 |
|
History of the Department
Since METU was founded in 1956, the Department of Mathematics started as
a small unit giving service courses to other departments, with a very limited
staff. In 1959, it became a separate department of the Faculty of Arts
and Sciences.
In the early sixties Middle East Technical University received a long-term grant from the Ford Foundation to support teaching and research programs in science and mathematics departments. The impact of this grant to the development of the Department was immense. Research activities increased significantly after the visits of some eminent researchers, and the impact of Cahit Arf and Masatoshi Gunduz Ikeda together with facilities offered by the University attracting Turkish mathematicians abroad to METU. During this period undergraduate and graduate curricula were revised and redeveloped. First undergraduate degrees were given in the academic year 1964-65. First MS and PhD degrees were given in 1964 and 1970, respectively. From 1971 on, the Department offered other programs in addition to pure mathematics. Later in 1976, the Operational Research and Statistics groups of the Department became independent as a new department was formed, Numerical Analysis program continued under the name Applied Mathematics and Numerical Analysis after 1978. In the beginning of eighties in spite of harder economic conditions resulting by decrease in the number of faculty, the Department maintained their activities in research and, in certain conditions, collaborated with mathematicians abroad. Some international meetings in Turkey and visitors' exchanges were realised, especially with the Functional Analysis groups in Dusseldorf and Wuppertal and the Applied Mathematics group in Darmstadt in pursuit of joint research interests. Throughout the history many international conferences have been organized in the Department and also elsewhere by members of the department. In 1987 the Numerical Analysis group organized an international meeting, Symposium on Numerical Analysis which was partially supported by International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). In 1988 the Functional Analysis group of the Department obtained a grant from the science division of NATO and organized and international Advanced Study Institute on Frechet Spaces. The Department also played an active role in the organisation of the Annual National Mathematics Symposiums. Also the Department has initiated a graduate summer school aimed to support graduate programs in mathematics of other Turkish universities. The idea of the graduate school was to gather graduate students and active mathematicians from different universities of Turkey, in a location, preferably in smaller universities of Anatolia. This program has proved to be useful and is continuing with some minor changes in structure. After 1990, the undergraduate curriculum has been revised in favor of
a more flexible system, by increasing the number of elective courses while
decreasing the number of compulsory ones. The aim of this change was to
create more options for the students to develop their capacities. After
a vigorous initiative of Turkish Scientific and Research Council (TUBITAK)
to support research in basic sciences and the willingness of the University
administration to hire foreign faculty there has been a substantial increase
in the international contacts of the Department. In 1992 the number of
foreign faculty increased to 9. During the same year 11 foreign mathematicians
visited the Department on a short-term basis. After the collapse of USSR,
several mathematicians from ex-Soviet Union countries were invited, on
a short-term basis to the Department using TUBITAK funds. In particular,
the Department initiated a program for cooperation between Moscow State
University, State University of Sofia, Rostov State University and METU,
in the fields of Functional Analysis and Complex Analysis, within the framework
of a TUBITAK grant. The Topology-Geometry group of the Department contributed
to the organisation of the on going Gokova Geometry-Topology Conferences
(1992, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 00, 01) which are supported by TUBITAK funds
and one of which was partially supported by a grant from International
Mathematical Union (IMU).
Algebraic Geometry and Algebra groups of the Department joined a three-year
PICMA (UNESCO) project, partially supported by ICTP, on Arakelov Theory
and organized its first meeting in Antalya under the name International
Workshop on Geometry and Arithmetic. The Algebra group also organized
a NATO Advanced Study Institute Finite and Locally Finite Groups
in 1994. In addition to these internationally funded organisations, TUBITAK
grants were effectively used in large scale international meetings like
Workshop on Non-linear Problems in Mathematical Physics I, II, III
(in 1994, 95, 96), International Workshop on Number Theory (1997),
Anatolian
Lectures in Dynamical Systems (1997), Positivity and its Applications
(1998),
Workshop on Recent Trends in Complex Methods for Partial Differential
Equations (1998) and the Edirne Workshops on Linear Topological
Spaces and Complex Analysis (1999), The Algebra group of the Department
contributed to the organisation of the on going
Antalya Cebir Gunleri
(1999, 2001) supported by TUBITAK. Moreover some faculty members have
also
took an active role in organising special research semesters at Feza
Gursey
Institute (FGI). Lately the
Department
has gone under an external review process and work is going on to
implement
the suggestions of the External Review Committee.
Chairmen of the Department |
Yaşar Gönenç (X)