Adnan Çapa Provides Insight into Our University’s 25-Year Archive

Adnan Çapa Provides Insight into Our University’s 25-Year Archive

Adnan Çapa, who encounters countless documents, papers, and files in his role and, together with his team, transforms them into valuable archives, has done this with great skill and love for his own memories over the years. Throughout his 25-year work, he has managed to keep each one alive. Enjoy our delightful conversation with Adnan Çapa.

Can you briefly introduce yourself? How long have you been at Sabancı University? Could you tell us about your work?

I was born in Istanbul in 1971. I graduated from the Department of Librarianship at Istanbul University's Faculty of Letters in 1997. I completed my master's degree in the Department of Documentation and Information at the same university between 1997 and 2000. During my graduate studies, I served as the Archive Project Manager on the Institutional Archive project at Beko Elektronik A.Ş. My thesis, "Creation of Document Circulation Schemes Based on Business Processes for the Control and Organization of Document Production in Institutions and Organizations and an Application," focused on an application I developed to improve archiving processes as part of my role in the project.

I joined the Sabancı University family in 2000. I held various positions at the Information Center, managing publications and organizing information resources. Since 2017, I have been serving as the University Archives and Document Management Manager. I will complete my 25th year in September 2025.

Before discussing our work, I would like to briefly address the question, "What is an archive?" An archive is a cultural memory institution that collects, organizes, and preserves the traces left by a country, institution, or individual throughout their lives. In other words, it serves as a bridge in transmitting their institutional memory to future generations. In this respect, the archive is a book of experiences that includes not only what you want to see or hear, but also what you don't want to hear or see, events that not only bring you joy but also pain. The archive accepts with great tolerance all experiences of human and natural life, encompassing both success stories and failures, bittersweet, joyful, and saddening. It preserves the tools of future construction and leaves them to the researchers to uncover.

The University Archives and Document Management is a department affiliated with the Information Center. It is responsible for managing the University History Archive and Institutional Archive and Document Management processes. The University History Archive conducts the activities of identifying, transferring, organizing, digitizing, preserving, and making available all elements of the university's institutional memory, interacting with the institution's identity, and all information resources in all media related to Sabancı University's founding, structure, and operation. All written, audiovisual, and other materials, both physical and electronic, generated by our academic and administrative units related to the university's institutional memory and related activities are considered within the responsibility of The University History Archive as archival information sources.

Another process of ours is Institutional Archive and Document Management. This process involves managing the archival processes and procedures for the retention of all documents of administrative, financial, legal, and historical importance arising from the institution's business processes, including those protected by legislation, generated in physical and electronic formats. These documents are protected throughout their storage periods, and they are sorted and destroyed at the end of their storage periods. The University Archives and Document Management Department is also responsible for managing the activities related to the Electronic Document Management System and Correspondence Management, where the production and circulation activities—the first two stages of a document's life cycle—are carried out electronically, in accordance with legal, standard regulations, and professional responsibility. 

In summary, as a cultural memory institution, the University Historical Archives conduct work to collect, record, digitize, access, and preserve Sabancı University's institutional memory; while the institutional archives conduct activities aimed at the review, organization, access, and preservation of documents of archival value in accordance with current legislation and professional principles and standards. 

How would you describe the uniqueness of working at Sabancı University as an employee?

Being responsible for the archives that preserve the historical and cultural memory of Sabancı University, one of the most prestigious and leading universities in Turkey and the world, is both a great responsibility and a task I'm honored to assume. Collecting, organizing, and making available our university's historical information resources to researchers, especially SU members, bring me immense joy as an employee.

An employee who is happy in their work and satisfied with their contributions can utilize many of their core values ​​to achieve their desired goals. I must say that core values ​​such as a strong sense of belonging, dedication, love of their work, continuous learning, and openness to change are the driving forces behind my work. Indeed, our university's mission of "creating and developing together" develops my core values, enriches my world of thought, and makes me feel part of a universal, evolving and changing world in a constantly learning environment. This is an invaluable feeling!

In this context, the most significant difference of working at our university is that we carry out our work with an altruistic approach, striving to be different and unique; in other words, we gain the awareness of leadership in our work, regardless of our title or role.     
  

During your time at Sabancı University, is there any interesting memory or detail you would like to share about our university?

I'll be celebrating my 25th anniversary this September. Naturally, during these long years, I experienced many precious memories. I'd like to mention a few.

