Words from friends
Special words for a special person
William'dan
William M. Blair
While I never took Turkish with Erika Hanim, during the 30 or so years I have known her I have come to appreciate her many fine qualities, not least of which are her thoughtfulness and generosity. Over the years she has brought me books from Turkey about the Ottoman navy, my area of research. More importantly, she introduced my daughter to the Ladybug Girl books, which became favorite bedtime readings. And she never forgets a holiday. Her e-greetings cards are a must-read in our family. Thank you, Erika, for you many years of friendship!
William M. Blair
Ebru'dan
Saadet Ebru Ergül
Sizi tanıma ve beraber çalışabilme fırsatı bulduÄŸum için kendimi çok ÅŸanslı sayıyorum.
2010 yılında, henüz sizi sadece ismen tanıyorken, tüm özgüvenimi toplayıp, ürkek halimi adeta bir hırka gibi koltuÄŸun üzerine bırakıp size kendimi tanıtan ve yaptığım çalışmaları anlatan kısa bir mesaj yazdım. Aslında pek de nasıl bir tepki beklediÄŸimi de bilmiyordum, kafamda birçok endiÅŸe vardı. ‘Eminim gün içinde benimki gibi birçok mesaj alıyordur' diyordum içimden. Yazdığım bu mesaja kısa, öz ancak son derece cesaretlendirici bir cevap alınca mesleki kariyerimde yürüyeceÄŸim yol sayenizde adeta önümde beliriverdi… O gün bu gündür bana her zaman destek oldunuz, içtenlikle görüÅŸlerinizi paylaÅŸtınız. Kariyerimin ÅŸekillenmesinde hep arkamda oldunuz. Hatta ben de yarattığınız etki artık öyle bir hal aldı ki ‘Erika Hoca olsa ne düÅŸünürdü? diye enine boyuna tartıp yol alıyorum.
Sizinle beraber çalışma fırsatı bulabilmek de benim için büyük bir ayrıcalık. Engin tecrübeniz ve donanımınız sayesinde sizden çok ÅŸey öÄŸrendim ve her yeni gün öÄŸrenmeye devam ediyorum. ProfesyonelliÄŸiniz, disiplininiz, mesafeli ancak bir o kadarda ÅŸevkatli duruÅŸunuz, ciddi, kolay ikna olmayan ama karşınızdakine güvendiÄŸinizi hissettiren yapınız, iÅŸ odaklı tutumunuz, ince mizah anlayışınızla da birleÅŸince sizin gibi müthiÅŸ bir lider, mentor ve iÅŸ arkadaşı ile çalışmak benim çok büyük bir hediye.
Sizinle iÅŸ dışında yazışmak, ailemden haberler vermek, buz pateni videoları paylaÅŸmak hep çok özel. Hayatıma dokunduÄŸunuz için çok teÅŸekkürler Ä°yi ki varsınız.
Saadet Ebru Ergül
Sibel'den
Sibel Erol
I have profound respect and admiration for Erika Gilson as a visionary, a leader, a path-breaker, a role model, a tireless advocate for the professionalization of our field that expanded from teaching Turkish to Turkic languages, a mentor and friend. She has single-handedly created many things we now take for granted about the AATT, if not the AATT itself, whether it is the newsletter, the yearly statistics, the various AATT projects, production of materials, the website and the annual MESA roundtables among other things. For a long time, she was the de facto president, the secretary, treasurer and the editor of the newsletter of the AATT. She had a great impact by spearheading many projects like the writing of the standards of teaching Turkish in the US. She has always especially encouraged and invited young colleagues into these projects. She has widened the opportunities for studying Turkish by running the grant for ARIT summer fellowships for a long time. In addition to all of her accomplishments and perhaps above all, Erika is a phenomenal and inspiring teacher, who has always used innovative methods and the newest materials in her teaching. It's in gratitude for all she's done, and in appreciation of her own teaching that I offer the following class project as my contribution to this Festschrift in her honor.
