Inaugural address by the president
Once again, we strive to become an educational and research community that serves God and humanity and contributes to society.
I am pleased to announce that I have been appointed as the 20th President and will be at the helm of the university's operations for the next four years. With your cooperation and support, I hope to serve the development of Aoyama Gakuin University.
The basic premise of my appointment is to "uphold the spirit of the founding of the university. What is the founding spirit as the foundation of a private school? As a non-Christian, I believe that "education based on the Christian faith" means to listen to the Bible and to the teachings of Christians when we stop and reexamine our own efforts. I especially value Matthew 5:13-16, the school motto "Salt of the earth, light of the world," and the well-known Niebuhr Prayer, "Have courage to change what must be changed, and wisdom to distinguish between what cannot be changed and what must be changed. To me, this is "upholding the spirit of the founding of the university," to look properly at the past, the present, and the future.
The greatest challenge we face today is how to develop the structure of the university and its various faculties and graduate schools in preparation for the coming decline in the birthrate, and how to maintain and develop the quality of Aoyama Gakuin University 's history and traditions, of which we are not ashamed, and of which we can be even more proud. We believe that this means going back to the starting point of enriching research and education and fostering human resources and successors. In other words, each undergraduate and graduate school should organize curricula that meet the needs of the times, convey advanced expertise based on the latest research, and work to prepare students to enter a diverse world. From the perspective of developing the infrastructure for this purpose, the greatest responsibility as the head of university administration is to develop a common platform by improving facilities and equipment, enhancing the support system for students and faculty, and promoting internationalization and informatization.
The year 2024 will mark the 75th anniversary of the university's founding and the 150th anniversary of the founding of Aoyama the academy. Since its founding, the university has developed a culture that naturally fosters an "attitude of respect for diversity" and "the ability to collaborate across barriers," which are essential for an international perspective and contribution to society based on the very founding spirit of the university. Based on this liberal school culture, its unique liberal arts education that fosters a rich humanity and a broad range of liberal arts education, and its achievements in language education, the university has developed a wide range of humanities and social science fields, and has become the face of the university. However, although it is often lost sight of, the University has achieved remarkable research results in a wide range of fields in science and engineering. Therefore, in order to create a style of research and education that is unique to Aogaku, we intend to promote the expansion of research and education that transcends the boundaries of the humanities and sciences by mutually stimulating the various fields of study. In particular, in today's society, there is a clear limit to the extent to which problems can be solved by individual disciplines alone. For example, we have focused on data science and AI as representative fields that can connect and activate each specialized area, and have incorporated these into the university-wide common education system "The Aoyama Standard" that allows students to learn beyond the boundaries of faculties and departments. This will enable the addition of advanced approaches backed by data to the study of humanities and social sciences, which are the strengths of the university, and is expected to produce greater research results.
In this way, we aim to further improve the quality of our research and education through "respect for diversity" and "ability to collaborate across boundaries," and Aoyama Gakuin University will continue to be an educational and research community that is useful to people, "serving God and people and contributing to society.
December 2023
Aoyama Gakuin University
President INAZUMI Hiroshige