Class of '10 graduates - Jun 21, 2010
The graduation ceremony of the 147th school year was held in the Konak Terrace. Speeches were given by the Rector of Sabancı University Prof. Dr. Nihat Berker, History Teacher Hafize Değer, and Student speakers Yiğit Yorulmaz (L-12) and Rafet Karaoğlu (L-12). To read the speeches visit this page.



 

Shakespeare on the Green - May 7- May 9, 2010

For three consecutive evenings in May, audiences made of RC students, family members  and alumni, enjoyed watching the most famous scenes of the Bard  in the open air. After 6:30 pm, the  school campus transformed itself into a huge stage on which played the tales of love, greed and revenge -that have possessed humanity since the beginning of time. RC Drama director Charlotte Şamlı explains, “The idea was born from the fact that RC has this beautiful campus and yet  we never seem to have time to sit in it and enjoy it. The front of Gould seemed to  be a natural performance space.” The senior students in the “RC Theater Company”, an extracurricular club, were exposed to several Shakespeare plays by Jason Shulha and Charlotte Şamlı. After careful consideration, they narrowed the choices down to perform  one comedy, one historic play, one tragedy, one raucous bar scene as well as scenes from two plays that RC students had studeid this year: Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. English teacher Marita O'Neill and her class agreed to grace the plans with their creative rendition of Romeo and Juliet rewritten for the Ottoman Court. The class had won the Romeo and Juliet competition but had to rework the scene for the steps of Gould Hall. Their enthusiasm was infectious and added a new dimension to Mrs. Şamlı's and Mr. Schulha's plans.

(Compiled with information from Bekir Berker Artukoğlu L-11 and Charlotte Şamlı)

You can also click on this link to see pictures and  read about “Shakespeare on the Green” on  RC English teacher, Ann Marie Mershon's blog.

The girls and boys tennis teams of Robert College have both been qualified for the Nationals which will be held on May 3rd, 2010 in Antalya. Girls team consisting of  Begüm Batmanoğlu, Zeynep Altaş, Beril Şahin, Nil Kasuto were fourth in Istanbul and the Boys team formed by Sinan Alparslan, Cem Gülboy, Metin İyigüngör, Timuçin Balkan became third on the competition in Bakırköy, between April 12-16th. 

The project was called, “The Short Film CIP.” The RC students Cansu Satlik (L-9), Gunce Su Yilmaz (L-9), Nazli Albayrak (L-9), Nur Sevencan (L-9) and 14 Turgut Akan Primary School students were introduced to narrative telling through the visual art of film. They were taught how to use a camera and finally how to edit their films (including the use of sound track and voice over). Each student created a one-minute film answering the guiding question/theme, “Who Am I?” The success of the project was a collaborative effort and would not have been possible without the incredible art teacher at Turgut Akan – Alptekin Yuksel.

There were several RC Alumni working with the project: Kerem Kurdoğlu RC 81(filmaker, teacher, and Colin Edmonds’ brother-in-law), Gökçe Su Yoğurtcuoğlu RC 97 (who orginally brought the project idea to RC and who is a film producer and director at Mode Istanbul), Rasimcan Meral RC 09 (editing expert and medical student), and the technical support of Asli Gurbuz Satirolgu in the IT Department. The project partially took place at the Turgut Akan Ilkogretim Okulu in Sarıyer where the cameras and editing resources were loaned by RC.

The Jane Page English Writing Award is an annual literary competition for students to submit creative poems, short stories, or dramatic scripts. The submissions are collected at the start of the second semester and the awards ceremony takes place in the RC library in the third week of March. There is a cash prize of $300 given to the winners of each category. Honorable mentions are recognized as decided by the judges. This was the second year of the competition, and there were over fifty submissions. It is hoped that the competition will grow as the tradition becomes more established. A benefactor is needed to support the competition so that it may continue.

2010 Jane Page Writing Contest Winners:    

                Poetry:                      Deger Turan (L-10)  

                                                “The Goldfish”

                Dramatic Script :        Batuhan Baserdem (L-12)                                                      
                                                “The Strawberry and the Death”

                Short Story:               Ege Yalcinbas (L-11)

                                                “The Grave Digger”

A very busy and nice day with the Fencing Team paid off - the Saber Team formed by 8 girls and 1 boy got 3 bronze medals in total. Begum Erdincler (LP), Feyza Haskaraman (L10) and Cem Aksoy (L9) got the nationals. They will compete in the nationals in Afyon between May 2-5th.

