To all who are completing the degree program at the Graduate School of Media and Governance

Fumitoshi Kato
Dean of the Graduate School of Media and Governance

Congratulations to all who are completing their studies at the Graduate School of Media and Governance. Although many things in your daily life and research activities have been restricted for the past two years, I would like to express my sincere respect and congratulate you all for successfully compiling your achievements and receiving your degrees. I particularly commend all of those in the master's program, who were affected by COVID-19 directly after you entered the program, through to receiving your degrees at the conferment ceremony. International students as well must have felt very constrained by all the online interactions. Doctoral students were also surely under a lot of pressure in the final stages of the degree review process. I believe each and everyone one of you should be proud of what you have accomplished under these difficult circumstances.

Although these circumstances were unavoidable, I maintained a constant watch over everyone's current situations with much sadness. As an advocate of field-oriented academia, I am convinced that we were able to come up with many creative ideas in this situation.
Now that we are gradually getting back opportunities to interact in person, I am once again realizing the importance of communication. Whether these take place online or in the flesh, our thoughts and reflections are situated in the context of human interactions. Conversations stimulate our imaginations, which lead to further activities in the realms of expression. Please take a moment to reflect upon how your relationships with many people have shaped you. These relationships will continue to be with you, as they change their shape and form as time passes on.
I hope that all of you will accurately grasp the day-to-day conflicts in the ever-changing world and face them with the intelligence and energy you have cultivated at graduate school. Lastly, I wish you all continued success in your future endeavors.

Now, as you may already be aware, the Graduate School of Media and Governance awards the "Kato Prize" and the "Aiso Prize" every semester. Named after the first deans of the Faculty of Policy Management and the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies at the Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC), these awards recognize unique and valuable research achievements. After receiving recommendations from each program, the Graduate School Committee deliberated and decided on the award recipients.
We have already presented the award certificates and the degree certificates at the degree conferment ceremony. Below, I would like to introduce the awardees along with the titles of their master's theses.

AY 2021 Fall Semester
[Kato Prize]
• Erina Hyuga "Development of Crisis Management Training Materials for Teachers to Improve School Safety: Practice and Analysis Using Tabletop Exercises"
[Aiso Prize]
• Masaki Arai "Vibratory-Vibrant-Weaving: Pioneering surface texturing methods by applying acoustic vibration to 3D printer"
• Yu Kurihara "Elucidation of mechanisms of host recognition by the bioassay and molecular biology approach in a temporary social parasitic ant: Polyrhachis lamellidens"
• Daiki Sekiguchi "Research on The Construction Process of Architectural Playground Environments"
• Masahiro Miura "Bioinformatics analysis and characterization of group II introns in prokaryotic genomes"

AY 2021 Spring Semester
[Kato Prize]
• Kim Jihye "Analysis of gender stereotypes and discrimination shown in the textbook <Korean language with Marriage Immigrants>"
[Aiso Prize]
• Shoichiro Sato "Comparative approaches to music and evolution: Developmental, cross-species and cross-cultural analyses"