In the ground breaking ceremony of the faculty having his name, Zeynel Abidin Erdem thanked Gül for his support and said he realized his father’s dream. Erdem gave to the Republic President Abdullah Gül a plate made by Mardin’s symbol silver filigree and completed in 3 months, as a gift.

THE GROUND BREAKING OF MARDIN ARTUKLU UNIVERSITY DR. ZEYNEL ABİDİN ERDEM ECONOMIC AND COMMERCIAL SCIENCES FACULTY WAS MADE BY THE REPUBLIC'S PRESIDENT ABDULLAH GÜL

A true Mardin lover Dr. Zeynel Abidin Erdem now adds a faculty to many education institutes he made and established in Mardin. Mardin Artuklu University continues its journey of becoming an international Social Sciences University with its Literature, Fine Arts and Architecture faculties. And now with nearly 10 million dollars of investment, it now welcomes Dr. Zeynel Abidin Erdem Economic and Administrative Sciences’ Faculty. After the opening of the academic year 2010-2011 of Mardin Artuklu University, the ground breaking ceremony was made with the honorary participation of the Republic’s President Abdullah Gül.

The education fire continues burning in Mardin, the cradle of cultures.

Mardin Artuklu University which started its activities in 2007-2008 academic year with 1104 students, offers a high standard academic education and aims at being an internationally prestigious university. Another mission of the university is to raise Mardin and its environment to a self expressing authentic position in terms of city nature, history-culture and urban conscience. The university having Literature, Fine Arts and Architecture Faculties now welcomes its Living Languages Institute to make live Kurdish, Syriac and Arabic and to form a intersection point for languages and religions. The chairman of GENPA Board of Directors Dr. Zeynel Abidin Erdem said the following about the faculty named after him: “Mardin now has a new face thanks to the investments and efforts of our government and many Mardin origin businessmen who are passionate for Mardin during the last 50 years. We now get the results of all our efforts one by one. Mardin’s historical and cultural importance started to be understood better domestically and abroad. As a Mardin lover, this is a great happiness to see this result. As GENPA and Erdem Holding we made Mardin gain many buildings which we constructed or repaired and which are now used as education institutions, cook houses, guest houses. We realized many investments in construction and telecommunication areas. But we did not use our names in none of them. Hopefully, this faculty will be “our first investment having our name”. In 1963 when I entered the Political Sciences Faculty, while I was walking with my father in that very same place he told me "I wish a university gets opened here and our children have education here. Today though not for our children we do have an education place for our grand children in Mardin. We estimate an investment of nearly 10 million dollars at first stage to realize more. We are ready to make what we have to do to turn the school to a real brand.”