Funda'dan
Funda Güven
Çok DeÄŸerli Hocamız Erika Hanım,
Sizi tanıdığım 2011 yılından bu yana her gün sizin bilgili, profesyonel, insancıl özelliklerinize olan hayranlığım daha da artarak devam ediyor. Çalışma disiplininiz, eleÅŸtirel bakışınız, bitmeyen enerjiniz ve yorulmayan yapınız ile bize örnek oldunuz. Türkçe ve diÄŸer Türk dillerinin bilimsel yöntemlerle öÄŸretilmesi, ABD'deki bilimsel yeniliklerin Türkçe öÄŸretimine yansıması sizin liderliÄŸiniz ve desteklerinizle gerçekleÅŸti ve gerçekleÅŸiyor. Yüksek lisans ve doktora öÄŸrencileri için düzenlediÄŸimiz toplantılarda sizin desteÄŸiniz hep vardı, AATT'nin yıllık toplantılarında sizin desteÄŸiniz bizimleydi. Toplantı günlerinde herkesten önce gelip en son ayrılan, yorumlarını belirten gençlere yol gösteren, bize cesaret veren siz oldunuz. Size olan minnetlerimi sözcüklerle ifade etmek imkansız. Ä°yi ki varsınız.
Funda Güven
Nilüfer'den
Nilüfer Hatemi
Sevgili Erika Hocam,
Sizinle Jones Hall'daki ilk karşılaÅŸmamız, ilk sohbetimiz sanki dün gibi... Yüzünüzde kocaman bir gülümsemeyle karşılamış, 'hoÅŸgeldin' demiÅŸtiniz. Aradan ne kadar uzun bir zaman geçmiÅŸ ama siz hiç deÄŸiÅŸmediniz.
Bendeki tüm emekleriniz ve desteÄŸiniz için size çok çok teÅŸekkür ederim.
Nilüfer Hatemi
Feride'den
Feride HatipoÄŸlu
ERIKA GILSON, A friend and mentor
I met Erika on a wintery morning in 2003 in her office in Princeton University. Since then, we became friends and shared many memories, made new friends, traveled many places together. We have shared many fun and adventurous memories. I know that in her personal life Erika enjoys a variety of things; she loves horses, which comes from her father who was a cavalry officer in both world wars. She loves singing and music. She is a member of Tafsus Türk Sanat MüziÄŸi Korosu and sings Turkish music in TAFSUS Choir. She knows a ton about gardening and flowers. She can cook many recipes adding secret ingredients and I bet you didn’t know that she was a ballet dancer her high school years.
However, the most important thing for her is being of service to others through her teaching. Erika is an excellent and highly capable professor. Her students have told me how she truly cares about them, how she praises them when they do well, she lets them know how they are doing with regular feedback. Nothing makes Erika happier than seeing her students succeed.
I can remember many of our workshops and conferences that she put tireless effort into, making every one of them a big success. I always admire her endless and powerful energy.
When I needed a mentor to find my passion in my career, Erika showed me the right direction and helped me through all obstacles. When I got involved with American Association Teachers of Turkic, I came to learn how she dedicated her time and expertise since its founding in 1985. Erika’s work for AATT has a huge impact on where it is today. Her strong work ethic and love for teaching and learning is something I will always admire. I love to talk with her about everything from academics to music and politics. She always has something valuable to add to every conversation.
Erika is the founder of AATT and now the honorary president.
I am lucky to know her and have her in my life and always will be grateful for her mentorship and friendship.
Cheers to Erika Gilson now, and forever!
Güliz'den
Güliz KuruoÄŸlu
I first met Erika in 1981 at a MESA conference that took place in Seattle. After the meeting, Erika suggested that we should professionally help each other. This is exactly what happened in the coming years. In 1985, at another MESA conference, Profs. Kathleen Burrill, Richard Chambers, Erika and I met at a hotel room to talk about forming an association for teachers of Turkish. At the meeting the group decided that since Prof. Burrill and Erika were living close by, they would work on the details in the East Coast. Thus Erika became the executive secretary and set up the association and completed the necessary paperwork in order to establish our new Association. I was one of the first board members of AATT, serving from 1986-1989. We elected Prof. Kathleen Burrill as the first president of AATT. As president she was the representative of the association but Erika did the busy work of our organization. For many years, she was the executive secretary, treasurer and the webmaster. She did most of the heavy work and also formulated projects for us to undertake.
