Hiroshi MATSUMOTO, the 25th President
Distinguished guests, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
Good Morning, my name is Hiroshi Matsumoto, president of Kyoto University. Please allow me to express, on behalf of the university, my warm welcome to you all, as well as my gratitude to you for coming all the way here during this rather cold winter season.
It is my great honor to open this, the sixth University Administrators Workshop, the theme of which is International Student Mobility: Recent Initiatives and Future Approaches. Kyoto University has successfully held the UAW annually since 2006, and in the course of those previous workshops, many core themes relating to international university administration have been addressed and discussed by pro-active and thoughtful administrative staff from many parts of the world. This year, we are also fortunate to be holding the workshop in cooperation with the twelve Japanese universities which, together with Kyoto University, are involved in the government’s G30 Project for Establishing Core Universities for Internationalization.
A university’s relations with other higher education institutions throughout the world are of paramount importance in this globalized age. A university’s research and education undertakings can no longer be limited to the boundaries of its own campuses, and good international networking and cooperation systems are indispensable. Against this background, student exchanges are increasingly important. International study experience, which was seen in the past as the somewhat adventurous domain of those students with a particular interest in foreign cultures, is increasingly being regarded as a fundamental and valuable element of any student’s education, regardless of their field of specialization.
In Japan and other countries, this shift in attitude is also being manifested in government policy, with support being given for international cooperation and student exchange endeavors, such the Japanese government’s Global 30 Project, which I just mentioned. The Global 30 Project aims to significantly increase the number of international students studying at Japanese universities by providing support to enhance the English-language programs and facilities for international students at selected core institutions.
The success of initiatives such as the G30 Project, and indeed of university internationalization in general, is of course highly dependent on the skills and ability of university administrative staff to forge good, functional relations with partner institutions around the world. As such international ties become increasingly vital to a university’s success, the demands placed on international affairs staff and the range of skills that they are required to have also continue to increase. That is what the University Administrators Workshop has, since its inception in 2006, endeavored to acknowledge. And further to mere acknowledgement, we also hope that the workshops will make concrete contributions to the skills, knowledge and international networks of their participants, which in turn will be of significant benefit to the participants’ institutions.
The University Administrators Workshops are highly significant, as they represent a rare endeavor to build a close network of university administrators in the East Asian region. In the United States there is the Association of International Educators – NAFSA, and in Europe, there is the European Association for International Education – the EIEA, however such well established associations devoted specifically to the administrative side of university activities are sadly lacking in East Asia.
Kyoto University is honored, therefore, to have had the opportunity to initiate the UAW as a platform for administrators from East Asia, and other parts of the world, to gather, share experiences and knowledge, and work towards the continual improvement of our universities. I have heard that some of the UAW’s regularly participating universities have expressed their desire to host the workshop in the future. Future editions of the workshop will therefore be hosted by various institutions, including Kyoto University, and we can look forward to different hosts bringing fresh ideas to the workshop’s format.
Finally, in Japan, unwanted interference from supervisors or executives is often referred to as “a lump above one’s eye.” In other words, it constantly gets in the way. As this is a meeting for international affairs staff, I feel that I may be at risk of becoming such a lump, so I think that I had better get out of way and let you get on with the workshop!
I will leave you, then, with my sincere best wishes for the presentations and discussions of the next two days. I hope that that this workshop will be a useful experience for all of you, and I hope that your lively discussions will perhaps help to keep out the winter chill.
Thank you very much for your attention.