Current & future university students are often referred to as Generation Z; they were born into the digital world and more than 90% of Turkish Gen Z is online.1 This generation is reported to have different characteristics from their predecessor generation, often referred to as Millennial, and their perspectives further changed during the pandemic.2
We educators now wonder: What does Gen Z expect from universities? What can we do to better prepare them for professions of tomorrow? How can we help them become globally competent individuals in the increasingly digital world?
The main theme of this year’s SU Internal Education Conference is What Will Be Our “New Normal”? − through which we aim to explore answers to these questions. This in turn will guide us in defining our new normal going forward. The Conference is organized around three subthemes:
1.   Future of Higher Education
2.   Embrace or Resist? Future of Digitalization
3.   Working with Generation Z Learners
and will host two keynote speakers, who are experts on the Turkish “transition age youth” and on inclusive education. As in last year, the keynote sessions are open to all higher education professionals, while other sessions are open only to SU members. The Conference will be hybrid; all sessions will take place in the SUNUM lobby area and will also be live streamed via Zoom. All SU educators and staff are invited to the Conference; We look forward to your presence and contribution to the Conference!
We will host two keynote speakers on campus, at the Conference venue. SU members are encouraged to come and meet the speakers in person. Both sessions will be live streamed online, which will be open to public.
We kindly ask non-Sabancı members who wish to join the Zoom session to register at the links provided below.
Dr. Ramin Yazdanpanah (bio)
Director, Full Circle Language Learning and Teaching
Title: "Leveraging our pluralistic identities towards building communities of learning:
models, examples, and a short guided exercise"
Dr. Yankı Yazgan (bio)
Child/Youth Psychiatrist
Title: "Next? Youth in Transition"
~on learning, working and social environment in a time of rapid change~
The registration is closed. Thank you!
Click HERE to see the detailed Program and Abstracts & Session Link
(Only for SU members; please use your SU account to access)
Sessions are tentatively organized as follows:
Day 1:
10:00-11:00 - Session 1: What Will Be Our “New Normal”?
11:30-12:30 - Keynote 1 Dr. Ramin Yazdanpanah
Lunch break
13:30-14:30 - Session 2: Future of Higher Education: Student Perspectives
15:00-16:30 - Session 3: Embrace or Resist? Future of digitalization
Day 2:
13:00-14:00 - Keynote 2: Dr. Yankı Yazgan
14:30-16:00 - Session 4: Working with Generation Z Learners
Abstract Submission
We have some slots available for contributed talks. If you would like to contribute, please read the information below and submit your abstract!
Each selected talk will be given ~15 min depending on the total number of selected talks. The conference talks will be organized into the three subthemes:
1.   Future of Higher Education
2.   Embrace or Resist? Future of Digitalization
3.   Working with Generation Z Learners
The abstract should be ~150 words. You are encouraged to submit the abstract at your earliest opportunity since the evaluation process starts immediately.
The Conference will be hybrid; all sessions will take place in the SUNUM lobby area and will also be live streamed via Zoom. Please join us in SUNUM for all sessions and coffee breaks! The Zoom session link will be provided in the Program & Abstract section above. |
Please send any inquiries to teachingconf@sabanciuniv.edu.
This conference is organized by Foundations Development Directorate.
Organizing Committee: Emre Erol, Marloes Cornelissen Aydemir, Matteo Paganin,
Ebru Şaylan, Arzu Kıran, Yuki Kaneko