Speech at the 2022 Entrance Ceremony

This is the speech at the 2022 entrance ceremony.

Opening speech by President

Congratulations to all the new students on your enrollment. All current students, faculty and staff are very happy to be spending your time together at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. We sincerely hope that you will have a fruitful time as a student. Normally, we would have many of your family and friends in attendance, and we would celebrate with your senior students from the orchestra and TUAT GLEE Club performing the university's celebratory overture and university song, but we would like to ask for your understanding that the ceremony will be scaled down as a measure to prevent infection.

Now, just two weeks ago, on a calm Sunday when the cherry blossoms in Tokyo were announced to be in bloom, I walked around Oji Station in Kita Ward with my family. The cherry blossoms in the nearby Asukayama Park were just starting to bloom, and I naturally ended up at the three museums lined up in this area called Nishigahara, hoping for the day when we would finally welcome new students to our university. One of them, the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Museum, was bustling with visitors, perhaps due to the fact that the NHK historical drama "Haruten wo Tsuke" was broadcast last year, in which Faculty Member and students provided technical cooperation on mulberry trees and silkworms. In the adjacent Asukayama Museum, there were many exhibits that told the long history of this area, and among them I found a large exhibition panel titled "Nishigahara, the center of modern agricultural technology in Japan." It tells us that exactly 100 years ago, in this vast area, there were large-scale national educational and research institutes related to sericulture, silk reeling, agriculture, and forestry. I was delighted to see that many of them are directly connected to the current Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. When we think of modern agricultural technology, many people think of the predecessor of the Faculty of Faculty of Agriculture, but for example, the Tokyo Higher School of Sericulture, which once existed there, promoted basic research to support Japan's core industry of raw silk production and export, and later became the Faculty of Faculty of Engineering of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. This reminded me once again of how science, technology, and engineering change and develop greatly and rapidly with the times. To be precise, it eventually became part of our Faculty of Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Faculty of Agriculture, but the important thing is to understand each of these things, such as why Japanese raw silk and silk textiles were able to take the world by storm at that time, or how much the country supported Japan's growth by focusing on export industries such as raw silk, starting with the formation of a railway network connecting various parts of Japan at the same time. In each of these areas, such as world-leading research into preventing diseases of silkworms, which lead to the production of high-quality raw silk, and the manufacture of high-quality textiles, one cannot help but feel the traces of the hard work of your predecessors and your direct predecessors. These have become the advanced quality control and sophisticated equipment development technologies that Japan is proud of, and will eventually be passed down in a different form to the automobile industry and other industries, leading to rapid economic development. And behind all of this is the fact that Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has firmly played an important role in this regard, from the time of its predecessor to the present day.
For you, a hundred years ago may seem like a long, long time ago. However, it is because of the efforts of the people of that time that we have the present. At the same time, you are now standing at the starting point of creating a new history for more than a hundred years from now. It is not difficult to trace the surface of past history, but there is no historical fact about what will happen in the future. Research activities can reveal what will support Japan and the world anew, and illuminate the future and the path we should take. You have finally been given the wonderful opportunity to learn how to conduct research, join a circle of people, and in the near future lead it. In the coming era, it will be important to create a daily life where we can shine a light on each individual and live with a higher level of fulfillment, while depicting a wide and free world without being bound by various invisible boundaries. It is not easy to achieve this, but I sincerely hope that through your learning and experiences at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, you will be able to fully utilize the unique power that lies within you, which you have not yet discovered yourself.

I sincerely hope that this memorable day, a huge turning point in your lives as you enroll at this university, will be an irreplaceable and wonderful day of departure for you all. I would like to conclude my remarks with my congratulations.

Congratulations today.

April 5, 2022
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Kazuhiro Chiba

Announcement

Congratulations to all new students on your enrollment. It is a great pleasure for all of us, current students and faculty members, to be able to spend our time together at TUAT. We sincerely hope that your time at TUAT will be a fruitful one. Although we would normally invite many of your family members and friends to attend the celebration, along with the performance of the University Overture and University Song by the students of the Orchestra and Glee Club, who are your seniors, we would like you to understand that the ceremony will be held on a reduced scale due to infection prevention measures.

On a mild Sunday, just half a month ago, when the Tokyo cherry blossoms began to bloom, my family and I were walking around Oji Station in Kita Ward, Tokyo, as we pleased. The cherry blossoms in the nearby Asukayama Park were also just beginning to bloom, and as we anticipated the day when we would finally welcome new students to our university, we naturally arrived at the museum that stands three buildings in a row in this area called Nishigahara. One of them, Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Museum, was crowded with visitors, probably due to NHK's historical drama "Seiten wo Tsuke" broadcast last year, for which our faculty and students provided technical assistance on mulberry and silkworms. Adjacent to the museum was the Asukayama Museum, which displayed many exhibits telling the long history of the area. Among them, I found a large display panel entitled "Nishigahara, the center of modern agricultural technology in Japan. It showed that about a hundred years ago, in this vast area, there existed a sericulture industry to raise silkworms, a silk manufacturing industry to produce raw silk, and I was delighted to see that many of these institutions were directly connected to the current Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. I was delighted to read that the Tokyo Higher Silk School, for example, which once existed there, promoted fundamental research that supported Japan's key industry of the time, the production and export of raw silk, and later became the Faculty of Engineering of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. I was reminded once again of the great and rapid changes and developments in engineering as time goes by. The important thing is to understand why Japanese raw silk and silk fabrics were able to dominate the world, for example, and how much effort the country put into export industries such as raw silk to support Japan's growth, starting with the formation of the railroad network connecting various parts of Japan at the same time. The purpose is to decipher each of these questions one by one. The world's most advanced research on silkworms, or insects that prevent disease, which leads to the production of high quality raw silk, and the manufacture of high quality textiles, Each of which one cannot help but feel the footprints of the blood-curdling efforts of our predecessors and your direct predecessors. These technologies became Japan's pride in advanced quality control and sophisticated equipment development, and were eventually transformed and passed on to the automobile industry and other industries, leading to dramatic economic development. In the background of this development is the fact that TUAT has played an important role from the time of its predecessors to the present.
A hundred years ago may seem like a long time ago, far, far away. However, the present is only possible because of the efforts of the people of that era. At the same time, you are now at the starting point of creating a new history more than a hundred years from now. It is not difficult to trace past history superficially, but nothing about the future is depicted in historical fact. Research activities can illuminate the way forward by revealing the future and what will newly support Japan and the world. You now have a wonderful opportunity to learn how to conduct research, to join the circle of those who have done so, and to lead it in the near future. In the future, the important task will be to create a daily life in which we live with a higher level of fulfillment, shining a light on each individual while drawing a broad and free world, without being bound by various invisible boundaries. It will not be easy to accomplish this, but I sincerely hope that through your future studies and experiences at TUAT, you will draw out and fully demonstrate your unique strengths that lie hidden within you and that you have yet to discover for yourselves.

I would like to conclude with my words of congratulations, wishing you all a wonderful and irreplaceable start to this momentous and memorable day, at your entrance into TUAT.

I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to you today.

April 5, 2022
President, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Kazuhiro Chiba