HCD on January 10, 2024 | Hideyuki Tokuda (Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies)

2009.01.14

Sengen Shrine. At the end of the year, on December 28–29, the steering committee held a retreat where all members were able to take stock of the daily challenges at SFC. Since these are people who are always busy and on the move, the opportunity to have in-depth discussions late into the night is truly valuable.

After the new year began, on New Year's Day, I attended the annual New Year's party for the Endo district with Mr. Agawa, Mr. Yamashita, and Administrative Director Kato. During the time of former Fujisawa Mayor Yamamoto, it started at 9:00 a.m., but this year it was changed to start at 3:00 p.m. I left the New Year's party at my wife's family home early and drove to SFC, and since it was New Year's Day, there was little traffic, and I arrived as scheduled. When we gathered in front of the security office, there was an unexpected report about an incident involving a student. This incident occurred just after the President visited SFC last year to warn students about preventing a recurrence. It is truly regrettable. To maintain a global and open SFC, I believe that both students and we ourselves need the ability to exercise self-discipline more than ever before. This year, as is customary, after the New Year's party, I made my first shrine visit of the year to Sengen Shrine, located next to the junior and senior high schools, and left the campus praying that SFC would have a peaceful and fruitful year.

Now, regarding the theme "SFC in 15 Years," I, who joined SFC in 1990, should have safely? graduated from SFC 15 years later in 2024. SFC will be celebrating its 34th anniversary, and the greenery on campus should have deepened further, fully demonstrating its appeal as a residential suburban campus. On January 10, 2024, the Homecoming Day (HCD) at SFC that I attended for the first time in a while might be something like this.

After the New Year's celebration of Yukichi Fukuzawa's birthday at Mita Campus, a Homecoming Day (HCD) is said to be held at SFC in the hall of the Miraisozojuku (Institute for Designing the Future), also serving as a New Year's greeting exchange. It was an unusually cold morning, so I debated whether to participate remotely in 3D from home, but for the sake of my health, I decided to visit SFC after a long time. It has been a while since I entered the hall and residential facilities of the Miraisozojuku (Institute for Designing the Future), which were built in 201X. They are modern facilities that blend well with the surrounding greenery. In the nearest house, it is said that paintings left behind by someone who became an international media designer during their student days remain on the walls of the corridors on each floor. Furthermore, in the house where the presidents of companies that launched a semantic search engine surpassing Google and ubiquitous services for smartphones belonged, old PC clusters and sensor nodes used for creating prototypes at the time have reportedly been donated. In the SFC Memorial Room, set up in a corner of the hall, various books from the time of its opening in 1990, old laptop PCs, and nostalgic items donated by alumni were on display. In the new research building, a network robot made at SFC also welcomed us, mingling with the graduate students. It was completely different from the jerky network robots using Segways from around 2009, 15 years ago. Moreover, its natural language interface could be used without any problems even amidst considerable noise, and it escorted us along with the graduate students. It felt as if coexistence with us humans was progressing well. SFC's physical space had evolved into a new and attractive real space, with further integration with the information space driven by new media created by students.

I wonder what the Homecoming Day will actually be like. Starting this year, fundraising for the SFC Miraisozojuku (Institute for Designing the Future) Operating Fund will finally begin under the framework of the Future Vision Fund. We sincerely ask for your cooperation in realizing the Miraisozojuku (Institute for Designing the Future).

"Yukichi Fukuzawa: The Man Who Opened Up Japan's Future" Exhibition p.s.

Starting January 10, the " Yukichi Fukuzawa: The Man Who Opened Up Japan's Future" Exhibition " is being held at the Hyokeikan of the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno. The scale and content are wonderful, surpassing even the exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of Yukichi Fukuzawa's death in January 2001, which I helped with. If you have time, please be sure to visit.

(Date of publication: 2009/01/14)