First Memory: The Aging of a University

In May 2003, the university held a Spring Festival. I attended this event as a new employee. Towards the end of the event, I was watching a musical performance with students in front of the University Center Building. At that moment, Sakıp Sabancı, Honorary Chair of our University's Board of Trustees, and Güler Sabancı, our Founding Chair of the Board of Trustees, approached us with quick steps, cheerfully said, "Why are you sitting there, guys? We're all having fun together," then took me and my wife to dance. As an administrative employee who had integrated himself among the students and as an expectant father, I suddenly found myself dancing on the dance floor. At that moment, when I caught the glimpse of Sabancı University's Founding Secretary General, Hüsnü Bey, who was watching us from afar, I saw a smile on his face, as if to say, "Enjoy this short student life."

Years later, I would learn that this beautiful memory was not yet over, through a news from the Secretary General's Office. Hüsnü Paçacıoğlu, Vice Chair of the Sabancı Foundation Board of Trustees, was visiting the campus, and we had been asked to give him a presentation on the University History Archive. Our Information Center Director, Deniz Baltacı, and I completed our presentation preparations and waited in the meeting hall.

The Secretary General at the time, Haluk Bal, greeted Hüsnü Bey at the entrance and introduced him by saying, "Adnan, our colleague in charge of our archives." Hüsnü Bey glanced at me briefly, then turned his gaze, lingering on my hair, to Haluk Bey, and gave an unforgettable response that both surprised and amused us all: "I know him, but Haluk Bey, the University has aged."

This short but concise sentence was deeply meaningful to me. The phrase "aging," which defines institutional affiliation through your identity, contained a valuable compliment that deeply conveyed your sense of belonging to the Sabancı University family. That evening, as I stood in front of the mirror, I realized how many gray hairs I had; time had silently left its mark.

Second Memory: A Precious Note

The Sabancı University family was deeply saddened by the loss of our Founding President, Tosun Terzioğlu, in February 2016. A memorial service for Tosun Terzioğlu was held at the Sabancı University Performing Arts Center on February 25, 2016. In her speech at the ceremony, Güler Sabancı, Chair of the Board of Trustees, touched upon her first meeting with Tosun Terzioğlu during the university's founding years, discussing her invitation to a design meeting at the Sabancı Center and their meeting. Two days after the meeting, she received a one-page note from Tosun Terzioğlu containing his views and suggestions regarding the university's founding, and she emphasized the significance of the note. After listening to the speech, I was filled with curiosity. The note in question was not in our archives, and this valuable document from the founding period must have been in the University History Archives. Where was the document?

Three months had passed since the speech at the ceremony. The Sabancı University Secretary General’s Office had requested that the Information Center conduct a study of the university's founding documents. The essence of the study was to evaluate all kinds of historically significant information, documents, and archival resources deemed appropriate by the university administration, from the date of the founding idea to the present day, primarily in the archives of the President’s Office and Secretary General’s Office, the archives of faculties, academic and administrative units that have operated since its founding, as well as in the archives of stakeholder institutions and organizations. Within the scope of the founding documents, the university administration would consider all relevant information, documents, and resources. 

Of course, the first thing that came to mind was the note in question. Would we be able to find it among the founding documents? At the time, I was reviewing thousands of documents and papers during the preliminary assessment of the founding documents with a project officer assigned by Institutional Development, one of our administrative units. Besides the excitement of finding the note, I was also experiencing the joy of adding other valuable university documents to the archives.

It wasn't even a week later that we found the note in a disorganized folder. I must say I was delighted. The two-month preliminary assessment was complete, and we submitted a report to the university administration and received the documents for general archive organization. Our Information Center University History Archives Department completed its intensive eight-month archive organization in March 2017. But that note still lingered in my mind. Finding the document and placing it in the archive wasn't enough; access was also crucial. Assuming our University Administration would request the document, we devised an access scenario that would allow them to access both physical and digital copies as quickly as possible. Shortly after this scenario, our Administration requested a digital copy of the document. As the University History Archives Department, we ensured its dispatch just as quickly.

Third Memory: The Hidden Treasure in the Sunlight (May 2, 2019)

It was early May 2019. Our President's Office, at an event held nearly twenty years ago, was requesting information about an archive resource resembling a time capsule containing letters to be opened in 2019. I had been working in the archives for ten years and was familiar with all the information sources; however, I hadn't found any information that could trace the letters. I was both anxious and hopeful. I was worried; how had the letters been concealed for so long? I was hopeful; professional credibility told us this: "The archive does not forget, and the archive does not lose." Therefore, instead of conducting research based on assumptions, it would be more appropriate to consult witnesses from the period. A notification was sent to all departmental archives, especially to those working at our university between 1999 and 2002.

