The second Cultural Conversation was held at TACC-Madison on March 1, 2009. The speaker was Tuncer Berat Edil, a prominent Turkish professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Edil has received his BS and MS in civil engineering from Robert College in Turkey and his PhD in civil engineering from Northwestern University. He has been on the faculty at UW-Madison since 1973. He has founded the Geotechnical Engineering program at UW-Madison. He has received many awards during his academic career including the prestigious 2007 TUBITAK special science award from the president of Turkey.

Professor Edil talked about “My Memoirs and Experiences from Several Cultures” (Hatıralarım ve Çeşitli Kültürlerden Algılar) and summarized his life and memoirs briefly. He has compared several cultures he has experienced during his life including the cultures of Hadim, a small town in Konya where he lived for the first 10 years of his life; Konya where he lived several years; Coronado, a small town California where he stayed with a host family for a year during high school; Istanbul where he attended college; Chicago where he lived during his PhD education; Madison where he lived most of his life. He shared some of the challenges he had during his life in the US.

The participants asked many interesting questions including whether he has regretted not returning to Turkey; whether he is optimistic about the academic environment in Turkey; how he contributed to academic life in Turkey, etc.

Thanks to Turkish ladies, the attendants enjoyed delicious food as well as Turkish tea after the program.  Attendants had a fun night and learned lots of interesting stories.

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