2011 Kochi University Entrance Ceremony Address
Congratulations to all new students on your admission to Kochi University.
After many years of hard work, the faculty, staff, and current students of this university extend a warm welcome to all of you who have been accepted today.
I hope your family is also enjoying a very satisfying spring. I would like to express my gratitude to all our guests for joining us today.
More than a decade has passed since the dawn of the 21st century, yet an extraordinary state of confusion persists in a wide variety of settings—not only in Japan but across virtually every sphere of the world. At the root of this, we observe a severe erosion of the spirit of reverence for nature and respect for humanity.
Currently in Japan, there is growing public interest in the nature of education. I believe that this interest stems from the question of what kind of higher education environment is appropriate for national universities, viewed from the perspective of education as a fundamental human endeavor—specifically, what is required for Japan and the Japanese people to be treated with trust and respect by the international community.
As we earnestly respond to this challenge, Kochi University, reborn as a National University Corporation, continues to move forward. As the first president, I now extend the call for the “Four Cs”—which I have previously issued to the entire university—to you, our new students, here and now.
In other words, I urge you to fully recognize the transformation—CHANGE—that society demands. As you begin your studies today at the entrance ceremony, view this moment as a golden opportunity—CHANCE—and, without undue fear, boldly take on challenges—CHALLENGE. Use your time as students at Kochi University to prepare yourselves and shape your character so that you may, with your own hands, CREATE a paradigm befitting the 21st century—your era.For it is none other than you, the students, who will be the elite leading Japan into the 21st century.
I strongly hope that you, the students who are the heart and soul of Kochi University, will take these four Cs—CHANGE, CHANCE, CHALLENGE, and CREATE—to heart. Here at Kochi University, a place dedicated to the creation and transmission of knowledge grounded in practical learning, I look forward to seeing you grow into the elite professionals that tomorrow’s society demands.
From today, you are university students. You are no longer schoolchildren. Schoolchildren are those who are taught in school, but university students are those who make use of the university to seek out their own challenges and strive to learn on their own. Those who expect to be taught will surely be disappointed.The question is not what the university will do for you, but what you yourselves will seek from the university and how you will spend your campus life starting today. Please make the most of this opportunity to be a university student—one that will never come again in your lives—and welcome the day of your graduation.A university education is not limited to lectures delivered from the podium. Its true significance lies in the fact that people from different generations gather to learn, debate, inspire one another, and grow together. The day when we send you forth as the 21st-century talent and elite that society seeks and expects will be a milestone in the history of Kochi University, which moves forward under the banner of the Four Cs.
It is my hope that each of you, from your own perspective and with a sense of responsibility, will spend your days on campus in a joyful and fulfilling manner as you grow into individuals worthy of the 21st century. With these words, I offer my address as President to the incoming class of 2011.
April 3, 2011
Kochi University, a National University Corporation, President Yusuke Sagara