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Message from the President
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New Year Message
Naohiro Soga, President
Happy New Year!
It is my great pleasure to send this message in the beginning of the year 2012.
Last year the gigantic East Japan Earthquake and tsunami wiped out towns and cities along the coast and destroyed Fukushima nuclear plants. Also a heavy rainfall in Kiihanto peninsula induced landslides, causing many casualties. These happenings made us realize not only the threat of natural disasters but also the limit as well as the risk of man-made structures. In order to restore the damaged areas and reconstruct Japanese society, it is important for the university to carry out earnestly its three major missions: education, research and social contribution.
In April, we start the next mid-term plan to fulfill the second mid-term objectives set by Shiga prefecture. They require us to become “University to be chosen ”, "University with high satisfaction" and “University to be proud of”. Since we have been claiming to be “Daigaku Sanpo-yoshi ”, delivering satisfaction in three ways for students, the university, and the community, which reflects traditional Ohmi merchant's spirit, our next plan should include such items and practices as all three of those concerned recognize our university to be certainly equal to our claim.
In the next mid-term objectives, the internationalization of the university has been added to the current three main roles of the university. This stems from the critical situation our society is facing, in which globalization is taking place even with man-power as many Japanese companies are hiring capable foreigners increasingly in recent years, while Japanese young people are not keeping up with the internationalization of society. Many accredited universities in the world measure their achievement by “what ability students have attained at the university”, but most Japanese universities are not eager to follow this major world trend because the seniority system still remains in Japan and on-the job-training after employment has been given priority to university education. As a result, Japanese university graduates are being left behind in the world. This is clearly shown by the drastic decrease in the number of Japanese students studying in USA, particularly graduate students. In the year 1996/1997, about 47,000 Japanese students were studying in USA, which was the largest number from Asian countries, but the number started to decrease in the year 2002/2003. In the last three years, the decreasing rate was 14 to 15%, and the number has been reduced to about 21,000 in the year 2010/2011, which is 1/3 of Korean students or 1/5 of Chinese students. The particularly striking fact is that the graduate students consist of only 20% of those Japanese students, which is quite low compared with Chinese(66%), Indian(72%) or Korean(36%) students. Probably, Japanese students are scared of the American graduate school system where students are forced to study hard on basic academic subjects in addition to their chosen specialty, while in many Japanese graduate schools a PhD degree is awarded based on research achievement carried out at a student's own pace. Generally speaking, Japanese university graduates cannot prove their academic ability sufficient enough to be accepted by American graduate schools due to their low TOEFL or GRE score.
In order for Japanese students to obtain the academic ability acceptable world-wide, the strict practice of credit awarding is essential, and consequently a 15-week-lesson in a semester for one credit has been enforced by the government. Although many universities including our university followed this practice, it has not resulted in promoting students' self-directed study and improving academic ability. One reason why students' study hours are not secured in Japanese universities is that students are not instructed systematically following a detailed syllabus which helps students to prepare before attending a class and to carry out discussions in the class. Another reason is a failure in motivating students' enthusiasm for learning in class. This situation can be improved by putting in action the feed-back system of students' class evaluation and faculty's mutual observation of their classes. To make students' self-directed study more effective, the Subdivision on University in Central Council for Education is now taking an action toward credit substantiation by ensuring the 45 hours of study for one credit. This is one of the important points of the next mid-term plan.
In order for the university to be internationalized, it is important to create an environment which makes it easy and comfortable not only for its students to go abroad for study, but also for foreign students to come to Japan. As for the former, the Department of Intercultural Communications starting in the School of Human Culture in April aims at giving students intensive lessons in foreign languages necessary for study abroad during the first semester of freshman year, and students also acquire knowledge and competence so that they will be able to take an active part internationally. It is hoped that such practice of the new department gives influence on students of other departments. As for the latter, it is necessary to increase the number of classes taught in foreign languages. The Preparatory Committee of the Department of Intercultural Communications has set up a plan for its faculty members to teach one of his/her lectures in a foreign language. Instructions and lectures are already given in English in our program of the environmental leadership initiative for Asian sustainability sponsored by the Ministry of the Environment. So, we expect to have a considerable number of lectures given in foreign languages in the near future.
Another attempt for change is an improvement in the credit transfer system with other universities. In many foreign countries, it is common for a student to transfer from one university to another. In order to help students to transfer credits they have earned at our university, each course is to be numbered, for example, 100s for the freshman level, 200s for the sophomore, 300s for the junior, 400s for the senior, and 500s to 600s for the graduate level, so that the year the course is intended to and the level of difficulty of the course is clearly defined. In fact, about 12 years ago when I was in charge of making the first English pamphlet of our university, I proposed this numbering system to all the courses but my proposal did not materialize. Since the credit transfer system is essential as the first step toward internationalization of education, and the course numbering leads to the international recognition of the quality of our education, it is desirable to reconsider adapting the numbering system to the courses we offer.
So far, I described mostly the issues related to the internationalization of our university; nonetheless, we have a duty to fulfill all of the new mid-term objectives. On this occasion, therefore, I would like to ask all of our faculty and staff members to make a united commitment to achieve high satisfaction on the part of our students as well as of our local community people.
Lastly, but not the least, I wish you and your families good health and happy life for the year 2012.
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| THE UNIVERSITY OF SHIGA
PREFECTURE |
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| 2500, Hassaka-cho, Hikone-City, Shiga
522-8533 Japan
TEL 81-0749-28-8200 FAX
81-0749-28-8470 E-mail webmaster@usp.ac.jp | |
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