University of Tsukuba

The University of Tsukuba (筑波大学, Tsukuba daigaku) is a national research university in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Chartered in October 1973 as Japan's first "new concept university" (新構想大学, shinkōsō daigaku) with the Tokyo University of Education as its parent institution, it traces its origins to the first normal school in Japan, established in Tokyo in 1872, which gives it one of the oldest institutional lineages of any Japanese university. It is one of the pre-war government-established (kanritsu) universities and, together with Hiroshima University, one of the two successors of the former "universities of literature and science" (bunrika daigaku).

The university has been selected as a "Top Type" (Type A) institution under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Super Global University program and was designated a designated national university corporation in 2020.

The university comprises ten undergraduate schools subdivided into colleges, an additional school located overseas, and graduate programs organized under three academic gateways, with around 16,500 students. The main Tsukuba campus covers 258 hectares (636 acres), making it the second-largest single university campus in Japan. A branch campus in Bunkyō, Tokyo, offers evening graduate programs for working adults and administers the university's eleven laboratory (attached) schools in the Greater Tokyo area. In September 2024 the university opened a school on the campus of the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, the first case of a Japanese university establishing a degree-awarding undergraduate school abroad.

Three Nobel Prize laureates have taught at the university or its predecessor: Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Leo Esaki and Hideki Shirakawa. A fourth laureate, Satoshi Ōmura, studied at the Tokyo University of Education as an auditing student.

Overview

The university as a whole

The university's direct forerunner was the Tokyo University of Literature and Science (東京文理科大学, Tōkyō Bunrika Daigaku), later the Tokyo University of Education, whose origin was Japan's first normal school, established in 1872 (Meiji 5). Because that school was founded partly as a successor to the Shōheizaka Gakumonjo (Shōheikō), the former shogunal academy, the university's founding is counted among the oldest lineages of Japanese universities. As the Tokyo University of Education's campuses were cramped and dispersed, relocation to Tsukuba Science City, approved by a cabinet decision of 27 August 1963, began to be debated. Disagreements among the faculty councils and the cancellation of entrance examinations amid the student movement further intensified debate over university reform, and in October 1973 the University of Tsukuba was launched as a "new concept university" with the Tokyo University of Education as its parent body.

Besides the Tsukuba campus, the university also administers part of the grounds of the former Tokyo University of Education. On the former head-office site in Ōtsuka, Bunkyō, Tokyo, the Bunkyo School Building of the Tokyo Campus (formerly the "Ōtsuka district") houses the Education Bureau of the Laboratory Schools, which supervises the attached schools in the Greater Tokyo area; the Graduate School of Business Sciences, an evening graduate school for working adults; the law school; and several research centers.

The National Museum of Nature and Science existed as an attached institution of the Tokyo Higher Normal School from 1889 until it regained independence as the Tokyo Museum of Education in 1914. The Tokyo University of Education was itself formed from four schools — the Tokyo University of Literature and Science, the Tokyo Higher Normal School, the Tokyo College of Agricultural Education and the Tokyo College of Physical Education — and after becoming the University of Tsukuba the institution further merged with the University of Library and Information Science in 2002, so that its history draws on that of many different institutions.

Founding principles

Under the basic philosophy of an "open university", a "flexible education and research organization" and "new university systems", the university's stated goals are: to pursue internationally outstanding research, both within established disciplines and in fields requiring cooperation across them; to develop autonomous, internationally active graduates through education from the bachelor's to the doctoral level grounded in advanced research; to contribute broadly to society as the core of Tsukuba Science City in cooperation with its research institutions and with industry; to operate as a university open to Asia and the wider world through internationally compatible education, research and exchange; and to lead university reform through collaboration in which faculty and staff each exercise their individuality and diverse abilities.

History

Outline

The university was established on the basis of the Tsukuba Research and Academic City Construction Act of 1970 and the National School Establishment Act as amended in 1973 (Act No. 103 of 29 September 1973). Because the university had a distinctive structure without conventional faculties, the amended act contained a chapter, "Chapter 2-2: Organization of the University of Tsukuba", devoted specifically to it.