One of the first projects we tried to tackle was the “1000 most commonly used vocabulary list in Turkish,” After that over the years, under Erika’s leadership, we have undertaken many projects like, Standardization of Grammatical Terms, trying to establish a national testing for Turkish, working of the first Proficiency Guidelines for Turkish, Language Learning Framework, Graded Reader Project and many others. Through the years Erika, worked incredibly hard to make the association better. She was the brain and the organizer of AATT. Because of her, our organization is a quite well run operation. We owe her a deep gratitude for everything she has done for our profession and our Association.
Güliz KuruoÄŸlu
Jessica'dan
Jessica Selma MenteÅŸoÄŸlu
In 1992, I was beginning my graduate studies at Princeton. At that time, internet usage was very limited but those at higher education institutions had access. It must have been kismet because I had pleasure and honor of working with Professor Erika Gilson on what I believe to have been the very first instructional technology Turkish language website. Thanks to her vision and support, we created the following site that can still we viewed on the "Way Back Machine." The site featured Nasrettin Hoca stories from Talat Halman's Tales of Nasrettin Hoca as told by Aziz Nesin with illustrations by Zeki Fındıkoğlu with an interactive glossary. The site also featured audio recordings of the stories by Baki Tezcan, a fellow graduate student, and myself.
https://web.archive.org/web/20000511115103/http://www.princeton.edu/~turkish/reading1.html
Pardis'ten
Pardis Minuchehr
Memories with Erika Gilson
It was rainy and we had just ended the NCLOTC (National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages) conference in Dulles, VA, where both Erika and I were delegates for Turkish and Persian languages, respectively. We had just come out of a delegates meeting, where our candidate for a life-time achievement award did not make the cut, despite the persuasive proposal that Erika Gilson, Roberta Micallef, Mahmoud al-Battal, and others had put together in support of our Middle Eastern expert. We needed to strategize, and where better to do that than on a ride back. Just coming out of a cast for a broken leg and a newly acquired secondhand car with which I had not driven much before, I offered Erika a ride to the metro station. On this ride Erika and I had one of the longest and best heart to heart conversations we had ever had, but at the same time it was accompanied with a grinding sound. As the rain and thunder became petrifying on our way back, there were banging noises added to the grinding sound on the unlit highways coming out of Dulles. On top of that, I missed the exit and had to drive all the way to the Maryland side of DC before getting out of the highway to drop off Erika at the Foggy Bottom station. The twenty-minute ride got much longer, the road much darker, and the eerie sound more frightening, coupled with a roar of thunder and hard rain. We crossed Northern Virginia into Maryland to go to Washington DC, and the rain, the thunder, the screeching sounds, and the darkness gave way to urban settlement. All this time, we continued talking, and discussing life, work, children, and my broken leg. I was hoping before anything else to bring my guest safely to her destination. Much to my chagrin, it was hard to miss that we were facing some major perils on our road. Fortunately, however, we arrived safely at the metro stop, and I could finally feel relieved. As Erika walked out, she paused for a second, and then with some trepidation asked me to make sure to have the car checked by a mechanic soon. I had hoped she had not noticed the strange noise coming out of the car. But she had. After all, what goes unnoticed by Erika? She courageously sat through this precarious ride, and graciously gave me a life-saving advice. The next day, I found out that the car’s brakes were completely gone. We had been lucky the night before.
Now that we are confined to our own spaces due to the pandemics, we can reminisce about the good times we have had in the company of our dear friends and colleagues (or at least some of them). Erika stood at the forefront of many of the transformations taking place in the teaching and learning of less commonly languages for many decades. I had first met Erika Gilson as a graduate student at Columbia in the 90’s while visiting the late Kathleen Burrill at her house in Princeton. Professor Burrill’s move to Princeton from New York City brought her in close vicinity to her colleague and friend, Erika who had taught at Columbia before heading the Turkish program at Princeton. She held Erika in very high regard, and so did we.
Our paths crossed many more times again. While teaching at Penn one day, I saw Erika on the hallway, and found out that she had completed her doctorate at Penn, and now giving lectures there and working on projects with Feride Hatiboglu, Sylvia Onder and other mutual colleagues.
I honestly do not know how Erika found the time to do all she has done, but as far as I can remember she has been spearheading projects in curriculum design, assessment, and materials development for Turkish, and other less commonly taught languages. Together with Maggie Nassif and Kirk Belnap at BYU, Erika guided some of the most exciting projects at the National Middle Eastern Language Resource Center, and as I was honored to join their steering committee later, I came to see closely her care and her passion in moving those projects forward. We were very pleased that in 2012, she received the Jere L. Bacharach Service Award at MESA, where they aptly recognized her as “a creative, dedicated, and generous colleague whose lifelong commitment to integrating language research and education has enriched so many programs of study and inspired so many students and colleagues.”
