Mariko Takeda: The Shonai Region as a Hub for Research and Education

2024/01/22

Twenty-three years have passed since I began working at Tohoku University of Community Service and Science, which opened in April 2001 in the Shonai region of Yamagata Prefecture with the intellectual support of Keio University. By the end of fiscal year 2022, 3,408 students had graduated from the Faculty of Community Service established in Sakata City. The graduate school, based at the Tsuruoka Town Campus of Keio (TTCK) alongside the Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University, has produced 165 Masters of Community Service and 5 Doctors of Community Service.

The Shonai region faces the Sea of Japan and is characterized by a rich plain surrounded by Mt. Chokai and Mt. Gassan. It consists of two cities and three towns, centered around Sakata City, which once flourished as a port town through the Kitamaebune trade, and Tsuruoka City, which developed as a castle town of the Shonai Domain. With a population of 255,000 and an aging rate exceeding 37%, it faces many challenges common to regional cities, such as youth outflow, declining community functions, and a shortage of labor in industries. On the other hand, unique cultures such as mountain worship closely linked to majestic nature, festivals, and traditional performing arts have been passed down, and Tsuruoka City has been recognized as Japan's first "UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy." Our university was established through a public-private partnership involving all local governments and the industrial sector as a hub for developing human resources who will lead the next generation of this region.

The slogan at the time of the university's opening was "Take a bird's-eye view from Tohoku." While the concentration of everything in Tokyo continues unabated, living with roots in a regional area makes one realize the simple truth that the resolution of social issues and the creation of new values are born from various regions as starting points. For example, the current prosperity of the Shonai region was achieved because ancestors in the Edo period, faced with challenges such as developing wasteland and dealing with harsh weather conditions, viewed the region as a whole. With a long-term perspective and imagination that included future generations, they developed new wisdom and technology, and carried out the excavation of weirs and canals and the planting of coastal erosion control forests. According to the records of a merchant family that contributed to the planting of the 33-kilometer "Beautiful Black Pine Forest," it can be seen that even in a feudal society, people of various social statuses cooperated to achieve great feats. I am reminded that a sustainable society is established when there are people who understand and pass on the value of such endeavors.

New social implementations are still being born every day. One of these is the metabolome analysis technology independently developed by the Institute for Advanced Biosciences and its application. As a member of a university that advocates for the "establishment of community service studies" and "university-led town development," I also want to share the results of my research and educational practices from this location.