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

Twenty-three years have passed since I began working at the 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 the 2022 academic year, 3,408 graduates had departed from the Faculty of Community Service and Science established in Sakata City. Furthermore, the graduate school, which is based at the Tsuruoka Town Campus of Keio (TTCK) alongside the Institute for Advanced Biosciences, has produced 165 Masters of Community Service and Science and 5 Doctors of Community Service and Science.

The Shonai region faces the Sea of Japan and features a vast, fertile plain surrounded by Mount Chokai and Mount 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%, the region 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 are preserved, and Tsuruoka City has been recognized as Japan's first member of the "UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy." This university was established through a public-build, private-operate model with the support of all local governments and the industrial sector as a hub for nurturing the 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, facing challenges such as the development of wasteland and harsh weather conditions, viewed the region as a whole. With a long-term perspective and imagination that looked toward future generations, they developed new wisdom and scientific technology, and executed the excavation of weirs and waterways 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-long "beautiful black pine forest," it is evident that great achievements were accomplished through the cooperation of people of various social statuses, even in a feudal society. I am reminded that a sustainable society is established when there are people who understand and inherit 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 and science" and "university-led town planning," I myself wish to disseminate the results of my research and educational practices from this land.