President's Message INTRODUCTION

President of Nagasaki University

President of Nagasaki University
Hiroshi Saito
M.D., Ph.D.

President's Profile

 

President's Address at the Nagasaki University Entrance Ceremony, 2008

April 8, 2008

Please allow me to introduce myself.
I am Hiroshi Saito, President of Nagasaki University.

I would like to welcome a total of 2,219 new students, 1,712 undergraduates and 507 graduates, to Nagasaki University in this memorable year of 2008, celebrating the 151th anniversary of its foundation.

In the name of the 151-year history of Nagasaki University, I would like to express my gratitude to you for having chosen this University out of 709 universities around Japan, and would also like to extend a cordial welcome.

Have you heard of the 300-year old saying gHeading to Nagasaki to study with a Kyu on his backh?

gKyu" is a woven-bamboo backpack and people in old times used this when they traveled.

During the period of national isolation by the Tokugawa Shogunate starting from 1639, Nagasaki was Japanfs only city opened to the world and a mecca for young people who aspired to learning. Many bright young intellectuals gathered in Nagasaki from all over the country. The saying was born of that historical circumstance.

Those young geniuses learned medicine, chemistry, botany, astronomy, and other discipline from medical practitioners in the Dejima Dutch Trading Post such as Kaempfer and Siebold, Dutch-trained physicians such as Kogyu Yoshio, and Dutch translators such as Tadao Shizuki. The whole town of Nagasaki was a university. Choei Takano, Shinsaku Takasugi, Ryoma Sakamoto, Yukichi Fukuzawa, and others who contributed to the Meiji Restoration all learnt in Nagasaki. In a way, they were alumni of Nagasaki University and you are their academic descendants, their gjuniors.h

With the historical setting of gthe whole town of Nagasaki being a universityh, Nagasaki has become one of the Japanfs most educationally minded cities furnished with the advanced facilities for higher education.

In 1857, Dutch naval surgeon J.L.C. Pompe established gIgakudenshushoh, the present School of Medicine. As this fact shows, Nagasaki University is the oldest national universities with its history of 151 years.
In 1874, the gElementary School Teacher Training Instituteh was set up, the Faculty of Education as we know it today. We celebrated its 130th anniversary three years ago.
In 1890, the gDivision of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Department of Medicine of Fifth National Middle High Schoolh was founded, which has today become the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. It is 118 years old.
In 1905, the gNagasaki Higher Commercial Schoolh was formed, Japanfs third public school of economics after Tokyo Higher Commercial School (now Hitotsubashi University) and Kobe Higher Commercial School (now Kobe University). It has developed into todayfs Faculty of Economics, and its centennial was celebrated three years ago.
In 1921, the gDepartment of Fisheries of Nagasaki Prefectural Teacher Training Institute for Vocational Educationh, currently called the Faculty of Fisheries, was created.
In 1942, the East Asia Research Institute of Endemics, the predecessor of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, was organized.
In 1947, Nagasaki High School was instituted, which later led to the Faculty of Liberal Arts (discontinued in 1997) and the existing Faculty of Environmental Studies.

In Nagasaki, these distinguished higher education research institutes with their long histories were combined to create Nagasaki University in 1949. Seven limpid streams merged to form a great river gNagasaki Universityh.

Afterwards, the gFaculty of Engineeringh was inaugurated in 1966, the gSchool of Dentistryh in 1979, the gFaculty of Environmental Sciencesh in 1997, and the gSchool of Health Sciencesh in 2002 to evolve into an even greater river. Now Nagasaki University has grown into one of Japanfs top-level universities, in both quality and quantity, that comprises eight faculties, five graduate schools, and one institute with 9,000 students and 2,400 faculty and administrative staff.

The gMaster of Tropical Medicineh, established in April 2006, is Japanfs only graduate school exclusively researching tropical infectious diseases. Its lectures and training sessions are all conducted in English.

On April 1st this year, we opened the gGraduate School of International Health Developmenth and the very first students entered this brand new course. As you can see, Nagasaki University is not just old in years; it is a university gold but new, unique, and distinctiveh which has kept challenging itself to reorganizations and creation of faculties and graduate schools in response to the demands of the times.

Nagasaki University made a fresh start as gNagasaki University, National University Corporationh in April 2004, with the ultimate goal of continuing gits role as a ecenter for transmission of intellectual informationf indispensable for the worldh.

A little while ago, the Nagasaki University Orchestra conducted by Mr. Takashi Fukuda and the Nagasaki University Romantour Choir entertained us by performing beautiful music. Your senior fellows played and sang with their whole heart. You must have been impressed.

Young peoplefs enthusiasm moves us and makes us anticipate a bright future for the world. Your sincere efforts and positive attitude to life will enhance the reputation of the University and eternalize its name, and eventually the most significant gtransmission of intellectual informationh will come from Nagasaki University.

Please gstrive hardh for everything you are determined to do. Nagasaki University will make every possible effort to support you if you act on your own initiative.

Now, I would like to explain some things about our campuses where you will spend a considerable amount of time on study and other activities. Nagasaki Universityfs biggest problem used to be that over half of the buildings were more than 35 years old. The University had renewed only 18% of the deteriorating buildings, and this was far from the national average of 68%. This was all due to the on-campus dispute over the relocation issues, and the overhaul had not been permitted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology until the settlement was achieved.

Therefore, it may be no exaggeration to say that Nagasaki University students have been studying in the worst environment of all Japanese universities. I feel very sorry about that.

Thankfully, overall remodeling of the Faculty of Economics, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Engineering, and Faculty of Fisheries had almost been completed in March of this year. Only the Faculties of Education and Engineering need further work, but they will be finished next February. A new 12-story building of the university hospital on the Sakamoto Campus will finally be opened after spending 25 billion yen in three years.

The study environment has improved significantly, and Nagasaki University has embarked on a new era. Let's now take a look at the 151-year history of Nagasaki University from the perspective of expansion progress, and divide it into three stages.

The first stage is the establishment of gIgakudenshushoh and the subsequent gperiod of beginningh. The second stage is the gperiod of recoveryh from the birth of Nagasaki University on the site destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945 up to the present time. The third stage is the gperiod of progress in the 21st centuryh kicking off with the redevelopment of the Bunkyo and Sakamoto Campuses.

You are the people the g151-year history of Nagasaki Universityh has chosen to lead the development of Nagasaki University in the 21st century. In other words, you are the gchildren of the 151-year history of Nagasaki Universityh who are entrusted with the future of the University. You have been sent by some great invisible power. At the 151st
anniversary of its foundation, Nagasaki University is now able to welcome you into its wish for people who will play an important role in our future.

In closing, there is something I would like all of you to do. On August 9, 1945, we lost 897 precious lives among students, faculty, and administrative staff in the Nagasaki Medical College and its affiliated College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the predecessors of the School of Medicine and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, which were located closest to the hypocenter, 54 in the Nagasaki Normal School, the predecessor of the Faculty of Education, 27 in the Nagasaki College of Economics, the predecessor of the Faculty of Economics, and one in the Nagasaki Youth Normal School, the predecessor of the Faculty of Fisheries. There is no other university in this whole world which has experienced such a disaster.

63 years ago, about 1,000 of our seniors were victimized by the atomic bomb right here on this Bunkyo Campus in which cherry blossoms are in full bloom now and on the Sakamoto Campus where the School of Medicine and the University Hospital are situated. The University Campuses are cemeteries for the people who have lost their lives in that atomic devastation. To dump cigarette butt litter and plastic bottles and such on these Campuses would be shameful deeds which would violate our predecessors, our seniors. Such conduct should be prohibited. I ask you, if you find any trash, to please pick it up and put it in the rubbish bins.

This is of course true outside the Campus as well. For example, if you wonft follow the garbage rules of the town where you started living by yourself and take only arbitrary action, that will sadden and disappoint the people in Nagasaki who have warmly cared about the gyoung people studying in Nagasakih for hundreds of years. Such attitude would make them think that gdiligent and honest Nagasaki University students no longer existh.

Those who were killed by such a horrible disaster as the atomic bomb would have done commendable jobs if they had survived. I believe it is a responsibility of Nagasaki University students, faculty and administrative members, and alumnifs to learn well how to live well for our predecessors. I would like you to always keep this in mind.

I am concluding my complimentary address by welcoming these bright young freshmen who will create the new history of Nagasaki University in the 21st century and by extending my appreciation for their entering Nagasaki University.







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