RC Orienteering Team participated in the Antalya International Orienteering races with fellow team members / RC teachers Andrew Tingleff and Gencer Emiroğlu. Team members Burak Özçelik (L-P), Zeynep Özarda (L-9), Ebrar Bahçıvan (L-9), Akın Akkan (L-10), Ahmet Utku Akbıyık (L-10), Kaan Bulut Tekelioğlu (L-10), and Canberk Yalçın (L-11) were among the 700 participants from 12 countries. At Day 2 Sprint Race, Canberk Yalçın (L-11) was awarded for his victory in M18. Bulut Telekelioğlu (L-10) and Ahmet Utku Akbıyık (L-10) got awards for 1st and 2nd place respectively in M16 class. Gold winner in men 35 category coach Gencer Emiroğlu, silver winner Ebrar Bahçıvan (L-9) and bronze winner in women 16 category Zeynep Özarda (L-9) brought Robert College 3 medals in total.
* what is orienteering: Orienteering is a fast groving sport where you navigate between check points of a set course using a special map. It is like cross-country running but instead of a set course you need to find your own way from one checkpoint to the other.  RC has been using orienteering for eight years. We are the first school in Turkey to have an orienteering map of the school campus. Every year 200 prep students learn the campus and meet staff with a orienteering game. We have an O' Sport Team since two years and compete in major National Championships.

On Thursday, February 18th at 16.00 in the RC Theatre, the Sandbach School Big Band, from Cheshire, gave a concert of jazz, funk, latin and pop music. 22 boys played such songs as "I've Got You Under my Skin " and "Minnie The Moocher ". You can hear them play “here come the girls” by clicking here. For the biography of the group please click here.

TUBItAK success - Dec 4-9th, 2009
Barış Kaya (L-11) has won the TÜBİTAK Gold Medal in Computer Science category, which marked him as the top student in Turkey in this field. The national finals were held at ODTÜ in Ankara between December 4-9, 2009.




RC Debate Society represents Turkey - Nov, 2009
Robert College Debate Society team went to Stuttgart in November to compete in the European Schools Debating Championship. Three members of the team of five had competed in Athens, where RC scored 1 win out of 8, and gained 3 points. Just when John Royce (Debate Club Advisor & RC Head Librarian) thought if they could do better in Stuttgart, he gladly found out that they could indeed. 26 teams competed in the opening rounds. After the first 8 debates, on a league basis, the best 8 teams were to go forward to the knockout stage. The RC team won 5 debates, and with split decisions in the other 3 matches, they scored enough to go through to the knockout competition. Unfortunately, they were knocked out in the first match against a Korean team, which went on to finish championship runners-up. They have learned a lot from this experience, and hope to do even better next time. Overall, the RC debate team came 8th of the 26 teams. Kaan Ülgen (L-9) was in the list of top 50 speakers, averaging 70.778%, while the other 4 RC speakers who are Koret Munguldar (L-10), Cem Zorlular (L-11), Mehmet Cura (L-11), Şafak Kılıç (L-9) were not far behind. On a higher note, 4 members of the Stuttgart team make up 80% of a team selected to represent Turkey in this year’s World Schools’ Debating Championship, to be held in Qatar in February. RC English teacher Anne Mershon who took them to Stuttgart says: "The weather wasn't all that great, but the kids were AWESOME! They made the most of it, and they improved their record from one win at their only previous tournament to five wins and a spot in the quarter-finals this year. Impressive, to say the least."

Presenting The Ultimate Crowd, RC 09 -  June 21st, 2009
The 142nd Robert College Graduation Ceremony was held on Sunday, June 21st at the Konak Terrace for the first time this year. This area was renovated by the Parent’s Association to accomadate the graduation ceremony of the most crowded class in the history of RC, 242 members of the Class of 2009, their parents, Faculty, and Trustees were lead to this new venue by a large team of students and staff who took part in the organization. The ceremony started at 18:00, so that the guests would not be bothered by the heat or the sun. This year’s speakers were James Maggart (Chairman of the Board of Trustees) as the keynote speaker, Feride Eralp and Gökçe Türkoğlu as the student speakers, and Philip Gee as the faculty speaker. Please click here to read the complete text of the speeches.