Message from Deans

Crossing academic borders to face real world issues
Dean of the Faculty of Policy Management　Tomoki Kamo

Identifying problems and creating policies to solve them--the Faculty of Policy Management has been dedicated to education and research designed to facilitate this mission since its establishment 30 years ago. The discipline of creating policy solutions aims to address challenges in the real world and requires constant evolution as society itself changes. Values that were once widely accepted are dynamically transforming. Existing solutions are not always compatible with many of the issues we now face in our society, which demand new ways of thinking.

No issues that exist in our society are bound to a single academic discipline. Only through scholarship that engages with interdisciplinary domains can we develop the ability to think about policy. In the past, academia primarily emphasized deep inquiry into a single subject. Of course, it is necessary to explore things deeply. However, this approach is inadequate to even begin identifying issues. The things that we are framing as challenges today may not even be central issues in the first place. Thus, it is imperative to face the real world when thinking about policy.

Nurturing students who are determined to make a difference in Japan and the world

Policies that the Faculty of Policy Management pursues in its education are not only aimed at government entities. Just as the word "policy" can refer to anything from corporate policies to personal guidelines, policy is necessary when dealing with a host of real-world issues. In addition, thinking about policy is not just about identifying issues and making proposals; it is about taking initiative and being proactive about matters.

Through the study of policy management, we strive to produce graduates with the ability to predict trends, the capacity to analyze situations, the ingenuity to design policies, the power to persuade others of the significance of policies, the inventiveness to implement these policies, and the competencies to synthesize these abilities.

The Faculty of Policy Management aims to imbue students with a strong determination to change Japan and the world with their own original ideas, and to branch out not only within Japan but also on a global scale.

Leading the way in uncertain times
Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies　Tomohiro Ichinose

More than 30 years have passed since the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies was founded in 1990. The Faculty has had the Internet as its infrastructure since its establishment, and this has been a driving force in the development and spread of Internet technology. But not even our forerunners could have imagined that, 30 years on, we would be living in an age where almost every person has a small computer (smartphone) to hand, and that information would instantly travel around the world via SNS.
COVID-19, which swept the world starting at the end of 2019, has drastically changed our everyday lives. The environment around us has undergone rapid changes in recent years, making predictions difficult and raising uncertainties for the future, thus bringing about a situation which has come to be referred to as VUCA (an acronym derived from the words volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). We are currently living in the age of VUCA. While global environmental problems such as drastic global warming and a decrease in biodiversity cast a dark shadow over our future, emerging technologies may enable us to do things we had never even imagined.

Studying across disciplines to develop the ability to respond to change

Throughout the Earth's long history, numerous organisms have been affected by unimaginable environmental changes. It would be truer to say that the species that have survived and their descendants are those which have been able to flexibly adapt to changes in the environment, rather than those which have overcome the competition as expressed by the phrase "the law of the jungle." I believe that what we learn at the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies is the ability to adapt to such changes. Our concept of Environment and Information Studies is not limited to the words "environment" and "information," but is an interdisciplinary academic field consisting of five disciplines: design engineering and media art, advanced biosciences, human environment, environmental design, and novel computing and communication systems. The Faculty of Environment and Information Studies will produce leaders who can survive and create the future in an age when that future is unpredictable.