Message from the Dean of the Graduate Schools
Let’s Learn Together! Toward the Rebirth of Knowledge
The Development of Meiji University Graduate Schools
Last year, Meiji University celebrated the 130th year since its establishment in 1881. The graduate schools, which started in 1952, celebrate their 60th anniversary this year. Our graduates have gone on to succeed in various fields both in Japan and overseas. Many of our doctoral program graduates, in particular, are taking on leading roles in different academic circles, and young researchers are active at universities and research institutions nationwide. The graduate schools of Meiji University flourished, for a long time, as seven schools based on the Schools of Law, Commerce, Political Science and Economics, Arts and Letters, Science and Technology, Agriculture, and Business Administration. In recent years, we have added the Graduate School of Information and Communication and the Graduate School of Humanities. Furthermore, the Graduate School of Advanced Mathematical Sciences and the Graduate School of Global Japanese Studies were established in the last fiscal year and this fiscal year respectively, bringing the number of research based graduate schools at Meiji University to 11. The Meiji University graduate schools are cultivating the new seeds of development upon the university’s long tradition and history.
Characteristics of Meiji University Graduate Schools
In today’s advanced knowledge society, it has become effectively impossible to pass down the knowledge of the highest institutions of learning through means of undergraduate school education alone. As Japan continues to experience a low birth rate and high level of education, we have entered an age in which the total number of university places exceeds the total number of university applicants, and graduate school education has become increasingly important. In this respect, Meiji University graduate schools have initiated various measures that will serve as precedents for Japan’s graduate school reforms, such as unified education programs at the School and Graduate School of Science and Technology, a double master program at the Graduate School of Business Administration in collaboration with the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, overseas school partnerships advanced by all graduate schools, and lectures held in English to respond to internationalization.
Furthermore, life at the graduate school, which can last for two to five years after completing undergraduate education, takes a severe financial toll on students. Meiji University has, from early on, established various scholarship programs and paid research and teaching assistantships, as well as grant aids for presentations and participation at academic conferences. Through such programs, Meiji University continues efforts to provide extensive assistance measures in line with graduate school students’ needs.
Delivering New Knowledge from Meiji University Graduate Schools!
Today, the question of what we should do to restore trust in technology and scientific knowledge—undermined by the Great East Japan Earthquake—is being posed, in natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences alike. This is a huge task that has been sprung upon, not only university faculty and researchers, but graduate school students as well. An examination of the great disaster and reconstruction measures are not simple problems for politics and the government; they are academic tasks in which all academic fields and all sciences must focus every effort on as they engage in a process of fundamental reexamination.
I believe the responsibility of the generation that created today’s technology-based civilization is to communicate without misrepresentation the true picture of modern science to the next generation so that they do not make the same mistakes. We must also assist the next generation to envision their lives, society, and world through their own determination and knowledge. Meiji University graduate schools aim to remain a place and opportunity to do so. Let us, the Meiji University graduate schools, deliver new knowledge and wisdom to create the next generation to the world.
Dean of the Graduate School
OGASAWARA Eiji
