March 31, 2020
Presidents Message for New Students【2020】
What Does It Mean to Conduct Doctoral Dissertation Research at SOKENDAI?
Congratulations on your admission to SOKENDAI. Normally, we would have you come to SOKENDAI's main campus at Hayama for the entrance ceremony, followed by three nights and four days of the Freshman Course. Unfortunately, because the spread of novel coronavirus infections since January of this year has yet to be contained, the entrance ceremony at Hayama had to be canceled. Being unable to meet and speak with everyone face-to-face is truly unfortunate.
Our university is a graduate university made of research centers, or Inter-University Research Institutes, scattered throughout Japan. While the Department of Evolutionary Studies of Biosystems in the School of Advanced Sciences is located in Hayama, it is highly unlikely that any of you will ever come to the Hayama campus unless you are a graduate student in that program. For most of you, the admission and graduation ceremonies are probably the only time you would come to Hayama. Since the entrance ceremony at Hayama is one of those two rare chances, it is truly unfortunate that we have been unable to hold it here. I do hope that we will find a way soon to organize the Freshman Course, as it brings students together across disciplines. It is something to look forward to.
As a graduate university, our university has no undergraduate division and is organized around research centers. The research environment you will soon experience is a very different one from that of graduate schools at a typical university. The research centers that are home to your departments are all places where leading world-class research is being conducted. Some of them possess large-size equipment that no single university would and engage in large-scale projects with researchers from countries around the world. Others focus on research projects that are not so massive in scale. Either way, these are all places where cutting-edge research is being conducted by top scholars in their field.
All of you will soon find yourselves thrown into such an environment. For those of you admitted to the five-year course, having just graduated from an undergraduate program, rest assured that you will have lectures in core subjects; but you should also expect to be treated as "fledgling researchers" from the very start. Because there is no undergraduate faculty, there will be no one below you, nor will there be the kind of leisure facilities for students that many universities have. On the other hand, you will have access to a research environment that would be inconceivable at a typical university elsewhere. I hope that you put that advantage to full use and take pride in the fact that you are treated as fledgling researchers from the start.
The university endeavors to ensure that everyone's research environment is the best. We also do as much as we can to support your daily life environment, by offering consultations of various kinds and listening to you. If an issue arises and it is not one that you feel can be resolved within your department, please consult with the headquarters at any time.
As I mentioned, the research centers that are home to our university's departments are places that conduct cutting-edge research in their respective fields. Departments also have the mission of cultivating successors at the fore of those fields. At the same time, transcending existing disciplines and pioneering new research is important to the further growth of scholarship in the future. For that reason, our university offers internal joint advising, through which advising is sought from faculty in departments outside one's own, and international joint degree programs, through which advising is sought from faculty at overseas universities and research centers. Additionally, we provide opportunities to spend extended time at overseas research institutions engaged in research or in overseas internships, without necessarily seeking international joint advising. I hope all of you will consider the possibility of participating in these ambitious programs. Our university provides as much support as possible to graduate students with such ambitions. While SOKENDAI has 20 departments, I would ask that you look across them to see what kind of deeply interesting research might emerge if you were to conduct research together with this or that one.
Since its founding, SOKENDAI has had the goal of cultivating researchers with advanced expertise, broad perspective, and international competitiveness. What do we mean by "advanced expertise"? By this, we mean someone who is fully versed in the state of research in their research field. It is something you will naturally acquire as you conduct research in your department.
Next, what do we mean by "broad perspective"? I take this NOT to mean acquiring a breadth of knowledge in various academic disciplines. Disciplines have grown more segmented, with research in individual fields now increasingly specialized, making it impossible to fully acquire knowledge of them all. If you can say that you have knowledge about biology, physics, literature and history, it is excellent, and of course, those bodies of knowledge are important. That said, the essence of "broad perspective" goes beyond merely "knowing." Rather, it means being able to discuss one's research from a high-level perspective not limited to one's own discipline, with an understanding of intellectual work in general regarding questions, for instance, about the general nature of the work of academic research and what it means to think critically about existing knowledge.
Without venturing outside the walls of your own department, you may find it difficult to acquire broad perspective in this sense. While you may soon feel that your own research is as much as you can handle, I would ask that you always keep in mind this idea of "broad perspective."
Lastly, what is "international competitiveness"? In today's academic world, English has become the dominant language. A generation ago, international competitiveness might have meant the ability to present and discuss your own research in English at an international conference. That still remains important, of course, but it is no longer enough. Today, in many research fields, joint research between people of various countries is now the norm. At SOKENDAI, a full 34 percent of graduate students are international students. Once you graduate, people will expect you to take an active role globally, not just in Japan, but anywhere.
When that time comes, you will need an understanding of and respect for the diversity of the wide-ranging cultures that exist around the globe, as well as your own set of beliefs. Having beliefs of one's own does not make a person self-righteous. Rather, it means being able to explain, to people who hold beliefs different from your own, why you hold the beliefs that you do; and it means working alongside one another with an acceptance of the differences that exist between your beliefs. Having just started at the university today, it may be difficult for you to have a tangible sense of what this means. Still, as you carry out your research at the university, please give this some thought as well.
The Freshman Course that was to follow the entrance ceremony would have been an opportunity for you to have many discussions around three main topics--fields of research, as introduced by graduate students ahead of you in the program; the relationship between researchers and society; and researcher-specific techniques of writing and presenting. The Freshman Course offers a chance to reflect on what it is to be a researcher regardless of one's field of research and is a space for building ties among you across departments. While we are unable to hold the event at Hayama on this occasion, I still hope that you can come together to discuss such things.
In closing, let me again congratulate you on your admission today. You have my best wishes as you begin what, I am sure, will be very fruitful research.
Mariko Hasegawa, President,
The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI