September 2023 entrance ceremonies held at the Waseda Arena
Fri, Sep 29, 2023-
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On September 23, the entrance ceremonies for new undergraduates and graduate students were held at the Waseda Arena. As many who joined us this September are international students and Japanese returnees from overseas, the ceremonies were conducted completely in English.
442 new students have started their lives as Waseda University students! Another 688 students have entered graduate school in order to further their education and will contribute to the ever-continuing development of higher learning.
As part of the University’s coronavirus preventative measures, only incoming students were invited to participate in the ceremonies. Live broadcast was held online for those who were unable to participate in person.
During the ceremony, Waseda University President Aiji Tanaka took to the stage to make his address to all incoming students:
“On behalf of Waseda University, I am delighted to welcome all incoming students to Waseda University today, September 23, 2023. Congratulations on your entrance to Waseda University. I extend my heartfelt congratulations also, of course, to your parents, other family members, and friends.
Waseda University has a tradition of encouraging student diversity. Since my inauguration as the president of Waseda in November 2018, I have stressed the importance of “flexible sensitivity,” which is the ability to accept, understand, and respect people of different nationalities, ethnicities, languages, religions, cultures, creeds, physical conditions, gender, and sexual orientation from your own. Please foster your “flexible sensitivity” while you are at Waseda.
We faculty members and administrative staff pledge to do our very best to provide you with an educational environment that will allow you to graduate with the confidence to contribute to human society around the globe. Please study hard while you are at Waseda, but at the same time, enjoy your student life. When you graduate from this university, I hope you will have found at least one thing to which you are determined to devote yourself.”
For the full speech of President Aiji Tanaka
After that, Robert Campbell, University professor at Waseda University and an advisor for The Waseda International House of Literature (The Haruki Murakami Library) delivered a congratulatory address to the students.
“The first words all of you need to hear today should be shouted out in a clear voice: Congratulations to each and every one sitting in front of me! Unqualified, unvarnished, spelled out in caps and crystal clear CONGRATULATIONS!
Waseda University is a great place to study, because of the faculty and because of the diverse body of students for sure; and as you’ll discover, the facilities are amazing also. I myself am a professor of the humanities, which means I spend a lot of my time searching for old books in the stacks of the Central Library or watching century-old films at the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum. Sometimes you can find me drinking coffee while I read a translation of Haruki Murakami’s novels at our brand new Waseda International House of Literature, just a few minutes’ walk across campus from here. The donuts are super delicious by the way – I recommend you try them as soon as you can with your friends.
Studying at the university is one great way to gain many of the skills we need in order to build our careers, and to make important decisions as voters, consumers, parents or teachers of the next generation to follow us here on this impossibly polarized, endangered planet. And there is a synergy involved here, an opportunity for each of us gathered today, to expand and to cultivate our understanding of this world through direct contact and action – whether that action be a simple walk by yourself up a steep hill to retrace and envision the lives of men and women who walked on the same path hundreds of years ago, or to reach out even further, beyond the campus gates, into areas of society we’ve only heard of or glimpsed at through digital space.
Words can be translated into action, and actions have the power either to harm or to heal us. The next four years will lead you towards a career, and will help shape your view of the world in ways, hopefully, that will bring you closer to the joys and to the challenges felt by others at great distances of time and culture and space. I say hopefully because the world will be waiting for these words of yours, and certainly for the actions you take. Good luck every step of the way.”
For the full congratulatory address by Robert Campbell
