Open SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2019: Oswego – Murat Yasar

Dr. Yasar is a faculty member in the History Department at the State University of New York at Oswego. He received his M.A. from Bilkent University (Turkey) and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (Canada). Dr. Yasar’s current research focuses on the Ottoman Empire and Islamic borderlands, specifically the North Caucasus as a borderland between the Ottoman and Russian empires and the peoples of the North Caucasus from the fıfteenth through nineteenth centuries. He has published in journals such as Turkish Historical Review, Middle Eastern Studies, Iran and the Caucasus, and Acta Orientalia. 

I consider myself a scholar-teacher, and I am a proponent of online teaching, as I believe online teaching has the potential to make education at various levels available and more accessible to a larger segment of the population. In addition to making courses and education more accessible, online teaching can also help our irregular or transfer students graduate on time by completing some of the degree requirements in the winter and summer session online, while they are away with their families or working full-time. Moreover, online education can be useful for those looking to change their careers or advance in their careers by learning new skills without risking their current jobs to go back to school full-time. For all these reasons, as an educator who always promotes digital skills in all of my courses, I think that online teaching will continue to be an important part of academia, providing us with new avenues to explore.