Nagahiro Minato, 27th President
Kyoto University today welcomes 2,908 new undergraduate students. On behalf of our guests of honor, former President Juichi Yamagiwa and Ms Megumi Aoyama, as well as the executive vice-presidents, deans, and directors in attendance, and all of our other faculty and staff, I congratulate each and every one of you on your enrollment at Kyoto University. I would like to pay tribute to the tremendous amount of effort you must have made up to this point, and also express my deepest appreciation to your families and all those who have encouraged and supported you in your efforts.
Today, you stand at the starting line of your new life as Kyoto University students. You studied diligently to prepare for the entrance examinations, which brought you to this point, and I am sure that was a valuable process for you personally. However, the content and methods of learning you will encounter in your new life at university are likely to differ greatly from what you have experienced thus far. Please allow me to talk a little about what kind of place a university is.
I believe that a university is a place to discover a "new self" that lies hidden within you and the potential that it holds. The most significant moments for discovery of this new self are "encounters", and a university will give you countless opportunities for such experiences. Whether they take the form of meeting someone new, experiencing a significant event, or even reading a new book, new encounters can reveal interests, capabilities, and aptitudes that you previously overlooked, which can significantly influence your way forward in the future. In this regard, it is important for you to embrace new environments and situations with a sensibility that is free from old customs and preconceptions. When I was a university student, with the intention of improving my English, I set out to read the English original of a book on immunology, which was quite difficult for me at the time. It was a struggle, but I gradually became fascinated by the complex and sophisticated biological mechanisms the book described. After graduation, I decided to pursue research on immunology. I believe I can say that my accidental encounter with this one book determined the course of my life thereafter. Getting a wonderful lucky break through a chance encounter is called serendipity. Different types of encounters produce serendipity for different people. So, the important thing is to experience as many encounters as you can, and hone your intellect and sensitivity as you await your own serendipity. I believe that good fortune comes only to those who are ready for it.
After I have finished speaking, one of your predecessors at Kyoto University, Ms Megumi Aoyama, will offer you a message. Ms Aoyama graduated from our Faculty of Economics 13 years ago in March 2011, and began her career at a broadcasting company. During her time as a student, she studied in the United States for one year and experienced volunteering, homestays, and a variety of other activities at many locations overseas. Those experiences strengthened her resolve to work in an international organization and for the benefit of international society. At the broadcasting company, she joined immediately after graduation, she was very active as an announcer and newscaster on television and other news media. However, she could not discard the ambition she had held since her student days. So, 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 senior project 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 went to Ukraine shortly after the Russian invasion, to provide humanitarian assistance on the ground. Currently, she has a posting at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, where she is engaged in activities to assist refugees in Ukraine's neighboring countries. Ms Aoyama has been busily working in humanitarian aid across national boundaries on the frontlines of international organizations. Despite her busy schedule, she found time to come back to Japan specially to talk directly to you today. I too am looking forward immensely to her speech.
The world is quite literally the stage for Ms Aoyama's present activities, which were surely inspired by the experiences and diverse encounters she gained overseas in her student days. I believe that the good fortune she grasped is a prime example of serendipity. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, where Ms Aoyama has long been involved in assistance activities, the fierce conflict continues, and many young people are unable to lead an ordinary student life at university. In this situation, with the hope of providing opportunities, even if only a few, for such young people to pursue their studies with peace of mind, we established the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund, under which more than 20 students from the Ukrainian city of Kyiv have thus far been admitted to Kyoto University. Most of these students are in their first or second year of university, and with the generous support of many people both within and beyond our campus, they are growing accustomed to life here in Japan, far from their home country, and applying themselves fully to their studies, extracurricular activities, and other pursuits from day to day. If you come across any of these students in your classrooms or elsewhere on campus, I encourage you to talk to them and get to know them better. I'm sure this will lead to wonderful encounters both for them and for you.
One other thing that is just as important as self-discovery is "self-expression", or, in other words, how you express your own feelings and ideas. One of the most effective ways of doing so is writing. Writing for yourself means thinking for yourself. It's difficult in practice to write without thinking or to think without writing. The process of carefully crafting a passage of writing, taking the time to select the most suitable words and appropriate phrasing, is itself an important part of the thinking process. It allows us to verify and refine our own ideas and feelings. This requires reflection on the basis of accurate knowledge and information, as free as possible from preconceptions, prejudices, and other forms of external bias. This is what's known as "critical thinking". In this context, the word "critical" does not have a negative meaning like criticizing or attacking others. Rather, it involves carefully assessing our own judgments and decisions, considering questions such as whether we have access to all essential information, whether the assumptions of our thinking and judgment are correct, whether our thought process is logical, and whether we are free of biases such as prejudice and arbitrary emotions such as like and dislike. For this reason, it is recommended to translate "critical thinking" in Japanese not literally as hihy¬ōteki shikō but rather as ginmiteki shikō, with ginmiteki denoting scrutiny and careful selection rather than simply being critical.
Recently we have seen the popularization of generative artificial intelligence (AI), which can in a few moments produce a coherent passage of writing on any topic you provide, using a massive computing database. I think that generative AI will prove an extremely useful tool in your studies and daily life from now on, but I also want to emphasize that it is no substitute for writing for yourself as a means of expressing your ideas. No matter how formally correct it may be, text that is automatically produced for you by generative AI does not involve a process of thinking and verification based on your own critical spirit. These days we can use the internet to access huge and diverse volumes of information almost instantly. But the important thing is to use your own intellect to sift through this information and verify it. Furthermore, as the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer cautioned, even if we have reached a conclusion after ample critical contemplation, "it is still possible, nonetheless, that the other side is correct". Self-expression does not equate to self-assertion. I believe that expressing yourself, informed by dispassionate critical thinking and a generosity of spirit, is more important than ever in this era of information overload.
Another key benefit of writing properly is that it can enable you to communicate your emotions to others to the fullest extent. It is said that a style of writing often reflects the writer's personality. As you prepare to join the world of science and academia through your respective fields of study, I would like to share with you a passage from Though Ephemeral Like a Drop of Dew: An Exchange of Letters, a Dialogue for Life (Tsuyu no mi nagara: ōfuku shokan inochi eno taiwa), a collection of inspirational correspondence between Tomio Tada, an immunologist and new Noh playwright who was renowned as a highly adept writer, and the geneticist Keiko Yanagisawa. Tada writes: "[Scientists] should focus more on conveying the thrill they have gained from their own discoveries in a way that thrills others in the same way. If they don't, how can they expect others to appreciate their work?" I wholeheartedly agree with Tada's words. I expect that you will read many different academic papers from now on, but I believe that truly excellent academic papers not only convey original insights and logical clarity but also express the thrill of discovery and emotion felt through achievement. Producing a sound piece of writing requires a great deal of energy but offers a number of important benefits, including honing our inner strength and sharpening our intellect as well as improving our capacity to express our emotions effectively.
In your lives as Kyoto University students, I hope that you will experience new encounters with many people and discover wonderful things about yourselves. Once again, I offer my sincere congratulations to each and every one of you.
(Direct quotation translated from Tsuyu no mi nagara: ōfuku shokan inochi eno taiwa by Tomio Tada & Keiko Yanagisawa, Shueisha, 2004)