While the news was encouraging, accessing the letters posed a challenge. The general consensus among current and former employees, both inside and outside the institution, was that the letters were buried in a time capsule at various locations on campus, to be excavated 20 years later. According to information received from news sources, the excavation areas were identified as the President’s Office building and the Observation Tower, the Information Center's poolside area, a location between the football field and the auditorium, and the tree planting area from the 2002 Tree Planting Festival. Like a mole, we would have to dig up the entire campus. Meanwhile, those who received the news were trying to assist our search by suggesting various possibilities.

We were informed that the "Letters to May 19, 2019" box, which we learned belonged to the Istanbul Gathering event, was located in the student club archives. Fortunately, without the need for any excavations on campus, we found the letters we had been searching for on the ground as a "Time Capsule" and a "Wish Box" in the unit archives and received them from the University History Archive. Having the letters added to the University History Archive was the first stage of my joy. The letters were to be read at an event attended by graduates on May 19, 2019. We had less than 15 days to complete the reading. With the permission of our President’s Office, colleagues from the Institutional Development Unit and the Marketing and Institutional Communications Unit participated, and the letters in the "Wish Box" were opened and sorted. These letters contained the secrets of a future vision of dreams, ideals, and hopes for 20 years from now. The relevant units launched an intensive effort to contact the alumni who owned the letters. Being a part of this effort was the second phase of my joy.

Our President’s Office included a new "Time Capsule (Wish Box)" activity in the same year's commencement ceremony plans. Before and after the Closing Conference held at the SGM by the University History Archives, coordinated by the relevant units, the Wish Box, titled "Letters to June 21, 2039," was presented to Sabancı University graduates. Hundreds of letters, containing dreams, ideals, and hopes for 20 years from now, found their place in the Wish Box. The 2019 Wish Box inspired the legacy of letters to its successor, the 2039 Wish Box, inscribed with timeless dreams, fresh hopes, and promises of a bright future. This special and graceful ripple across time was the third stage of my happiness.

If I could say good morning to the morning of June 21, 2039, I would love to be at the event where the graduates' letters are read. I'm sure this happiness would be indescribable!

As you know, our university is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Could we get your 25th-anniversary message?

Sabancı University, founded with the vision of "becoming a global university," has made a difference in higher education since its first Search Conference in 1995, and continues to do so.

For the past quarter-century, Sabancı University has brought together the best students from Turkey and other countries through undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs designed under the leadership of esteemed academics recognized worldwide in their respective fields. In this respect, our university is an exemplary higher education institution that not only contributes to 21st-century social progress and generates effective and efficient academic knowledge on a global scale, but also fosters a universal individual who respects social values, upholds the noble values ​​of humanity, and has a global citizen identity.

The achievements of our graduates, who have achieved their full potential at prestigious and leading institutions and advanced their careers worldwide, demonstrate that our university has achieved its mission by training internationally competent and confident individuals. I hope that Sabancı University, in its next 25 years, will be an institution of higher education where sustainable solutions are found for humanity's ever-changing and diversifying needs, where environmentally and socially sensitive scientific productivity increases, and where future leaders are educated.

How would you describe the progress Sabancı University has made in 25 years, based on what you've observed and learned? 

As an innovative university making a difference in higher education, I had the opportunity to observe Sabancı University's significant achievements, both as a staff member and as an archivist preserving its cultural memory. Our professors beautifully described the progress and developments our university has made in their 25th-anniversary messages.

In their messages, our professors shared the progress made towards becoming a global university, emphasizing that our university distinguishes itself in higher education with its freedom of program selection model. Furthermore, they highlighted our main strategic objectives for 2024-2029, which include "Making a Global Difference and Social Contribution," "Global Research University," "Development of the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem," and "Sustainable Centers," as well as our achievements in innovative/entrepreneurial projects as a research university and in excellent educational activities.

I would like to examine the progress our university has made in 25 years from an information professional’s perspective. As you know, we call our unit an Information Center, not a library in the traditional sense. The reason for this designation stems from the problematic nature of the concept of information. The characteristic structure of the problem of knowledge can be described as one that deepens with the infinity of the macro and micro universe, constantly exists in a timeless fluidity, is unbound by geography and space through its cultural layers, and has no jurisdiction over the perspective on or access to knowledge. Establishing an institution of higher education that fosters the act of producing and disseminating knowledge, a passion for thought, the act of creation, and critical thinking aimed at reconsidering and interpreting accepted stereotypes is the ideal of civilization that every society aspires to.

