Land-Grant Education in Turkey: Atatürk University and American Technical Assistance, 1954–68

Abstract

During his 1954 visit to the United States, Turkish president Celal Bayar asked for American assistance in building an agricultural university in eastern Anatolia that would function like an American land-grant college.¹ These institutions emphasize instruction and research in agriculture, engineering, and other fields related to rural and industrial development. Moreover, land-grant universities stress that higher education should meet the pragmatic needs of the people. They therefore engage in extension work, that is, the dissemination of information about scientific farming, nutrition, and public health to families far removed from the centers of higher learning.² Bayar understood the significant role that land-grant universities had played in American rural development since the late nineteenth century and wanted to bring the concept to Turkey. By 1954 the United States government was already involved in Turkish development through the Marshall Plan for European Recovery. It had also recently initiated a technical assistance program, popularly known as the Point Four program, which recruited experts, often from land-grant universities, to assist with rural improvement projects in developing nations.³