Enjoying Information Sessions | Tomoki Kamo, Dean of the Faculty of Policy Management

In recent years, during the spring semester, the Faculty of Policy Management and the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies have been holding a joint information session for prospective students at Keio Osaka City Campus. After brief introductions by the deans of the two faculties, current students talk about student life. Students who live in the student residence attached to Shonan Fujisawa Campus, or SFC, also speak about life in the residence. After that, we set aside about one hour for open questions.

Information sessions, wherever they are held, tend to begin with a slight sense of tension in the room. I keep my opening explanation as dean to about 15 minutes. If I try to explain everything in detail, I end up simply repeating what is already written in the faculty brochure. That is almost unavoidable, because we put a great deal of care into making the brochure, and most of what we want to say is already there. Also, many of the people who come to the session have read the brochure very closely.

The real appeal of the session, I think, lies in the presentations by current students. In fact, these presentations are interesting for us as faculty members as well. They allow us to see how students themselves understand the appeal of SFC. The world seen by faculty members and the world seen by students are, of course, not the same. It is a pleasure to see that difference. More than anything, when students begin to speak, the atmosphere in the room seems to soften.

Soon enough, it is time for the open Q&A. Visitors interested in the Faculty of Policy Management gather at the Policy Management booth, while those interested in the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies gather at the Environment and Information Studies booth. There is also a separate booth for questions about the student residence. Some visitors move from booth to booth. Others enjoy spending the whole hour at one booth.

This hour is a time when visitors and faculty members face one another directly. The students who have spoken about student life stand with the faculty members as helpful allies. There is, I might say, a certain air of quiet negotiation during this time.

Some visitors hope to receive advice on the research activities they have already pursued. Others are looking for hints on how to prepare for interviews. I understand that feeling very well. But if I go too far in giving advice on a specific research project or on interview preparation, I may end up helping with entrance examination strategy itself. So, while respecting each person’s passion, I answer from a slightly different angle. Some people also try to draw out the “correct” way to write application materials. I tell them, “There is no single correct way to write them.”

In this way, the hour becomes a time of careful exchange, with both sides choosing their words. I sometimes ask myself whether my answers leave people wanting something more. Still, what I want to convey at an information session is not only a set of individual facts. Rather, I want to show how to read SFC as a campus. The ideas behind the education and research that the faculties and the campus are advancing are built into the many systems that support education and research here. They are also written, quietly, into the brochure. At the information session, I try to introduce this way of reading the campus.

There is something I repeatedly say at information sessions and in materials introducing the faculty, and I would like to say it again here. The Faculty of Policy Management has twice carried out book projects to ask, and to make visible, what Policy Management Studies means. In 2003, we published the four-volume book series The Cutting Edge of Policy Management. In 2023, twenty years later, we published the five-volume book series Exploring New Horizons in Policy Management. When we compare these two series, we can see how the areas and points of emphasis that SFC understands as Policy Management Studies have changed over the past twenty years.

At SFC, we have often called our students “students from the future.” The kind of education and research environment we should offer to these students changes with the times. At the same time, the principles and systems that support our education remain consistent. I hope visitors can sense both the flexibility and the strength of this campus.

An information session is not a place where the university simply explains itself in one direction. It is, I think, a place where we explore, together with our visitors, how to read SFC as a campus. There is a little tension in the room, and at times I may feel that my answers do not reach quite far enough. That is precisely why I enjoy this time.