When our quarantining days are over, I hope to be able to attend conferences and meetings once again with Erika soon, and this time I also promise to check the brakes beforehand!
Sylvia'da n
Sylvia Önder
Memories Sylvia Önder "Sevgili Murat"
The "Sevgili Murat" Team (Erika Gilson, Suzan Özel, Feliz Çiçek, Sylvia Önder and a local team of promising filmmakers and actors) had to clear out of the city because Istanbul was hosting the 2004 NATO summit and George W. Bush's team required a three-day shut down 'for security purposes'. We went to stay on lovely Heybeli Island and filmed some scenes there. In this photo, Erika Hanım is performing a speaking role as an island inhabitant -- she chose Ä°smet Ä°nönü's summer home to represent her character's home.
​
Suzan'dan
Suzan Özel
It was the summer of 1987, during a Turkish Studies Conference at Indiana University. It had been less than a year since I had arrived as a student in Bloomington and, even though I came with some experience in Turkish language instruction, I was not actively teaching at the time. I remember how Erika introduced herself and, when learning about my linguistics studies, suggested, enthusiastically and with a tone of friendly urgency, that I join AATT. This was, of course, the pre-Internet era, and so I was surprised to learn that such an organization existed and readily accepted her invitation. This is how I was introduced to Erika's dedication to improving the study and teaching of Turkish and Turkic languages, and the remarkable amounts of energy and determination she put into this endeavour. I was originally considering providing here an inventory of all of Erika's activities on behalf of AATT during the past three decades of which I am aware, decided soon, however, that there would be too much to list here, while the list would certainly still be incomplete. I do know, though, that her tireless (still ongoing) work has created a basis of knowledge and a community that would not exist had it not been for Erika's leadership and unswerving devotion to the task. This includes the critical element of helping members to assume stewardship of the organization for its future development. AATT's history can be fittingly described by the proverb, “Damlaya damlaya göl olur,” and I am convinced that I speak for many when I thank Erika for providing not only so many of the drops but also for ensuring that they form a whole and continue to grow the lake.
Suzan Özel
Evansville, Indiana
Esra'dan
Esra Predolac
Sevgili Erika Hocam,
It was almost 16 years ago—dile kolay—that I first met you. It was at Cornell University, Ithaca, where you gave a workshop on Turkish language teaching, and it was right before my first time serving as a TA in Turkish at Syracuse University. Before this workshop, I remember feeling nervous and overwhelmed. After all, I had never taught Turkish before. Then came your workshop and your guidance, and I felt this huge sense of relief. I was so full of admiration and gratitude, and not just because of your knowledge, but also because you were so approachable, kind, and helpful. Since then both you and AATT have become instrumental in my career as a Turkish language instructor. Thank you for your vast contributions to the field of Turkish language teaching and for your guidance and support to so many in the field. Ä°yi ki varsınız!
Nilay'dan
Nilay Sevinç
Sevgili Erika Hocam,
Benim için çok deÄŸerlisiniz. Hayatımdaki en büyük ÅŸanslarımdan birisiniz. Her zaman yol gösterenim, danışmanım, destek ve güç verenim oldunuz. ÖÄŸrencilik yıllarımda size gönderdiÄŸim bir e-postaya hemen cevap verip, yardımcı olmaya çalıştınız. Güvendiniz, öÄŸrenciyken bile bana projelerde çalışma fırsatı verdiniz. Hevesle, ÅŸevkle, büyük bir sevgiyle yaptığım iÅŸin özünde, temelinde sizin desteÄŸiniz ve büyük emeÄŸiniz var. Kariyer yolumu çizdiniz, aydınlattınız, öÄŸrettiniz. Bilginizi cömertçe paylaÅŸtınız. Enerjinize, Türkçe öÄŸretimi için hep daha iyi çalışmalar yapılması için gayretinize hayranım. Saygım ve sevgim sonsuz… Ä°yi ki varsınız… Her ÅŸey ama her ÅŸey için gönülden teÅŸekkür ederim.
Sizi çok seviyorum.
Saygılar,
Nilay Sevinç