The First Step in Collaboration | Hideyuki Tokuda (Dean, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies)
2009.09.08
It's often said, but as one gets older, the passage of time seems to accelerate. In particular, the summer vacation feels shorter and shorter.
This summer, there was something I absolutely wanted to do by August 31. That was to climb Mt. Fuji with my children for the first time in 44 years. I had actually wanted to take them when they were the same age as I was when I first climbed it, 12 years old. But before I knew it, my eldest son was 25, my second son was 22, and I was past my mid-fifties. After somehow managing to coordinate our three schedules, we found that only Saturday, August 14, was free. We had to give up the standard two-day, one-night trip that would have allowed us to see the sunrise, and instead opted for a rather grueling one-day climb.
We left home at 3:00 a.m. and arrived at the temporary parking lot for the Fuji Subaru Line, which was subject to traffic restrictions, at 4:30 a.m. We took the first bus and arrived at the 5th station at 6:10 a.m. It was drizzling in the parking lot, but at the 5th station, we could see blue skies. After buying Kongozue (walking sticks), having breakfast, and acclimatizing to the altitude, we began our ascent at 6:50 a.m.
The ascent went mostly as planned, with long breaks at the mountain huts at each station, and we reached the summit around 1:45 p.m. We had prepared for bad weather, bringing rainwear and fleece jackets, but to our surprise, the summit was calm, with no strong winds, and filled with gentle sunlight.
After having lunch at a mountain hut and looking at the crater with its remaining snow, we began our descent. When I was a child, I believe I descended via the *sunabashiri* (sand run) at a place called Yoshida Osawa. However, I heard that there was a major rockfall accident there in 1980, and the current descent trail has been used ever since. A problem arose about 40 minutes after I started down this trail. It seems that descending straight down the hard surface was a bad idea. It put too much strain on my lower back, and I developed back pain. The pain was so intense that I was frozen in place. Stretching a few times had no effect, and I ended up having my eldest son carry my backpack. Afterward, I devised a way to minimize the strain on my back during the descent. Instead of taking a direct path straight down, I switched to a traversing path, descending diagonally to shift the load to the sides of my body. I somehow managed to make it down to the 8th station. Enduring the back pain that I hadn't felt at all on the way up, it was already past 7:00 p.m. by the time I got down to the 5th station.
Afterward, we took a bus back to the temporary parking lot at the Fuji Subaru Line tollgate. The three of us went straight to Fujiyama Onsen next to Fuji-Q Highland to soothe our tired muscles from the climb. By the time we got home, it was nearly midnight. It was a truly exhausting day, but the joy of being able to climb Mt. Fuji again with my family was deeply moving.
Now, about the title "The Head of the Heads." For us deans and chairs of graduate school committees, our "head" at Keio University is the President. Currently, Mr. Seike, the former Dean of the Faculty of Business and Commerce, is the President. We "heads," including the "head of the heads," have opportunities to see each other every month at the University Council, informal meetings of university directors, the Board of Directors, and the Board of Councillors. However, the reality is that most of our conversations are about work, and we rarely have the chance to talk on a personal level. I believe this is not a good thing for a faculty like ours, which is trying to lower the barriers between faculties and promote collaboration. In fact, I had the chance to speak with Mr. Seike at length last June. We happened to be seated at the same table, along with the president of Caltech and others, during a reception for the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), which was one of the 150th-anniversary events. Like former President Anzai, he left me with the strong impression of being a gentle and very student-oriented professor.
To lower the barriers between faculties and between liberal arts and specialized education at the university, and to promote more dynamic education and research, I believe we must create more informal opportunities in addition to our regular meetings. I hear that some of the young faculty members newly appointed to SFC are also trying to figure out how to advance collaboration through trial and error. I believe the first step begins with simply talking about various things with other faculty members.
(Date Published: 2009/09/08)