President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed late on Aug. 20 Prof. Mehmet Naci İnci the new rector of Boğaziçi University, to replace Prof. Melih Bulu.
Erdoğan had removed Bulu on July 15, following months-long resistance by the university academics and students who rejected the appointment, also questioning Bulu’s merit and qualifications.
İnci was appointed as Bulu’s deputy.
He was among the rector candidates that were rejected by more than 90 percent of the academics, who attended an online survey that was attended by some 82 percent of the Boğaziçi academics earlier this month.
Gürkan Kumbaroğlu, Bulu’s other deputy, had also received 93 percent of against votes.
The academics who backed 17 other candidates, and the students want the rector to be elected, not to be appointed by the president.
İnci had his undergraduate degree in physics from Marmara University in 1987, and his doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in England in 1992 in the field of fiber optic sensors.
İnci became an assistant professor at Boğaziçi University, Department of Physics in 1994.
The academic became a professor at Boğaziçi University Physics Department in 2005 and chaired the department between 2014 and 2018, before serving as a fellow professor at various universities abroad.
