ARTICLES
Fourth UTokyo Strategic Partnership Symposium
Date of activity: March 6, 2018
The Fourth UTokyo Strategic Partnership Symposium was held in the Koshiba Hall, Hongo Campus on Tuesday, March 6, 2018. Members from UTokyo’s strategic partnership universities and from the other Japanese universities selected for MEXT’s Top Global University Project attended the symposium along with faculty, staff, and students from UTokyo. The total number of participants came to around 100.
UTokyo has been organizing cross-departmental projects called the “Strategic Partnerships UTokyo” with selected overseas partner universities since October 2014. These relationships are designed to promote diverse and interdisciplinary research and educational exchanges by taking advantage of the strength of each university as well as integrating existing activities in each department or field.
As part of the symposium, following the Keynote Speech by Prof. Naoto Sekimura (Vice President, UTokyo), UTokyo students gave presentations in English about their experiences and what they learned in the following exchange programs with our strategic partnership universities that they participated in: UTokyo/ANU Exchange, PKU-UTokyo Summer Program, and UTokyo-MIT-Industry Collaborative Course.
This was followed by a panel discussion “What are the Roles of ‘English Language’ for Universities in Non-English Speaking Regions?” with Prof. Takashi Mino (Professor, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, UTokyo) moderating the discussion with the five panelists: Prof. Suiyan Fu (Director, Office of Educational Administration, Peking University), Assoc. Prof. Meeri Hellstén (Department of Education, Stockholm University), Prof. Takane Ito (Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, UTokyo), Prof. Hiroaki Suga (Graduate School of Science, UTokyo), and Assoc. Prof. Yuto Kitamura (Graduate School of Education, UTokyo). The following three specific aspects were mainly discussed by the panel:
- what are advantages and disadvantages of providing education in English for universities in non-English speaking regions,
- how the meaning of using English as education media can be different among different education levels (undergraduate vs postgraduate), different disciplines (social science vs natural science, basic science vs applied academic field of study, single-discipline oriented vs interdisciplinary), or any other different types of education, and how these differences can be affected by local cultures and regional characteristics, and
- how faculty development activities should be organized in universities in non-English speaking regions.
The summary from the panel discussion can be found HERE.
The symposium was a great opportunity to exchange mutual experiences as leading universities in non-English speaking regions and discuss good practices as well as common problems of mutual interest, and thereby contribute to strengthening our excellent educational and research capacity further. Related URL
Panel Discussion 
Keynote speech by Prof. Naoto Sekimura (Vice President, UTokyo) 
Presentations by UTokyo students
