Abstract:

This study tries, through metaphors, to finds out how Ankara University Faculty of Divinity, the pioneer of theology field in Turkey with its 73 years of experience, is perceived by its academic and administrative staff and students, who are its internal stakeholders. In the research, “phenomenology,” one of the qualitative research designs, has been used. Participants consist of 3rd and 4th-grade students at Ankara University Faculty of Divinity and academic and administrative staff working in the faculty in the 2021-2022 academic year. A research form has been sent to the participants, who are chosen by criterion sampling, to be applied between April and June 2022, in which they are asked to fill in sentence “Ankara Theology is like.... because....”. Metaphors produced by 259 participants in 145 categories are presented under a total of 7 themes: “Its deep-rooted history, Academic Perspective, Unique Style, Sincere Environment, Functionality, Image and Effortless Process”. The eleven most repeated metaphors are “sycamore (f18), family (f13), sun (f13), home (f11), house (f10), rainbow (f7), tree/forest (f7), mother/mother (f5), sea (f5), book (f5) and earth (f5)” According to the research findings, while the academic staff emphasized the deep-rooted history and academic perspective of the faculty, the administrative staff mostly emphasized the friendly and peaceful working environment. The metaphors produced by the students are distributed in a relatively balanced way among the themes. The participants also highlighted the indispensable aspect of the faculty, which is seen as different from the outside and criticized by some circles, its power of guiding and transforming influence, its democratic environment that is tolerant of differences and its challenging but enjoyable process. In addition, the fact that the prison metaphor, which is frequently used for the concepts of faculty and university in the literature, has never been used in our research, and that there is only one metaphor that is described as negative, shows that the characterization of "Ankara University Faculty of Divinity" is perceived positively by its members. This situation can be interpreted as proof that unique characterizations that highlight the positive features of institutions can be very useful in order to create the corporate culture and transfer it to new members.

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