A suggestion of ecological university for Gaziantep province

Today, the modern university's role is no longer limited to teaching or research; the university must also take on other missions such as advancing culture, region, and society. There are several postmodern utopian university models that may be able to adapt to the new changes in the twenty-first century. One of these feasible utopian universities is the ecological university. According to this university model, the university is embedded in seven systems: the economy, knowledge, learning, institutions, persons, culture, and the natural environment. This research aimed to investigate how the university is associated with three of these ecologies: industry, culture, and the natural environment, as well as what qualities a university should possess. Therefore, the perspectives of key people in the economy, culture, and natural environment were studied. The research was planned as an exploratory study based on qualitative data. Semi-structured interviews were done with 33 key people from within and outside the university in Gaziantep, Turkey, who were selected using maximum variation and criterion sampling methods. The collected data were analyzed using the content analysis method with the NVIVO 12 qualitative data analysis software. The findings suggest that the university has biological ties to its surroundings, as indicated by the ecological university model. The findings also support the idea that the university should collaborate with the other institutions in its ecosystem in order to sustain the development of both itself and its surroundings.