Guest House for female students, together with the EBİ Guest House 2, constructed under the sponsorship of EBİ. Considering the more luxurious amenities in terms of both the quality furnishing and fittings, and the options of single, double, triple or quadruple rooms in these 'Guest Houses' built between 1994 and 1999, METU began to set higher fees for these dormitories in order to subsidize the lower fees charged for the other dormitories on campus.

Having sponsored the construction and furnishings of the 604-student İsa Demiray Dormitory, 628-student Faika Demiray Dormitory, and the 640-student Refika Aksoy Dormitory respectively, METU alumni Ömer Işık Demiray and Aydın Demiray brothers donated them to METU between 2001 and 2004. Thus, all the students who have made dormitory applications have been placed in the dormitories without waiting since 2000. Because the amenities offered to students in the dormitories donated by the METU alumni Demiray brothers have both raised the quality standards and increased the capacity of the dormitories, alterations have been made to the other dormitories on campus to improve their standards. Therefore, the capacity of the rooms in the Type A Dormitories 1, 8, and 9 has been lowered from 6 to 4, and the capacity of the rooms in Dormitory 2 has been reduced to 2. In order to further increase the quality standards, plans have been made to separate the bedrooms from the study rooms in Dormitories 2 and 9 with similar alterations in the coming years.

Dormitory 19 opened in 2014 with a total capacity of 694 students (311 female and 383 male).

Since 1995, 2 modern fully furnished kitchens have been built in all the older dormitories. Double rooms have been built for Research Assistants and graduate students in Dormitories 1, 2, 8 and 9. Apart from these, computer labs were opened in Dormitories 1, 2, 8 and 9, and İ. Demiray, F. Demiray and R. Aksoy Dormitories. Moreover, Internet connections were installed in all the student rooms in the dormitories.

Since 1965, it has been the mission of the METU Directorate of Dormitories to offer quality service and to make use of the modern and technological innovations in all the dormitories, as well as providing accommodation for the students in a manner worthy of METU. Thus, METU received Quality Management Systems Certification TSE-EN ISO 9001-2000 from the Turkish Standards Institution in 2005. Moreover, METU has always aimed at increasing its quality standards each year, and continues to work in order to achieve its goals to the extent that economic conditions allow. METU, which has achieved a position that can accommodate all its students who apply to stay in its dormitories, takes justified pride in this fulfillment and enjoys sharing this pride with all its students and their parents.

The names of the people who have served as Director of Dormitories since the first METU dormitories were opened and their terms of service are listed below:

Name and Term of Office

1- Hüseyin ULUSOY

2- Dr. Ziya TİNEL

3- Mithat ERDEM 1965 - 1969

4- Mehmet YILMAZ 1969 - 1972

5- Gültekin YELÇO 1972 - 1985

6- Gülçin ATAER 1985 - 1986

7- Rafiye KARAKAN 1986 - 1997

8- Feyzullah POLAT 1997 - 2007

9- Sibel ATAY ERDOĞAN 2010 -

10- Gülüzar Bozkurt 2021 - Present