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faces such a problem. Other faculties and
vocational schools should be troubled by
the shortage of academic personnel as well.
Lack of academic personnel is the most sig-
nificant problem followed by infrastructure
problems. Maritime education is an expen-
sive one. You need to have laboratories. We
are good at providing such equipment; how-
ever some of them need to be replaced. I feel
that recently established faculties/vocational
schools might be encountering infrastructure
problems.
SeaNews: How do I evaluate the prog-
ress?
Prof. Nil Güler:
I see a numerical
increase. We have to preserve the quality.
Our faculty tries to open to international
platforms to achieve it.
SeaNews: Do you have any regional
collaboration with the Black Sea and
Mediterranean Countries?
Prof. Nil Güler:
We are doing every-
thing to ensure regional collaborations. We
have ongoing relations with Mediterranean
countries and Egypt. We have some mutual
agreements with Egypt; however these have
been frozen at the moment. In Greece there
is no maritime faculty; but a kind of mari-
time management school. There are some
workshops being held with the Italians. Our
staff is participating in those workshops. To
the Middle East countries, we provide train-
ing though SEM (Continuous Education
Center).
We have a lot of collaboration with the
Black Sea region. We are a founding mem-
ber to the BSAMI (Black Sea Association
of Maritime Institutions). We founded this
association in 2010 and invited the Black
Sea countries. In 2010, we signed an agree-
ment with Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy
in Varna, Constanza Maritime Academy,
Odessa National Maritime Academy,
Admiral Ushakov Maritime State Academy
of Russia and Batumi Maritime Academy.
Our relations are good; yet we also want
to collaborate with the Organization of the
Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC);
we want to be a sectoral dialog partner of
the BSEC .We have made presentations to
receive their approval and if we are accept-
ed, we will have a status that will be more
smoothly recognized.
SeaNews: Could you please brief us
about the academic and cultural studies
on maritime topics conducted by your
institution?
Prof. Nil Güler:
We regularly organize
seminars. We announce the critical topics to
other faculties and institutions. There will
be, for example, a seminar with a highly
significant topic in the forthcoming weeks.
That seminar will be about Antarctica. We
have some colleagues who have been study-
ing on the glaciers. We consider that we have
a responsibility for the establishment of a
station in Antarctica as well.
Every year, we organize national maritime
conferences with GEMİMO (The Chamber
of Marine Engineers). This year we will
have a conference on November 11th. We
have lately organized a large-scale, interna-
tional conference.
SeaNews: Do you participate in the ac-
tivities of IAMU (International Associa-
tion of Maritime Universities)?
Prof. Nil Güler:
IAMU was founded 10
years ago. We were the founding member.
Therefore we were in the executive com-
mittee for a long time. In compliance with
the regulations, we had to have a break for
2 years. This year IAMU nominated us as a
candidate for the executive committee. We
participate in all studies, attend the confer-
ences and make presentations. We propose
projects.
Interview-Prof. Dr. Nil Güler
28
June 2013