Welcome to the All-Round Learning Expo | Tomoki Kamo, Dean of the Faculty of Policy Management
November 20, 2024
The temperature has dropped sharply, and the autumn colors on campus have deepened. This coincides with the time when the All-Round Learning Expo is held.
On Saturday, November 23, and Sunday, November 24, the Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC) will host the All-Round Learning Expo. For all of you who are interested in SFC, I strongly encourage you to come and visit.
In short, I believe the All-Round Learning Expo is a perfect opportunity to grasp the entirety of the "interdisciplinary" and "cross-disciplinary" education and research that SFC champions. Faculty members belonging to the Faculty of Policy Management, the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, the Faculty of Nursing and Medical Care, the Graduate School of Media and Governance, and the Graduate School of Health Management are daily pursuing cutting-edge scholarship within their individual specializations. At the same time, they collaborate with faculty both inside and outside of SFC to comprehensively re-examine their work and apply it to related fields. A glimpse of these efforts is showcased at the All-Round Learning Expo.
The All-Round Learning Expo is a collection of several major events. Six events that were previously held on campus at different times each year have now been brought together on the third weekend of November.
First is the SFC Open Research Forum (ORF) . SFC considers collaborating with society through its research activities and sharing its findings to be an important part of its social responsibility. With the aim of widely disseminating the current status and future plans of its activities to society, SFC has held this ORF since 1996 . Then there is the Open Campus , an event for high school students from all over the country to experience the appeal of SFC. Along with the annual faculty information session by the dean, this year we will hold a special project titled "What 'Learning at SFC' Means to Us." The Fujisawa Citizen's Lecture Series , a lifelong learning course co-hosted by Fujisawa City and SFC, will be held again this year. Of course, non-Fujisawa residents are also welcome to participate. In addition, the Keio SFC Academic Society will hold its Academic Exchange Convention , an opportunity for society members to present their research and engage in academic exchange. This event is positioned as a forum for interdisciplinary exchange and information dissemination that transcends research fields, symbolizing the spirit of SFC. It has been held continuously since 2002 . There is also Welcome to the University Library , an event that introduces our unique university library, which supports "monozukuri" (craftsmanship) by leveraging the campus's characteristics. During the All-Round Learning Expo, you can not only freely tour the Media Center but also find a 3D printer hands-on corner and a puzzle-solving event, "A Challenge from Kamo." Alongside these planned events, a Homecoming Day will be held for alumni, faculty, and staff.
And the All-Round Learning Expo also features Special Projects . This is a collection of five projects: From SFC to the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (there is also a special page for the Olympics and Paralympics ), SFC and Disaster Recovery Support (in cooperation with the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force), Creating the Forest of Health and Culture and the Future of SFC Together (which also includes a special exhibition by Fujisawa City titled "Campus Country" ------ Fujisawa City's Urban Development and SFC's Initiatives ------), the Urban Development Idea Contest 2024 (co-hosted by Fujisawa City, the Fujisawa City Forest of Health and Culture District Land Readjustment Association, and Fujita Corporation), and the Graduate School of Media and Governance 30th Anniversary Talk Session (hosted by the SFC Forum ).
Furthermore, dining during the All-Round Learning Expo is also important. During the event, you can eat at the student cafeteria, Lawson, Subway, Salt Dining, and Ladybird. And if you take the shuttle bus that circulates within the campus to the front of Shonan Keiku Hospital, you will find food trucks waiting.
Today, the importance of "interdisciplinary" and "cross-disciplinary" scholarship is being advocated in various contexts. In the world we live in now, the values and interests we have shared are in great flux, and the very shape of the issues people perceive as problems is also shifting dramatically. To accurately grasp and adapt to this change, the importance of rethinking existing academic frameworks is once again being emphasized. The year of our campus's founding, 1990, was a time when the so-called Cold War structure was in flux. Now, as the post-Cold War structure begins to shift, this idea is gaining renewed attention.
"Interdisciplinary" and "cross-disciplinary" scholarship can be found in unexpected places. The passion to seek out such new challenges and new fields of study, and to devote one's energy to solving them, is the appeal and the very reason for SFC's existence. I hope you will see the All-Round Learning Expo as an opportunity for us to showcase this appeal to all our visitors.
For example (though I am somewhat reluctant to discuss my own initiatives here), the All-Round Learning Expo Special Project I am involved in, SFC and Disaster Recovery Support , is one such case. This project is co-hosted with the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. It is well known that the challenges of disaster prevention, disaster relief, and disaster recovery cannot be solved without the close interaction of various academic fields. For this very reason, many faculty members at SFC are engaged with these issues. Amidst this, we decided to co-host with an actor that may seem distant from SFC. By co-hosting with the Self-Defense Forces, whose primary mission is national defense and whose secondary missions are disaster relief and international peace cooperation activities, I believe we can better visualize the distinctive features of SFC's education and research on issues related to disaster prevention, relief, and recovery. I also think it can deepen our understanding of natural disasters, such as the increasingly severe wind, flood, and earthquake disasters of recent years. Not only disaster prevention, relief, and recovery, but also security is an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary field of study.
Additionally, in the Fujisawa Citizen's Lecture Series , I will be in charge of a lecture titled "The Fluid International Order and the 'Great Power' China: How Should Japan Respond?" I took on this role out of a desire to position China studies as an "interdisciplinary" and "cross-disciplinary" field of study. On that day, I will speak about the perspective for understanding China as a driver of change in the international order within the context of a greatly fluctuating international political landscape. However, the study of understanding China has already become an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary endeavor. In the past, China studies may have been a field monopolized by researchers who could speak Chinese and had long-term experience living in China. But China is no longer confined to such a closed academic space. When we think about our future lives and the world order, the existence of China cannot be ignored. "China" has become a research subject for everyone. The significance of establishing an event to discuss Chinese politics and diplomacy within the framework of the All-Round Learning Expo is also a message that SFC is a campus equipped with an educational and research environment to approach China—a country that may shape our future—in an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary manner.
In any case, I urge you to come to campus this weekend and grasp SFC in its entirety. I hope you will appreciate the form of "interdisciplinary" and "cross-disciplinary" scholarship, which is as beautiful as the autumn colors of our campus.
There is something I would like to share with all of you, our readers.
Professor Naoyuki Agawa, Professor Emeritus of the University (Faculty of Policy Management), former Vice-President, and former Dean of the Faculty of Policy Management, passed away on November 12, 2024. Professor Agawa was also a writer for this "Okashira Nikki." Our colleagues who build SFC together will reread the "Okashira Nikki" in search of his words. I often read this one and this one . SFC will take the words Professor Agawa wrote to heart as we move forward and forge our path. Thank you.