平成25年度秋季入学式総長式辞

| 東京大学歴代総長メッセージ集(第29代)インデックスへ |

式辞・告辞集 平成25年度秋季入学式総長式辞

Address of the President of the University of Tokyo
at the Autumn-Semester Matriculation Ceremony 2013
 

Welcome to the University of Tokyo. On behalf of all the staff of the University, I would like to welcome you and extend our heartfelt congratulations to all of you who have entered this University. I sincerely hope that you will lead a fulfilling life in the world of academia―a source of personal growth and inspiration. I would also like to express my congratulations and gratitude to your families who supported you, both financially and with affection, on the journey that brought you here today.

 

The total number of students entering our graduate schools this autumn is 520. Of which, there are 253 in master’s courses, 226 in doctor’s courses, and 41 in professional degree courses. Among them, international students account for almost 70% of the total. In addition, we are joined by students taking part in a scheme called PEAK―Programs in English at Komaba. This is the first undergraduate degree program of the University of Tokyo to be taught entirely in English. We started the program last year, and this year we have accepted 23 applicants from around the world to become the second group of PEAK students. I have great expectations that you will bring a new wave of strength and diversity to education and research at this University. As newly admitted students, you may find yourselves bewildered by a new environment at the beginning. I hope, however, that you will capitalize on your individuality and contribute to forming a vibrant and intellectual community, where both you and your colleagues will make substantial academic and personal progress.

 

As you all know, our society is burdened with many complex and diverse challenges. The current era is often described as one that has no model to which we can refer for solutions. That lack of a model offers enormous opportunities to institutions such as universities, while at the same time requiring universities to take on major roles. In other words, if existing technologies, institutions, and social mechanisms for solving problems are not sufficient, people will have expectations of solutions emerging at institutions where new knowledge and wisdom can be created. Universities are prime examples of such institutions. This is particularly true of those, including you, who engage in research at the graduate schools of the University of Tokyo. You can take pride in having the responsibility to respond to such expectations of our times, and of offering service to society.

 

I have just used the words: offering service to society. Those words normally remind one of activities that can deliver concrete results directly to society. As symbolized by the word, innovation, intense industrial competition today surely requires universities to undertake such activities. Universities should use all of their resources to take up this challenge. At the same time, however, it is a strength of universities that the results they produce take different forms, which, in the long run, carry more significance. They are a free and critical mind, curiosity, and the joy of seeking truth, naturally associated with study and research at universities. Sustaining such a spirit at a corner of society is one of the great values universities and academic studies have to offer. I believe society, which respects such a spirit and makes such a spirit universal, is capable of overcoming a wide range of difficult challenges and creating a new era.

 

Not only in the world of academia but also in everyday work and life, aspirations for such ultimate objectives as authenticity and truth underlie actions to meet new challenges, in whatever form they might take, and so achieve continuous improvements. I believe people can continue working toward their dreams without feeling content with the status quo, because they harbor ideals about authenticity and truth, whether consciously or unconsciously. In that sense, if a society fails to trust and value symbolic thoughts for elucidating authenticity or searching for truth, it will lose the strength to develop an era for tomorrow. Here lies the starting point and ultimate goal of your commitment to undertake research at graduate school. You can take pride in a sincere approach to research, not only because it will generate concrete results but also because it reproduces principles that form the spiritual foundations of a growing society. They are both surely a service to society.

 

I would now like to talk to you about the importance of liberal arts studies, while we think about focusing on authenticity with a free mind. Prior to undertaking specialized studies at a university, pursuing liberal arts is necessary in order to understand the rich and all-embracing world of academia. However, that is not all. Pursuing liberal arts is also significant enough to be continued as a lifetime activity, and is important during your time at graduate school. Because research today is often interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary, we are reminded on various occasions of the need to pursue liberal arts, thus building an extensive foundation of knowledge. And, to expand that foundation even after we move on to specialized fields of study. In our society, which features increasing complexity and scale in many aspects, as you work to solve real-life problems, more often than before, you will be required to collaborate with people in a number of fields of study. In this sense, while exploring your specialized fields at graduate school, it is important not to neglect efforts to expand your knowledge and seek greater wisdom.

 

At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, pursuing liberal arts means cultivating the free and critical mind that should be associated with study and research. Graduate school research tends to focus on specific themes and methods. Meanwhile, having opportunities to encounter different ways of thinking in various other specialized fields does not simply increase the amount of your own knowledge. It leads you to learn how to observe different things, how to select different issues, how to take different approaches, and how to make judgments based on different values from those with which you are already familiar. By doing so, you will be able to foster freer and more critical minds. Through the pursuit of liberal arts, and by seeking inspiration from other fields of study, or from the thoughts of others, or from the systems of other countries, or from history, you will be able to reflect on the content of your own theories, thoughts, and methods from various perspectives. Through this reflective process, people and studies can progress. You are expected to experience the profound and expansive world of academia at graduate school much more than during your time as an undergraduate. My sincere hope is that you will take full advantage of your time at graduate school―that you do not settle for a conventional or formal understanding of your subjects, but penetrate their essences, and further build into your personalities a free and critical mind.

 

A personality molded with a free and critical mind―that is the ideal model of what you are expected to become. In this context, I would like to say one more thing to you all before closing my address. What you make public as the results of your research are integral parts of your personalities, and I sincerely hope that you are clearly aware of what that means. Whether it is an academic paper or research presentation, the act of making something public means expressing part of your personality to others. When you publish the results of your research, if you choose an easy path through the unattributed use of the research of others, or have insufficient materials and data to verify your findings, you are damaging your own personality. The human spirit is not a simple mechanism that receives information and transfers it to others like a parrot. Being a human being is to have a creative spirit. In other words, accompanying the action of presenting research results, you have to engage personally in the process of seeking new ways of thinking, new logical approaches, new concepts, new words, and new evidence. With the intervention of such a spirit, people and studies can grow, and creativity becomes possible.

 

The activity of engaging in research often resembles a battle with oneself, much more than a struggle with research objectives and themes. All of you present here today have my expectations and hopes that you will set ambitious targets in future studies, and that from your research will emerge excellent results, driven by specialized knowledge, by wide-ranging liberal arts, and by the power of your entire personalities.

Junichi Hamada
President
The University of Tokyo

 

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