Address at the 2019 Kochi University and Graduate School Entrance Ceremony
To all students who have been admitted to Kochi University and Kochi University Graduate School: Congratulations on your admission. On behalf of the current students, faculty, and staff, I extend our warmest congratulations and a heartfelt welcome.
To all parents: Congratulations. We offer our sincere congratulations.
We would also like to express our gratitude to our distinguished guests and all those involved who have taken time out of their busy schedules to join us today. On behalf of Kochi University, I would like to thank you all.
As of today, you have become members of Kochi University. You are now part of “Team Kochi University.” Everyone who belongs to this community is a comrade, a brother or sister, and a friend with whom you can learn and grow together.Kochi University is committed to “practicing education that is responsible to both students and society, and to sending students out into the world as independent members of society and future leaders.” From now on, please feel free to consult with us about anything—whether faculty, staff, or fellow students—without hesitation.
To all of you who have just entered university: you are like raw gemstones that have just been unearthed and have yet to be polished. Through your studies here, I hope you will acquire practical knowledge and experience. Please polish yourselves thoroughly through the classroom instruction, fieldwork, and practical exercises offered by our university’s community-based collaborative education program. And please do your best to shine brilliantly.
Graduate students are like gemstones that have been polished to some extent, but you are still just beginning your journey as researchers. Through your studies and research in graduate school, strive to refine yourselves daily so that you may become gemstones with precise cuts and radiate the brilliant light of independent researchers.
Our information society is advancing and evolving at a rapid pace. I have one request for all of you who will be shaping this new era: please do not accept any information at face value. With such a vast amount of information available, it is undoubtedly difficult to determine which sources are the most reliable. This is especially true for information found online, where content of varying quality is intermingled. Therefore, please make it a habit to check multiple sources before accepting a single search result as fact.Information from newspapers and books is no exception. Please use it with the understanding that the author’s biases may be at play.
Kochi University aims to become a “Super Regional University”—a national university deeply rooted in the local community that evolves continuously, connecting the region to the world and the world to the region, through development in partnership with the community. The educational restructuring that began with the establishment of the Faculty of Regional Collaboration in 2015 has now reached a milestone. These reforms were designed to equip the university with the engine needed to become a “Super Regional University.”
Unlike other universities, our graduate school is organized as a single graduate school, creating a structure that facilitates interdisciplinary education and research through the integration of the humanities and sciences. Naturally, numerous achievements in cutting-edge fields have been published. In the THE World University Rankings, Kochi University has been ranked within the top 5% of more than 20,000 universities worldwide for three consecutive years. While only the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University are ranked within the top 100, Kochi University is among the top tier of universities in Japan.In particular, it can be said that Kochi University is a university with strong research capabilities among regional universities. As students and graduate students of Kochi University, please take pride in this fact and devote yourselves to your studies. Following the reorganization of the undergraduate schools, in 2018, we established a professional degree program—commonly known as a graduate school of education—within the Graduate School of Integrated Human and Natural Sciences. We are currently planning educational organizational reforms starting in 2020, with the aim of further enhancing and developing our graduate school.
Please look forward to the continued growth of Kochi University.
And right at the heart of it all, make sure to hone your skills.
Let me say it again.
Congratulations on your admission.
Welcome to Super Regional University.
April 3, 2019
Kochi University
President Katsutoshi Sakurai