In my opinion, the longed-for vision of such an institution, as envisioned by our founders, was to establish the university of the next century before entering the 21st century, and to continuously maintain the ability to progress based on this principle, forming the foundation of our successes.

As a research university, Sabancı University, with its faculties and centers, its multifaceted interdisciplinary research activities, its expanding academic and intellectual reach through national and international projects, and its researchers, graduates, and students, further advances its place among the leading universities in our country and among the world's esteemed universities. 

As a university employee, I feel very fortunate to have spent 25 years of my professional life at a university that is constantly learning, evolving, and leading social progress. I can describe it as a true haven of science, with its innovative and entrepreneurial institutional structure, where students think freely, make decisions freely, strive to understand the local and the universal, detach from dogmas, and consider themselves Atatürk's spiritual heirs, as stated in the Atatürk Inscription. The students and graduates our university educates as global citizens who contribute to society are our most valuable assets. The dynamism of collectively producing science heralds a bright and successful future that will contribute to social transformation. Even a glance at the daily event calendar or the curriculum reveals the innovative and transformative impact of our university.

I'd like to make a special note here regarding the Information Center. Over the 25 years our university has progressed, our Information Center has consistently supported our university by meeting the information needs of all stakeholders, especially students, as enshrined in our principles, demonstrating a commitment to quality and continuity in service, and through proactive approaches. In this respect, we, as the Information Center, will continue to undertake high-value-added work for the next 25 years.

What are your dreams and predictions for our university for the next 25 years? 

When I think of dreaming, I remember the speech our Founding President Tosun Terzioğlu gave at the Closing Conference on June 26, 2009. When he envisioned a university, he beautifully explained to us the academic freedom and humanitarian dimensions of the university's mission:

“Dreaming is beautiful, it's delightful; it helps one escape certain things, and it also enriches them. But as time went by, I began to dream of a university. A university, a true university; a world-class university in Turkey, undivided by the thick walls of disciplines, a free environment for discussion, where students and faculty would research and learn together, never contenting themselves with what they'd learned. I began to dream of such a university. In a way, I was lucky in this; I found that there were others who were dreaming of such a university as well. Hacı Sabancı, Sakıp Sabancı, Güler Sabancı, the Sabancı Family, those who participated in the Sabancı University Search Conference, and later, the academics who worked on the design committees, all began working together. We all envisioned similar things. We shaped our dreams further, made them more concrete, and began to realize them.

A world-class university in Turkey, one that would provide a free environment for discussion, not force students to adopt thought patterns. Instead, it will teach them to think and debate civilly, ensuring they grow up as confident individuals with civil courage. It will not discriminate; it will not discriminate between disciplines, nor will it discriminate based on high-school background, or gender, race, beliefs, or non-beliefs. We dreamed of such a university together, we began dreaming together, and we began to produce the products together. The buildings began to appear, but in fact, when our first students arrived in October 1999, excited yet timid, and lined up in the middle of the Information Center, that's when these dreams began to come true.

Therefore, learn to dream, too; it's a good thing.

As a member of our university, I have two humble dreams. The first is that our university maintains its pioneering and leading position in the production and dissemination of knowledge to society, guided by the philosophy of creating and developing together, as was the dream of all the founders who contributed to Sabancı University's creation. 

The second is the creation of the Oral History Project, which I believe would contribute to the enrichment of Sabancı University's institutional memory. As you know, this year marks the beginning of Sabancı University's exciting journey toward half a century. I believe that our institution, which has distinguished itself in higher education with its founding philosophy and vision, has accumulated numerous written and personal testimonies, as well as oral sources, throughout its 25-year educational journey. In this regard, my personal dream as an archivist is to realize the Oral History Project, which we can also define as an institutional memory and cultural heritage activity with the expanding and growing participation of university members.

Written documents, as well as oral sources, are the building blocks of institutional memory. The Oral History Project would be a valuable endeavor in uncovering, recording, and preserving our institution's memory through the live testimonies of those who have significantly contributed to its development and progress from the beginning of its founding to the present day. The written and oral archival information sources produced through the project would enrich the University History Archive and constitute a significant collection of resources that would shed light on future research on the university's history. 

I hope that our university's most beautiful dreams come true.