2008 Academic Year: Address at the Kochi University Entrance Ceremony
To all new students: Congratulations on your admission.
We are delighted to welcome all of you who have successfully overcome these challenges to our university. We believe that your vitality and youthful energy will invigorate our campus, and we look forward to nurturing the talent our times demand and advancing research and scholarship. On behalf of the entire faculty and staff, we extend a warm welcome to you all.
I am sure your family is also very pleased, and I extend my heartfelt congratulations to them. I would also like to express my gratitude to our distinguished guests for joining us today.
Now that you have become college students, on this day of the entrance ceremony, I hope you will bid farewell to the familiar routine of exam preparation that defined your days until yesterday. I urge each of you to take this opportunity to reflect on yourselves, to take personal responsibility for your own development, and to strive to cultivate habits that will hold significant meaning in your lives. In other words, now that you have transitioned from high school students to college students, I want you to be keenly aware that you have entered a period in which you will build a solid foundation for your future lives.
I want you to recognize that the student life you are about to embark on at Kochi University is a precious and truly luxurious time in your lives—one that will never come again. I want you to use your time here to take on challenges that no one else is undertaking. This is an exceptionally unique period in your lives when even failure will not deal a fatal blow to your future. Today marks the beginning of a life worthy of the elite—a life in which such challenges are permitted. Think back to your life as a prospective student up until yesterday.Your exam preparation was, after all, a continuous series of days spent doing exactly what everyone else was doing. Break free from the habit of following others, and strive to live a life grounded in true freedom and discipline. By the time you graduate, I hope you will be able to clearly reflect on the significance of the challenges you have undertaken.
Kochi University, a National University Corporation, is striving to meet the demands of our time by nurturing the elite who will lead Japan into the 21st century. We fully recognize the need for university reform—or CHANGE—as demanded by society, and view this moment as a unique and unparalleled OPPORTUNITY. Without hesitation, we are boldly taking on this CHALLENGE to CREATE a Kochi University worthy of the 21st century.
Let us all take this day to heart as the day we take the first step toward creating a new version of ourselves and a new university.
In the hope that you will shape your own campus life so that it is filled with hope and fulfillment from this day forward, I conclude my address as president.
April 3, 2008
Kochi University, a National University Corporation, President Yusuke Sagara