“Exploration ＆ Dialogue:
Education for Women As Leaders”
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We are proud to
announce that Ochanomizu University’s humanities and social science
program, “Initiatives for Attractive Education for Graduate Students”,
was approved by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science,
and Technology (MEXT) in 2005.
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Ochanomizu
University considers education for “women as leaders” to be one of the
main missions of its graduate school education, and the education and
research necessary for this is characterized by “interdisciplinarity”,
“internationality”, and “potentiality.” More specifically, our basic
principles are the enrichment of core disciplines and the enhancement
of cutting-edge fields and newly opened fields of study, with a view
toward meeting social needs. This program is titled “Exploration and
Dialogue: Education for Women as Leaders,” and its objective is to
clearly take responsibility for educating and fostering the highly
capable women of the next generation and send them not just into
society nationwide, but into international communities, and to enhance
our graduate school education to meet these needs. It is a great honor
and privilege for the Graduate School faculty members as well as for
the staff members supporting our educational and research environment,
that our Graduate School educational program was approved, vis-à-vis
recent trends in Japan in which higher education, particularly graduate
school education, is drastically expanding. We intend to continue our
efforts to promote and develop our graduate program.
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The graduate
school education that our program has proposed for the “Initiatives”
primarily focuses on developmentally expanding Japanese Studies from
its traditional framework to an interdisciplinary field of study in the
humanities that includes the Comparative History of Ideas, Comparative
Literature, Gender Studies, and Art Studies. In the past it was
commonly thought that the humanities, in contrast to “practical” areas
of study, tended to have no direct connection with actual social
environments. Given recent domestic and international circumstances,
however, we strongly hope that a new form of the human sciences will
contribute its specific achievements to society―a new interdisciplinary
study that addresses the challenges modern society faces and analyzes
them from its unique philosophical and cultural standpoint.
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The word
“exploration”, which is stated in the title of the program, implies
both an exploration deep into students’ expertise and an in-depth
understanding of human beings obtained through a cross-disciplinary
approach to various fields of study. “Dialogue” refers to dialogues
between different academic fields, between nations, and between
cultures. Our program, implemented by the Division of Japanese Studies
in a Global Perspective, in cooperation with the Division of
Comparative Studies of Societies and Cultures and the Department of
Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, is designed to foster female scholars
of the next generation who can open the way towards new areas of study
needed in modern society.
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To that end,
we also propose the establishment of an “Overseas Joint Educational
Program,” an educational program in which we will promote joint
education with faculty members from affiliated institutions overseas,
at our university and at the affiliated institutions, in order for
students to obtain academic experience, broad perspectives, and human
networks in an international context while at university. In addition,
we are planning to add a “minor system” to the curriculum for the sake
of the interdisciplinarity of the human sciences. This new system will
include such areas as Resources for Gender Equality Studies and
Cultural Management Studies; students will receive official
certificates for their minor after completion. We also plan to enhance
our Multisupervisor System, one of our school’s institutional assets,
develop our students’ English communication abilities, and enforce
research ethics and fairness. By making full use of these institutional
benefits in pursuit of their degrees, we hope that students will be
well prepared for their future career options.
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In order to
facilitate the prompt completion of students’ doctoral dissertations,
we plan to seamlessly interconnect the Master’s Program and Doctoral
Program, thereby providing students a specific achievement target at
each stage of their studies. We will attempt to reinforce incentives
for students to complete their studies by bringing transparency to the
process and providing a practical orientation. One of the proposed
actions is to characterize a master’s thesis as an “interim
dissertation”, and to encourage students to incorporate or assimilate
master’s theses into doctoral dissertations―a groundbreaking guidance
method in the human sciences.
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Our
university’s responsible commitment to practical education allows us to
connect the “software” of education (culture) to the “hardware” (the
real world), and to foster capable women who can make a significant
contribution to the promotion of fairness and equality in a genuine
sense. We thus intend to cultivate not only competent female
researchers, but also talented female leaders and specialists with a
background in the human sciences, who will take an active role in
shaping the future.
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TAKASHIMA, Motohiro (2005)
FURUSE, Natsuko (2006)
Director of Initiative Program "Exploration ＆
Dialogue: Education for Women As Leaders”
Dean of School of Japanese Studies in a Global Perspective
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