{"id":54114,"date":"2019-03-05T16:32:15","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T21:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=54114"},"modified":"2025-10-20T10:36:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T14:36:46","slug":"courage-and-giving-back","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/courage-and-giving-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Courage and Giving Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Courage and Giving Back\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

When a sex worker was raped in 1970s Istanbul, she had nowhere to turn.  As in many countries, Turkey\u2019s legal system questioned the integrity of the victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A conviction seemed unlikely, but Yaprak Baltacio\u011flu\u2019s father took on the case anyway.  He won the case at the Supreme Court, and it established a precedent for how violence against women is treated in Turkey\u2019s legal system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn those days, it wasn\u2019t easy to prove that raping a sex worker was a crime, and I remember asking my father why he had taken that case pro bono<\/em>,\u201d said Baltacio\u011flu, 12th<\/sup> chancellor of Carleton University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Carleton
Yaprak Baltacio\u011flu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe looked at me and said: \u2018When I look back at my life, I don’t want to see a long list of personal accomplishments or lots of money. I want to know I have done good.\u2019 He didn\u2019t give a lot of advice, but that\u2019s something I carried.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baltacio\u011flu gave the keynote address at the Faculty of Public Affairs\u2019 Emerging Perspectives Graduate Conference on March 4, 2019 and she stressed the importance of giving back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWorking is not about just going to work and coming back and feeding your family,\u201d said Baltacio\u011flu, an alumna of Carleton\u2019s Master of Arts in Public Administration program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe choices you make along your career path should be guided by making a positive difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all of the choices that Baltacio\u011flu had to make in her 29-year public service career were easy. Before retiring in 2018, she spent more than half her career at the deputy minister level. Most recently, she served as the Secretary of Treasury Board Secretariat, a central agency which advises governments on program and service spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a senior public servant, I had to give tough advice to ministers and sometimes prime ministers. It wasn’t what they wanted to hear, and it was inconvenient for them to hear it. But it is the job of a non-partisan, permanent public service to give them the advice,” said Baltacio\u011flu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was acutely aware every time that their views of me might affect my professional advancement — that I might take a personal hit. Sometimes I did, but the personal hits don’t hurt so much when you know you are doing the right thing, so it\u2019s easier to live with yourself. Courage is absolutely essential if you want a career that makes a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Carleton<\/figure>\n\n\n

Success, Failure, Confidence and Courage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She stressed however, that career progression is largely within your own control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon’t ever forget that the results you achieve are yours and so are the failures,\u201d Baltacio\u011flu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never let myself believe that good things that didn’t happen to me at work (were) because I’m a woman, immigrant or Muslim. In every situation, my first assessment is (to) look to see if what I did was good enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In every success and failure, probably about 50 per cent is yours. You have to deal with your 50 per cent. Owning your successes and your failures means you can choose to be confident and courageous. Brains are the precondition of confidence, and confidence is a little sister of courage.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baltacio\u011flu was appointed as Carleton\u2019s titular head in December 2018, succeeding Charles Chi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I am honoured to be asked to serve as chancellor,\u201d Baltacio\u011flu said then. \u201cCarleton changed my life. It gave me an amazing opportunity to have an influence on my country.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are very excited to have Ms. Baltacio\u011flu coming back to our campus,\u201d said Carleton President Benoit-Antoine Bacon. \u201cShe is a resilient and purposeful leader who, throughout her outstanding and award-winning career, has always taken time to mentor many of her colleagues, including young civil servants beginning their careers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe chancellor is a symbol of the aspirations of our students, and a link to the broader community,\u201d said Bacon. \u201cThese roles are critical to our mission to contribute to the social, economic and common good in Ottawa, across Canada and around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Carleton<\/figure>\n\n\n

The Importance of Adaptability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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In her first address on campus, she talked about rapidly evolving technology and an increasingly volatile global political landscape, saying adaptability will be key to achieving career success for today\u2019s graduates. But that\u2019s not entirely new; the only real constant in Baltacio\u011flu\u2019s career has been change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne day, there were no emails or computers, and the next day there were. That was the year I started in the public service.  Now, I’m trying to understand the implications of big data and artificial intelligence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI watched Mr. Obama get elected, and also Mr. Trump. I saw the Twin Towers fall.  Disruption is constant and its pace is increasing. The only way you can deal with a career in this reality is to actually deal with this change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“My advice to you is not only to adapt, but to learn to anticipate, so you can prepare your organization for the future. I don’t think we can secure Canada’s future as a prosperous and diverse country if we continue to do all the same things. The world is changing, and so must we. We must find innovative and truly ambitious ideas and policies to continue to be the wonderful country that we are. If you aspire to this, then life and careers get interesting, fun and truly meaningful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a sex worker was raped in 1970s Istanbul, she had nowhere to turn.  As in many countries, Turkey\u2019s legal system questioned the integrity of the victim. A conviction seemed unlikely, but Yaprak Baltacio\u011flu\u2019s father took on the case anyway.  He won the case at the Supreme Court, and it established a precedent for how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":54128,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28],"cu_story_tag":[1921],"class_list":["post-54114","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-public-and-global-affairs"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/54114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/54114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97788,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/54114\/revisions\/97788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=54114"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=54114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}