The University of Aizu

Shigeaki Tsunoyama
The Chairperson of the Board of Exceutives,
The University President,
The Public University Corporation, The University of Aizu

Many Japanese people were impressed by remarkable results of the Japan national football team in “2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa”. Also, Ichiro, a famous baseball player, played in his 10th straight MLB All-Star games. In the current era of globalization, many Japanese athletes are making the world their stage, while they demonstrate their top-level skills and adapt themselves to their teams, making use of their language abilities. I think that this represents characteristics of the youth living in the 21st century. Similarly, we, the University of Aizu, have committed ourselves to realization of our big goal, “from Aizu to the world,” through education of students who can play a leading role worldwide.

I would like to share a couple of recent topics regarding our university which were covered by mass media with you (including high school students and their parents) who are viewing this website to know more about our university.

I am glad to announce that the number of examinees for AY 2010 admission to the Undergraduate School increased. I watched an NTV (Nippon Television Network Corporation) program titled “Bankisha” at 6:00 p.m. on January 17, when the second day of the National Center Test for University Admissions ended. This program featured universities in Japan rapidly gaining popularity. In the program, top 10 energetic universities were selected, including 8 medical and nursing-care universities. Except for those medical and nursing-care universities, our university was ranked the highest in non-medical areas. When I referred to this ranking during conversation with our students, they expressed their delight, saying, “Isn’t that cool?” in the way young people talk in a casual manner. I think it’s “cool,” too. The following 3 points were analyzed as main factors for such rapidly growing popularity of those universities: (1) students can commute to school from their home and are given a privilege of subsidized admission fees/payments, both of which are attractive in the prolonged recession, (2) they can obtain qualifications in medical and nursing-care areas, and (3) those universities have attained high employment rates. Judging from recent situations of applicants to our university, the rate of increase in the number of applicants from other prefectures is more significant than that from Fukushima Prefecture. Perhaps one of the reasons for the above-mentioned increase in the number of examinees is our university’s high employment rate.

I would like to refer to another ranking of universities in Japan, which is an article published by “Diamond Weekly Magazine” in one of its February 2010 issues. The title of the ranking was “Ranking of Universities in Japan According to Their Real Competence in Education and Research.” This ranking is based on the amount of funds per student which relevant universities acquired for their projects supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The projects applied for by both of our undergraduate school and graduate school were successfully accepted as MEXT-supported projects. Our university was ranked 97th by the total amount of MEXT-supported funds because our university is small in size. However, when it comes to the amount of MEXT-supported funds per student, we received high evaluation, surpassing many other well-known national universities except for medical universities/departments. Our leading-edge education owes much to the educational reform accelerated by the MEXT-supported projects. The term, “leading-edge,” might give you an impression that our courses are too advanced for computer beginners to keep up with. To remove such an impression, let me explain good points of studying at local universities. Students can concentrate on their studies at local universities because they are located remotely from busy and noisy urban areas. Also, faculty members at local universities usually live close to their universities, and they do not have to spend a lot of time on commuting. This is an advantage to our faculty members as well, in that they can spend more hours on communication with their students. I assume that our faculty members communicate with their students for 2 hours longer per day than those at urban universities. The first step towards success in studying at a university is to “learn, as much as you can, directly from professors what attitude you should have towards studies.” Fortunately, nearly half of our faculty members are non-Japanese and students can benefit from such an international academic environment through good communication with faculty members. It is quite natural for our students, who are studying on an international campus, to aim at the goal, “from Aizu to the world.” It is my great pleasure every year to see our graduates who achieved this goal leave the University of Aizu in pursuit of their future paths.

As I mentioned above, excellent learning environments are available for our students. However, whether they can make good use of those learning environments or not depends on students’ individual attitudes. In order to survive the recurring employment ice age, students are strongly recommended to master everything which is contained in our unique education. Our educational curriculums comply with the international standards, and covers wide-ranging areas from conventional computer science to software engineering and IT areas. Also, our curriculum advisors are always ready to help students find their academic directions at an early juncture following admission to our university.

Regarding our educational achievements, we are proud that a team of our students made a good result at ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM-ICPC). Our team proceeded to the ICPC 2008 final round held in Sweden. 100 universities worldwide which had won their regional rounds competed in this final round. Our team finished in the 49th place, in the middle of these 100 universities, and was ranked in the 2nd place among Japanese universities, after Tokyo University. Many distinguished overseas universities were in the following places of our university. I am confident that our leading-edge education led up to such a good result. At ICPC 2009, our team was again ranked in the 2nd place among Japanese universities after Tokyo University in its regional round. However, our team lost in the Asian qualifying round and could not advance to the final round due to influenza affection. As for this academic year, our team made a good start in the place following the University of Tokyo and Tokyo Institute of Technology. I hope the team’s success in the Asian qualifying round and the final round.

Recently, there has been an increasing demand for human resources learned in information technology. A “smart grid” is one of the prominent areas in IT technology. The smart grid delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using digital technology by effectively integrating environmentally friendly sources of energy, such as solar and wind power with the conventional power generation. This area has attracted the attention of IT companies, such as Google Corporation. Also, massive data centers that work behind “cloud computing” are becoming huge business markets. For example, data centers in the United States consume as much energy as five nuclear power plants can generate. It is predicted that, when e-publications such as iPad e-books become popular among people, needs for data centers will increase more than ever. Under such social circumstances that require IT technology, our students, who have acquired knowledge of advanced technology based on our founding goal, “to Advance Knowledge for Humanity,” are greatly expected to contribute to the world.

Our international campus is a gateway to the world.

July 2010

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[Last Update] 2010-8-23