A national campaign for democratic education comprising sixteen organizations — including the Sōhyō and Chūritsu Rōren labor federations, the Japan Teachers Union, the Japan Scientists' Association and the Japan Association for the Protection of Children — mounted strong opposition to the 1973 bill and demanded its withdrawal.

The Tokyo University of Education, the university's predecessor, was closed at the end of March 1978. In 2002, under an amendment to the National School Establishment Act (Act No. 23 of 2002), the university merged with the University of Library and Information Science.

Timeline

October 1970: University of Tsukuba construction office opened.

1 October 1973: University of Tsukuba opened, with the First Cluster of Colleges (Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences), the Medical Specialist Cluster, the College of Physical Education and the university library.

1975: Second Cluster of Colleges (Comparative Culture, Human Sciences, Biological Sciences, Agriculture and Forestry), College of Art and Design, and a master's program in area studies established.

1976: University of Tsukuba Hospital opened.

1977: Third Cluster of Colleges established (Socio-Engineering, Information Sciences, Basic Engineering).

1978: Tokyo University of Education closed; doctoral program in socio-engineering and Junior College of Medical Technology established.

1980–1981: Doctoral programs in medicine (1980) and engineering (1981) established.

1983: College of International Relations established (Third Cluster).

1985: College of Japanese Language and Culture established (Second Cluster).

1 April 1989: Graduate School of Systems Management (GSSM), an evening MBA program for working adults, established at the Ōtsuka campus.

1990: Evening graduate program in corporate law added at Ōtsuka.

1991: College of Engineering Systems established.

1994: College of Agriculture and Forestry renamed College of Agro-Biological Resources.

1995: College of International Relations reorganized as the College of International Studies.

1996: Doctoral program in corporate sciences added at Ōtsuka.

1998: College of Basic Engineering reorganized; working-adult graduate programs at Ōtsuka reorganized into the independent Graduate School of Business Sciences.

Symbols

Visual identity and school colors

The university maintains a visual identification (VI) system regulating its emblem, logotype, base colors and their usage. Purple is the symbolic color of the university; the exact shades were fixed in 1999 as the base color "Tsukuba Purple" (HTML #6600CC) and the secondary "Tsukuba Blue" (HTML #33FFFF). Since 2012, the uniforms of the university's athletic association teams have been unified in a pale blue known as "FUTURE BLUE".

Emblem

The university emblem is the "five-three paulownia leaf". It originates in the Tokyo Higher Normal School student badge as revised in 1903 and was carried over into the Tokyo University of Education student badge produced in 1949. In 1974 the University Council resolved to continue the paulownia-leaf design in succession to the Tokyo University of Education tradition, and it became the emblem of the University of Tsukuba. The paulownia crest is, alongside the chrysanthemum, a traditional emblem of Japan, but the university's version is distinctive in rendering the flowers in silhouette (kage) form.

Slogan

Since FY2010 the university has used the slogan "IMAGINE THE FUTURE.", symbolizing its founding ideals; it appears on university materials and banners across campus. It was devised by the alumnus copywriter Hiroshi Ichikura.

Songs

The student handbook prints the lyrics of the student songs "Hitachino no" (常陸野の) and "Tsukuba no Gama" (筑波のガマ), which function in practice as school songs. "Hitachino no", written in January 1975 shortly after the university's founding (lyrics by Katsuhiko Aoki, music by Mutsuko Iijima), is said to depict the rebirth of the Tokyo University of Education as the University of Tsukuba and is sung at entrance and graduation ceremonies. Among athletic association students, the older cheer song "Kiri no Ha" (桐の葉, "Paulownia Leaves") is better known: it was written in 1919, during the Tokyo Higher Normal School's campaign for elevation to university status, with its first two verses by the then-student Sukeo Yamato and a third verse later added by Nobuo Ōyama, the last president of the Tokyo University of Education, set to the melody of a Keio University cheer song. Following the adoption of the slogan, a message song, "IMAGINE THE FUTURE 〜Mirai o Omoe", was composed by the alumnus Yoichiro Yoshikawa with lyrics by Ichikura, and is frequently performed at official ceremonies. The former Tokyo University of Education school song, "Seiun no sora ni takaku", has lyrics by Kitahara Hakushū and music by Kosaku Yamada.

