Message from the Dean (From April 2021 To March 2023)
Campus as a new "place"
Takumi MORIYAMA
The Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
The Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Welcome--through the Internet--to the Komaba I Campus of the University of Tokyo.
The word campus in English and Japanese comes from the Latin word campus, which means "a level field" or "a plaza." In ancient Rome, a campus was a field for tournaments or athletics; it could also be a place of assembly. A campus was thus a location where people gathered and interacted with each other.
A year has passed since that original meaning weakened at our own campus. The reason, of course, is the spread of the novel coronavirus. If it were not for COVID-19, I would be greeting you in the same way as previous Deans of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
I would tell you that Komaba I is the only campus of the University of Tokyo where all undergraduates in the Junior Division (years 1 and 2)--some 6,500 people--study. Next, I would mention that our large campus is also home to about 400 students in the Senior Division (years 3 and 4) of the College of Arts and Sciences; around 1,500 graduate and research students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and about 200 graduate and research students in the Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences. I would also mention, of course, the some 400 faculty members--professors, associate professors, and assistant professors--who are responsible for your education, as well as the 100 or so staff members who support the education and research on our campus.
It is our campus's role as a physical place, a location where nine thousand of us can gather and interact, that has, unfortunately, become weaker. For the past year, we have had to try to recreate and reactivate our campus so that it includes a virtual, online space as well. This experiment is starting to bear some fruit. In fact, we have found that experiencing education and research online frees us from some of the restrictions of space and time. Our education and research have been enhanced in unexpected ways.
At the same time, however, we have also realized that the spatial and temporal restrictions of our physical campus enabled learning and research in unique ways. Experiences that we had taken for granted we now see in a new light. The role of the campus as a place where people gather and interact has taken on new significance. Meanwhile, possibilities we had never imagined for human contact and communication have also been discovered in our new online space. By integrating the physical and the virtual, the Komaba I Campus of the post-COVID era will be a different education and research institution from what it was before the pandemic. Even when people are once again coming to campus and meeting together in this physical place, the campus as a whole will have become something new.
The vision I have is for an inclusive campus, one in which our extremely diverse community of nine thousand students, faculty, and staff are brought together without sacrificing--in fact, while enhancing--our individuality and diversity. On our future campus, the diverse members of our community will connect with each other in many ways to embody the campus as a whole. By interweaving the physical, real-life place with the virtual space, I believe we can create just such an inclusive campus. That is the goal I hope to pursue as we look ahead to the post-COVID era.
