学長からのメッセージ等

　I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to all of you who just received your bachelor’s, master’s, professional and doctoral degrees respectively on this day of celebration, and to express my profound respect to you all for your hard work in study and research until today. My heartfelt congratulations also go to your families and acquaintances who have warmly watched over and supported you throughout the years.
　Till this day, you have learned many things at Doshisha University. Today’s Commencement is a good occasion for you to look back on what you have learned and acquired in university, but we would also like you to take this opportunity to think about how you will utilize the knowledge and experiences you have gained in the future.
　From your childhood to university and graduate school, you have studied primarily for yourself. From now on, we would like you to seek ways to apply what you have learned and experienced not only for yourself but for the benefit of others and society. It was certainly your own diligent effort that earned you the abilities you have now. At the same time, however, those abilities have also been cultivated thanks to many people and environmental factors including your family, school and society. If the big cycle of returning what you have received starts turning, it will surely enrich your own lives and society.
　You may think that you do not have much knowledge or power. But if you look around the world, there are millions of children and young people who are deprived of the opportunity to be educated. It is therefore fair to say that you are privileged to have had an opportunity to study at and graduate from a higher education institution.
　An event that took place on February 16 made me think of this in particular. As you may know, it was the day that Doshisha University conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters on the late poet Yun Dong-ju. Since it was the first time that our university awarded an honorary degree posthumously, we went through a lot of discussions before making the decision.
　Known as Korea’s most beloved poet, Yun Dong-ju was born in 1917 in Bukgando in former Manchuria. After attending Yonhi College, the predecessor of the present Yonsei University, he entered the English Literature Department at Rikkyo University in April 1942 and then transferred to the English Literature Department in the Faculty of Letters at Doshisha University in October that year, while at the same time continuing making poetry in Korean, a prohibited activity at that time. He was arrested by Kyoto Shimogamo Police Station in July 1943 as an ideological offender engaging in independence movement and died in Fukuoka Prison on February 16, 1945.
　Commemorating the 80th anniversary of his death, the ceremony for awarding the honorary degree on February 16 this year was attended by a large audience who also offered flowers in front of his memorial monument on the Imadegawa Campus. While we looked back on Yun Dong-ju’s life and works there, we at the same time could not help but think about the war years that changed his life drastically. Many students of Doshisha University were dispatched to battlefields during those years, especially after 1943 when the government started sending students to war. Many of them even died in battle and could not return to their studies. Yun Dong-ju was also one of the victims of the wartime under extreme thought control. It is our deepest regret that our university failed to carry out our duty as an educational institution to help people of talent and aspirations achieve their goals.
　As 2025 marks the 150 anniversary of the foundation of the Doshisha and the 80th anniversary of the end of war for Japanese society, we cannot help but hope for continued peace in the future ahead of you all, who were able to complete studies in a peaceful environment. At the same time, we would like you all, who had the privilege of studying in a favorable environment, to use the power you gained through learning to build peace among people. This task is not abstract at all, because although Japanese society is fortunately not currently embroiled in war, divides and conflicts exist everywhere in the society. It is evident not only in the real world, but also in the digital space like SNS.
　In this past year alone, different parts of the world experienced extreme weather, which is said to be caused by climate change. Taking that into account, we also need to face the serious problems arising between humans and the earth. It is our hope that graduates of Doshisha University will use the academic knowledge and skills they acquired in an appropriate way to bring peace between people, and between humans and the global environment.
　Joseph Hardy Neesima established Doshisha 150 years ago as a place to nurture people with a new mindset for a new era. Neesima had a strong belief that education is the key to change people and society, and the project that he was most committed to in his last years was the establishment of a university as the finishing stage of learning. Without witnessing the birth of Doshisha University himself, Neesima passed away in 1890 at the age of 46 years and 11 months.
　Neesima often quoted the phrase “deep forests and large lakes” when describing his ideal image of a university. The phrase was taken from the sentence in the Chinese classic The Commentary on Spring and Autum Annals, “From deep forests and large lakes come dragons and snakes,” where “deep forests and large lakes” were described as a place that produces outstanding people like “dragons and snakes,” as well as a mysterious place where the unknown world beyond human comprehension comes in contact with the human world.
　Neesima wrote his intention to “make our school like deep forests and large lakes that let small fish grow and big fish also freely grow bigger,” describing the university as a place of diversity that brings out the individuality of each student. For Neesima who quoted “From deep forests and large lakes come dragons and snakes,” a university was also a place that would nurture unconventional talents. This idea is also linked to his final words, “Doshisha is not to oppress the extraordinary students but to allow them to develop their individuality according to their nature as much as possible and to cultivate distinguished persons,” expressing his hope of nurturing people of extraordinary talent into great figures without molding them.
　Neesima envisioned Doshisha University as “deep forests and large lakes,” a diverse environment that nurtures and encourages different characters and even has the unknown potential to produce “dragons and snakes.” Doshisha University, where you all have studied at and are about to graduate from, is entrusted with such ideal of “deep forests and large lakes.”
　Even after you graduate, learning will continue for a lifetime. I hope that each one of you will exert your individuality and work actively as a person like “dragons and snakes.” The phrase “deep forests and large lakes” does not only refer to a particular environment, but it represents our mindset. It is my belief that if you can make your own mind like “deep forests and large lakes,” instead of confining yourself in the small frame of “I can only do this much,” you will be able to exert the “dragons and snakes”-like power inside you.
　Fortunately, Doshisha University has a network that can collectively serve as “deep forests and large lakes” even after graduation. Doshisha has produced approximately 370,000 alumni who are active in various fields and support our university through their interconnectedness. You will not be disconnected from Doshisha by graduating, but you will become a member of the broader and cross-generational Doshisha community, where you are expected to expand your network of reciprocal support. I would like to conclude my address by wishing you the best in your future endeavors, and wishing the God will bless the future path of each of you as you take a new step forward.