Organization

Schools and colleges

The basic teaching organizations to which undergraduate students belong are schools (学群, gakugun), subdivided into colleges (学類, gakurui). Unlike the faculties and departments of most Japanese universities, in which academic staff and graduate students are also enrolled, Tsukuba's schools and colleges are purely educational organizations, separate from the research organization to which faculty members belong (originally the gakkei, now the kei system); a similar separation has been adopted at Fukushima University and J. F. Oberlin University.

The original organization into numbered "clusters of colleges" reflected the university's founding emphasis on interdisciplinarity and the integration of the humanities and sciences, but was long regarded as difficult for applicants and the public to understand. Following the graduate school reorganizations of 2000–2001, a reorganization of the schools and colleges was formally announced on 21 July 2005 and took effect for students entering in April 2007: the numbered cluster system was abolished in favor of discipline-based schools, and the structure changed from 7 clusters (including 4 specialist clusters) with 15 colleges to 9 schools (including 2 specialist schools) with 23 colleges, with no change in total enrollment capacity.

The School of Comprehensive Studies (総合学域群, Sōgō Gakuiki-gun), which belongs to none of the existing schools, was established in 2020 with a first intake in April 2021. It enrolls only first-year students admitted through a "comprehensive selection" examination (in four tracks: humanities and social sciences, and sciences I–III); students take courses offered across the schools while deciding on a destination school, to which they transfer from the second year (except the School of Health and Physical Education), subject to prerequisite courses and capacity limits.

The current schools and their colleges are:

• School of Comprehensive Studies (first-year students only; established 2020)
• School of Humanities and Culture: College of Humanities; College of Comparative Culture; College of Japanese Language and Culture
• School of Social and International Studies: College of Social Sciences; College of International Studies
• School of Human Sciences: College of Education; College of Psychology; College of Disability Sciences
• School of Life and Environmental Sciences: College of Biological Sciences; College of Agro-Biological Resource Sciences; College of Geoscience

School of Science and Engineering: College of Mathematics; College of Physics; College of Chemistry; College of Engineering Sciences; College of Engineering Systems; College of Policy and Planning Sciences

Research

Competitive funding programs

Four projects were adopted under the 21st Century Center of Excellence Program: in 2002, "Analysis of complex biological-system response mechanisms and their advanced agricultural application" (life sciences), "Promotion of interdisciplinary materials science for the creation of future functions" (chemistry and materials science) and "Promotion of health and sport sciences research" (interdisciplinary fields); and in 2003, "Promotion of kansei (affective) science elucidating the mind" (interdisciplinary fields). Under the successor Global Centers of Excellence Program, the project "Cybernics: fusion of human, machine and information systems" (information, electrical and electronic engineering) was adopted in 2007.

The Department of Computer Science was selected in September 2006 for MEXT's program for cultivating leading IT specialists, and in April 2006 the Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering was designated a key cooperation base for the development of advanced ICT human resources by the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren). Ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the university was selected as a Type A contractor for MEXT's Sports Academy Formation Support Project, cooperating with the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Kanoya and Nippon Sport Science University to build networks with physical education and sport universities worldwide.

Internationally, the university co-proposed a human-resources development research project of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) with Khon Kaen University in Thailand, promoting research on mathematics, science and information education across the APEC region, and as the only affiliate member institution of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) in Japan it conducts joint education-reform projects with the SEAMEO secretariat and its 27 regional centers, including annual meetings, international collaborative practicums and online courses.

Its Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences is represented on the national Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction.

Affiliated institutions

University hospital

The University of Tsukuba Hospital, on the Tsukuba campus, opened in 1976.

University libraries

The libraries on the Tsukuba campus comprise the Central Library, the Art and Physical Education Library, the Medical Library and the Library on Library and Information Science, with the Otsuka Library at the Tokyo Campus. Unusually for a Japanese university library system, the collections are almost entirely open-stack, allowing users to browse freely except for rare materials; all libraries are open to all students and staff, and to external users upon registration. Total visits exceed one million per year. The Central Library holds about 1.76 million volumes across all fields, while the three specialized libraries hold around 200,000 volumes each.

Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)