Robert College has received a significant bequest from the Professor Korkut and Ruth Bardakçı Living Trust – one that will change the lives of many for generations to come and that reflects not only extraordinary generosity, but also a lifelong bond shaped by gratitude, intellectual discipline, and a deep sense of belonging.
Bardakçı, who passed away on March 16, 2024, in Oakland, California, was a distinguished physicist whose life and work exemplified the values Robert College seeks to instill.
After graduating from RC, he earned his PhD from the University of Rochester in 1962, pursued postdoctoral appointments at the University of Minnesota and the Institute for Advanced Study, and joined the UC Berkeley Physics Department in 1966. Over the course of his career, he became a Sloan and Guggenheim Fellow, held visiting fellowships at Cambridge, and published more than 80 influential works in quantum chromodynamics and string theory.
Yet beyond his international standing, those who knew him remember a man of quiet wit, deep curiosity, and an unmistakable RC spirit. His yearbook captured these qualities perfectly, recalling him mid-problem, half-murmuring to himself: “Azizim bu öyle basit değil… Hele şu demaraj bobinindeki gerilim düşünümünü hesaplayayım da…” (“My dear it is not as simple as that... let me first calculate the voltage drop in that starter coil.”) Indeed the habits of mind he carried throughout his life – precision, curiosity, and humility – were already visible during his years at Robert College.
For all his international recognition, Robert College remained central to who Bardakçı was. Together with his beloved wife Ruth Bardakçı, who passed away six years before him, he made a decision that spoke volumes about loyalty and gratitude. In 2001, they designated Robert College as a beneficiary of their estate, ultimately leaving one third of it to the school that had shaped his earliest intellectual foundations.
This bequest cannot be separated from the life that preceded it: a life of depth, intellectual rigor, and integrity, for which Robert College was a formative force.
Korkut Bardakçı RC ENG 57’s legacy lives on where it began: at Robert College, remembered with respect, affection, and enduring pride, especially by those many RC students whose lives this legacy will impact profoundly.
