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President Kamata’s Address: Delivered at Spring 2013 Entrance Ceremony for Graduate Students

Thu, Apr 25, 2013
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New Waseda freshman students, congratulation on your entering Waseda Graduate Schools!

On behalf of Waseda University, I would like to express my sincere congratulations to all Waseda freshmen, their parents, and other parties concerned.

I am so proud to say that 3,386 students in total entered Waseda Graduate Schools, including 2,307 Master’s degree students, 738 Professional degree students, and 341 Doctor’s degree students. I also note that 406 Master’s degree students and 100 Doctor’s degree students enrolled last September.

It is such a great pleasure for all of us in Waseda to welcome many passionate students not only from Japan but from all over the world.

Kaoru Kamata

Kaoru Kamata

Recently, the number of students advanced to Waseda Graduate Schools has rapidly increased. This April, we saw a slight decrease of 42 Professional degree students in 6 Graduate Schools and 15 Doctor’s degree students in 17 Graduate Schools, respectively, compared with last April. On the other hand, we saw an increase of 111 Master’s degree students in total in 18 Graduate Schools, including enrollment of 54 students in Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies which was established in this academic year. Therefore, the total number of Graduate School students enrolled was up by 54.

There are some reasons why more and more students have advanced to graduate schools. Today’s society is “knowledge-oriented society” where the new knowledge, information, and technology are much more important in every field of society including politics, economy, and culture as a base for activity. Also, graduate universities play a critical part in forming personalities and in planning national strategies such as development and promotion of society/economy/culture, and securement of international competitiveness. Nevertheless, compared with other countries, the ratio of Master’s recipient per 100,000 persons in Japan accounts for only one fifth of that in U.K., and as for Doctor’s degree recipients, it accounts for less than half. Especially, the ratio of corporate researchers with Doctor’s degree in Japan accounts for only a quarter of that in Austria or Belgian. Also, Taiwan and Turkey have more nationals with those degrees than Japan. The problems is that Japan provides people with only limited opportunities to learn again to steadily nurture more sophisticated expertise. Therefore, raising significantly those chances is a must.

Given these facts, Japanese government (MEXT) offers programs for enhancing education in graduate schools including “Global COE Program”, “Program for Enhancing Systematic Education in Graduate Schools” and “Program for Leading Graduate Schools”.

Waseda University has also utilized these programs and set up a graduate school to be shared with many graduate schools of professional degree and universities inside and outside of Japan to expand graduate school education. Moreover, we aim to raise the number of graduate school students from the current 10,000 to 15,000 and boost university extension from 35,000 to 50,000 by our 150th anniversary in 2032 under the mid-to-long-term plan “Waseda Vision 150” launched last November.

Recently, in terms of strengthening industrial competitiveness, Waseda is keen on improving graduate school education programs for nurturing human resources who can build business model taking into account both technology and management. With regards to Waseda Law School , the situation is severe because fewer people than the numerical target are applying for law schools and has passed the bar exam. As a whole, I can say we expect our graduate school students to do better than before.

It is true that we slightly hesitate to stress only the strengthening of industrial competitiveness at this moment. The Great East Japan Earthquake and the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant unveiled the limitation of science and technology and the problems of the current social system. Then, research groups started to share the idea that they should review the purpose of pursuing study and research.

At the entrance ceremony of Undergraduate Schools, Dr. Mikihito Ishiki, Director of Iwate Prefectural Takata Hospital in Rikuzentakata City, Iwate Prefecture, gave the undergraduate freshmen a heartfelt message. Dr. Ishiki got qualified as a medical doctor after graduating from our School of Science and Engineering. The function of his hospital completely collapsed while he was on duty due to the devastating tsunami entailed by the earthquake. Even though he was uneasy as his family was missing, he immediately set up a temporary clinic to maintain medical services in the afflicted area.

There is another hero; Mitsuru Sato, Sales Executive of Sato Suisan Co., Ltd. in Onagawa City, Miyagi Prefecture. When the Great East Japan Earthquake hit and tsunami approached, Mr. Sato immediately had his Chinese trainees evacuate to the hill, and then he was swallowed by tsunami in front of the trainees as he tried to go back to his office to search for his family. Many Waseda alumni showed their spirits of self-sacrifice and social contribution, which moved people all over the world.

With these stories in mind, we should never forget a series of lessons we learned in the wake of the 3.11 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, especially -as Waseda’s mission stresses- the lesson that we should build up a character which enables one to utilize the results of study and research for the people and the society, not for his or her own sake or benefits of a certain party, and to regard the realization of human happiness as his or her ultimate goal. And we must pass on these lessons to the next generation.

On the other hand, we strongly expect all of you to make constant progress to achieve your goal, now that you advanced to the paramount higher educational institution in Japan!

Our founder, Shigenobu Okuma would often say “Young men, set a vision, be courageous, and make progress” to the students. Waseda’s school song has the words “Eternal Aim” and “Eternal Goal” which indicates that having ideals and dreams makes human beings lively and better.

I think the courage in his words “be courageous” means a moral courage. It is not easy to keep your justice and live your life morally without surrendering to authority, compromising easily, or being swayed by immediate benefit. “Anti-elitist philosophy”, which is often mentioned as a characteristic of Waseda students, can also mean the moral courage backed by independence and critical thinking.

Okuma’s idea “Make progress or you will regress” has something to do with “enterprising spirit”. Okuma also said “Stop means death” To develop learning, you need to doubt everything and have a mindset of bravely challenging anything in search for truth, instead of accepting and being convinced by a given theory.

Here, to tell you the mindset of progress, I would like to quote the words of Nobuo Naora, an archaeologist who once served as a professor of our School of Science and Engineering.

Mr. Naora graduated from the night school of then Iwakura Railway School (the current Iwakura High School) after taking the correspondent course of Waseda Junior High School. He was an ordinary archaeologist with such a rare academic background, but in 1931 in Akashi City, Hyogo Prefecture, he discovered some human fossil bone estimated to be the one in the Old Stone Age. However, the news of “Akashi man” discovery was disregarded by academism, so he had to suffer ridicule from society until his discovery was appreciated to some extent after World War II. After the discovery, he was taught by Waseda’s professor, Shigeyasu Tokunaga, got a Doctor of Literature, and then assumed a professor position at Waseda University. He is the model for a protagonist of “Ishi-no-hone”, a novel written by Seicho Matsumoto.

Mr. Naora says as follows in his book.

“I want to say to young people. Be courageous and confident about what you do and what you learn. You cannot have courage and confidence if you always care about the opinions of your mentors or your seniors. You should not always revere foreign researches. I strongly hope you will study very hard and, given what you learned, have courage and confidence to openly and loudly advocate what you believe is right.”

I am sure every freshman in this hall will play a very important role in society as researchers or business persons. As Waseda’s mission says, I would like all of you to make every effort for your study and research and always make progress so that you can lead the people and take advantage of what you learned at Waseda for the people and the society in the future.

I would like to close my speech by extending my sincerest wishes for your fruitful Graduate School life.

Welcome to Waseda! Thank you.


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