Message from the Dean
Hiromichi Nagasawa, Ph.D
In Japan and also at our university, education in agricultural sciences was initially carried out by foreign teachers during the Meiji Period. One-hundred-and-thirty-seven (137) years have elapsed since then. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Prof. Umetaro Suzuki’s success in extracting “oryzanin” (vitamin B1) from rice bran as a means of curing beriberi, and the research results were published in the Tokyo Kagaku Kaishi (Journal of the Tokyo Chemical Society), now titled the Journal of the Chemical Society of Japan. Since then, the Faculty of Agriculture and the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences have been advancing their own world-leading, creative research across a wide range of fields, and have cultivated a great many excellent researchers.
The university is the core institution in carrying out higher education. However, higher education cannot be achieved unless accompanied by research. In turn, educating talented young people pays dividends in elevating the quality of university research.
Since heightened priority was placed on graduate education in Japan, there has been a gradual increase in the population of graduate students, nearly doubling in number over past years. However, the number of faculty has not increased at the same pace. To the contrary, since the incorporation of the national universities, it has continued to decline, creating a situation that makes it difficult to sustain highly specialized, quality education.
This is happening at a time when there is a burgeoning demand for people with in-depth knowledge and expertise in the agricultural sciences. The world is confronting a myriad of difficult challenges, including ensuring food quality and supply, protecting the global environment, preserving biodiversity, reducing the use of fossil fuels, expanding the water supply, and making wider use of genetic resources. From a global standpoint, much expectation is being placed on the contributions of agricultural researchers in solving these problems. We are at a juncture in creating a framework of education and research suitable to meet these challenges and expectations.
The Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences initially comprised eight departments, which are developed from eight undergraduate programs. Over recent years, four new departments have been added, making a total of 12 graduate departments. The faculty’s undergraduate programs had transited from a basic science curriculum to one that was more elective oriented. As, however, this gave way to a lot of minutely specialized courses, we have recently reconsidered the curriculum and are returning part of it back to basic science platform. In sum, we are committed to raising the quality of the university’s undergraduate education, while maintaining the benefits that students derive from taking elective courses. On the other hand, we are carrying out an educational program that incorporates specialized and cross-departmental courses on both the graduate and undergraduate levels. We have developed an education and research program in the area of agricultural bioinformatics, and other interdisciplinary programs that address such topics as food safety and biomass energy. As a component of the university’s internationalization effort, it has introduced a project under the Global 30 Program, in the first stage of which four overseas students have been admitted into the master’s degree program. A system has been established to provide overseas students with lectures, training and research guidance, all in English.
In fiscal year 2010, a survey was conducted of the career paths of students who have graduated from the university’s doctoral program. Eight-hundred-and-seventy-four (874) students who graduated over the preceding six years were surveyed. Eight-hundred-and-sixty-seven (867) replied, for a 99.2% response rate. Their responses were tallied in a range of categories, including their affiliated institutions, type of employment, location, salary arrangements, and occupational titles. It was found that the number of employed full time increased year by year, and within three or four years equaled the number employed part time. After that, there was a tendency for the pace of increase in full-time employment to slow. A fairly large percentage of the remaining respondents had not secure full-time employment. This was true even among those who had held postdoctoral positions over a long period. The results also showed that the percentage of postdocs hired by companies has been increasing over recent years. From the survey, we also learned for the first time about the career trends of the university’s overseas doctoral students. Among them, about 60% remained in Japan immediately after graduation. However, over a period of a few years, almost all of them returned to their countries. Approximately 40% of them had secured positions in academia.
In April 2010, the university’s Experimental Farm and its Experimental Station for Landscape Plants were merged to form the new Institute for Sustainable Agro-Ecosystem Services, which is operated in conjunction with the university’s Forest Experimental Station at Tanashi. The Institute will provide a strengthened research infrastructure for undertaking new missions by the Faculty of Agriculture.
In these ways, the teaching and research faculties, technical personnel and administrative staffs of the Faculty of Agriculture and the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences are jelled into one body, which is working to foster talented people while building a comprehensive organization that meets the needs of a new era.