Nagahiro Minato, 27th President
Let me begin by congratulating the 2,787 undergraduate students who are graduating from Kyoto University today. On behalf of our guest of honor, former presidents Dr Hiroo Imura and Dr Juichi Yamagiwa, as well as our executive vice-presidents, deans and directors, and all of the University's faculty, staff, and students, I extend our heartfelt congratulations to each one of you. Your family members, relatives, and others who have provided you with support and encouragement throughout your academic journey must be very proud of you. I would also like to express our deepest gratitude and congratulations to all those people. In 2022 we celebrated the 125th anniversary of Kyoto University's establishment, and the students gathered here today are now among the 225,898 to whom the University has awarded undergraduate degrees since its first graduation ceremony, held 124 years ago in 1900.
Looking back, we see that you entered Kyoto University at a time in 2020 when the novel coronavirus was becoming rampant, and a state of emergency had been declared across the country. We had no choice but to cancel the usual face-to-face entrance ceremony. This marked the start of your university life, in which classes were held online — probably an unfamiliar experience for most of you — instead of in lecture rooms where you would be interacting in-person with your instructor and classmates. Extracurricular activities, which many of you must have looked forward to enjoying, were suspended, and all of you were instructed to spend most of your time at home. Clouded by such uncertainty so soon after entering university, you must have often felt isolated and insecure. Exactly one year later, in April 2021, we finally found an opportunity between the waves of infection in which we could hold an entrance ceremony for our new students. At that point, you were already beginning your second year of studies, but we invited you to take part in a special ceremony that marked your enrollment a year late. To see you all gathered here today at your graduation ceremony is deeply moving.
In my remarks at that ceremony, I commented that one of the most important things in your life as a university student is to "discover yourself" anew, a process often facilitated by new encounters. At university, an environment that was significantly different from the one you had known in senior high school, you must have experienced many fresh encounters — with new friends and seniors, fascinating books, and unforgettable events — while coping with the unanticipated circumstances brought on by the pandemic. I hope that these experiences have also led you to discover new facets of yourself.
In the United States, the university graduation ceremony is often called "commencement". While very few American universities hold entrance ceremonies, many celebrate graduation in grand style. The use of the word "commencement" implies that graduation is nothing less than the start of a new life. In their co-authored book The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity, London Business School Professors Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton present the statistical prediction that under ideal conditions, 50% of Japanese people born in the 21st century will live to be well over 100. Most of you were born in the 21st century and are thus likely to live extremely long lives, during which you are sure to be blessed by encounters that are far richer and more numerous than those you experienced as university students. This means that the end of your student life is by no means the end of your journey of self-discovery. That will continue for more than half a century from this point on. The important thing is for you to remain as open as possible to new encounters and to embrace them without hesitation. The self-discovery facilitated by such encounters will draw out your latent capabilities and potentials to the full and lead you to genuine self-realization. The "100-Year Life" that you have been gifted as children of the 21st century guarantees you ample time to pursue this process of self-discovery and self-realization in a careful and unhurried manner. You can even make a number of "fresh starts" if necessary.
Thirteen years ago, in March 2011, a student named Megumi Aoyama graduated from our university's Faculty of Economics and started her working life at a broadcasting company. During her time at university, she studied in the United States for one year, as well as experiencing volunteering, homestays, and a variety of other activities in several parts of the world outside Japan. These experiences strengthened her resolve to work in an international organization and for the benefit of international society. Ms. Aoyama was very active as an announcer and newscaster on television and other media at the broadcasting company that she joined upon graduation. However, she could not discard her ambition from her student days. She entered a graduate program in diplomacy in the United States in 2017. After earning a master's degree in international relations, she gained a position as a liaison officer with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. During the Tokyo Paralympics, she stayed in the Athletes' Village along with the refugee team to support its members. She then went to Ukraine shortly following the Russian invasion to provide humanitarian assistance on the ground. Currently, she has a posting at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, where she is assisting refugees staying in Ukraine's neighboring countries. Attracted by the idea of working for the common interest of international society, Ms. Aoyama quit her job in broadcasting a few years before turning 30 to pursue graduate studies overseas. She now works for an international organization at the front lines of refugee support in today's uncertain and rapidly changing international environment. I am looking forward eagerly to seeing how she continues her journey of self-realization through these activities going forward.
As we can see from the example of Ms Aoyama, one of the best ways to attract meaningful encounters is to go overseas. I expect that some of you have traveled overseas already. The really important thing is to experience everyday life in a completely different environment, even if only for a short period of time. In my case, I had the opportunity to do research at a university lab in New York immediately after finishing my clinical training — or my "intern" period, as it was then called — which followed my graduation from Kyoto University's Faculty of Medicine. What originally led me to this research was the fortuitous experience of reading a certain book on immunology as an undergraduate. This book inspired me to visit a research lab in the faculty and get involved in experiments, which I learned to do by observing others. In those days I tended to struggle in physics and chemistry lab classes and had come to assume that I was simply not fit for experimental sciences. However, I found my first biology experiment at the Faculty of Medicine lab fascinating and realized that this kind of work actually suited me. As I became absorbed in experiments, I met a professor who would later become my lifelong mentor, a researcher from the United States visiting Japan on the invitation of an academic society. It was this professor's lab that I joined in New York, where I would end up spending three whole years in my late 20s. My life there was unlike anything I had ever experienced; it was literally a succession of new experiences day in, day out. I became immersed in my experiments to the point of earning the nickname "data machine" at that New York lab. Although I had considered myself rather introverted, I found myself engaged in frequent and animated discussions and debates with many young researchers from various parts of the world. Several of these researchers have remained my close friends right through to the present day.
It all started with a single book that I encountered as an undergraduate. Without this encounter, I might not have achieved the kind of self-discovery that I have just described. And if I hadn't seized the opportunity that arose from the encounter to study abroad in my mid-twenties — a move that at the time was considered rather audacious — I believe that my life thereafter would have taken a completely different path. I strongly recommend you also seize any opportunity that may arise to experience life outside of your home country. The younger you are when you do so, the greater your aspirations can be for your future. I should add that the book that inspired my journey still sits proudly on my bookshelf, well-worn and with countless passages underlined in red and blue.
In the long journey that you are now embarking on, you might not travel only on a straight path with a clear view forward. The journey is more likely to take you around many bends, with no indication of what lies ahead. To mark the start of your new journey, as I do for every graduating class, I would like to share with you the words of Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables, written by the Canadian novelist L M Montgomery more than 100 years ago. In this novel, Anne Shirley expresses her excitement about her future using the analogy of a bend in a road and what lies beyond it. What she means is that we never know what scenery may come into view, what kinds of people we may encounter, or what we may experience when we round the next bend. This unequivocally bright optimism, as well as a boundless curiosity about life and nature, and infinite empathy with others, underlie the entire series. Readers can sense the anticipation and excitement felt by Anne Shirley, a young woman with a troubled childhood, as she imagines the wonderful people she may get to know and the many new things she may experience later in her life.
I am sure that you will all encounter many "bends in the road" in your lives in the future, but considering the length of your lives, there is no need to try to find a shortcut or take the shortest route. You don't need to be afraid of taking detours or roundabout ways, either. As I have said, this graduation ceremony marks the "commencement" of your new life. Regardless of whether your road ahead leads you to further research or to work outside of academia, I fully anticipate that each and every one of you will boldly spread your wings as a fully-fledged citizen, equipped with a soundly critical spirit, a deep empathy toward others, and a bright, uninhibited optimism.
Once again, please allow me to offer my sincere congratulations to each and every one of you.