Welcome
Your excellency, dear Mayor, dear members of SEDEF Foundation, dear President and members of the Board of Trustees, dear rectors, dear guests, dear academicians, dear parents, and dear graduates...
I am Sencer Yeralan, Dean of FBA, On behalf of our rector Professor Dr Ahmet Yildirim and IUS,
I welcome you to the graduation ceremonies of the Class of 2018. And welcome to our IUS family. As you see, we are a family – a diverse, caring, proud family.
1 Diverse
Our family is diverse, with students and faculty from many different countries. So, I say not only “welcome”… but
Dobrodošli
Hoş geldiniz
Ehlen wasehlen [Arabic]
Khosh amadid [Persian]
inikwani dehina met’ahi [Ethiopia]
Bienvenido [Spain]
kalos Irthate [Greek]
herzlich willkommen [German]
benvinguda [Catalan] Hu nyíng [Chinese]
ā Tervetuloa [Finnish]
Bienvenue [French]
and it goes on and on. We have students from over 50 countries and faculty from over 25 countries. This is the “international” in the International University of Sarajevo.
2 Caring
Our family is caring. With its low class sizes, low student-toinstructor ratios, dormitories, and many student and sports clubs, IUS is truly student-centric. It gives us great pleasure to see our students mature and grow, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. And it makes us proud to see them graduate. Our graduates will carry the IUS caring spirit throughout their lives.
3 Proud
Our family is proud. Proud, because hard work and cooperation in a caring environment breeds nothing but success – and success is something to be proud of. We are the oldest foundation university in BiH. We are the recipient of many accolades. Just recently, we were named the “Best University of the Western Balkans” by the European Movement in BiH. Just last week I had the opportunity to witness the achievements of our graduating students. The work of students like Emina Hukic, Jasmina Karabegovic, Rukiye Demir, Selma Halilčević, and Azra Debelac make us proud. Be it research into the economic effects of foreign direct investment in BiH, by Debelac, estimating bitcoin trading values by Hukic, analyzing the market value of agricultural products in BiH by Karabegovic, generating class schedules by Demir, or developing compilers for hardware circuit design verification by Halilčević – the success of our students in all these top-notch world-class projects make proud. We are so blessed! These students are our proud and joy.
4 Rite of passage
Yes we are a diverse, caring, and proud family. And the graduation today signifies the epitome of our pride. For you the graduates, the ceremony is your rite to passage. That instant when you toss your caps into the air. It signifies a point in time – a before and an after. Before you were taught, shown, led, protected, fed, nourished, and yes, tolerated. After… Well after, you will be the members of society that picks up the baton to be the care-givers of the next generation. It is now your turn to teach, show, lead, protect, feed, nourish, and indeed, tolerate.
5 Close
Our lives are now intertwined as the IUS Family. Whatever happens, you are part of us and we are part of you.
We are forever together.
We are forever proud.
The IUS Class of 2018… We congratulate you. We salute you.
Thank you.
