ABOUT OCHANOMIZU ADMISSIONS ACADEMICS RESEARCH STUDENT LIFE CAMPUS RESOURCES

ページの本文です。

About Ochanomizu

01.04.2022 Update

Greetings from the President

president picture
president sign

A new academic year has once again started along with the unpredictability caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, even though its peak has passed. Against these circumstances, please be assured that Ochanomizu University is doing our best to guarantee opportunities for you to learn, with considerations for the safety and security of our campus.

Over the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a reminder of just how interconnected our world is. For example, even if a country manages to control the spread of the virus, its people will be forced to live in fear and under severe restrictions as long as the virus continues to be spread in other countries and regions. We also continue to face many other pressing issues that will require collective action on a global scale to solve, such as climate change, resource depletion and demographic upheaval.

Despite such an era with many challenges, Ochanomizu University stands strong with our mission to cultivate global women leaders capable of collaborating with people from around the world, understanding cultural diversity, engaging in mutual respect, and cooperating to build a more peaceful world. For this reason, we proactively engage in international exchange activities that include offering study abroad programs to our students, accepting students from abroad, and participating in research exchange programs. We also think it is important for our students to gain advanced knowledge through their regular coursework, discovery of critical issues, and search for ways to solve these problems through dialogue.

The pandemic has renewed our recognition of the significance of IT and other digital technologies. While COVID-19 has been restricting our daily lives in many significant ways, IT has supported us with the virtual realm and enabled our everyday communication allowing universities to continue to function as educational institutions.

That said, Japan has fallen behind much of the world in terms of digitalization. Tackling this pressing issue will require major upgrades of technologies such as IT and AI, and the use of these technologies to help solve the various problems that exist in Japan and around the world. Doing so will help us meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations. By providing our students with both knowledge of IT and the ability to apply it, our university will succeed in educating individuals with foundations in mathematical sciences, data science and AI, all of which will be indispensable to realizing the concept of Society 5.0.

I believe that solving these modern challenges will require comprehensive knowledge that encompasses an understanding of not only science and technology but also philosophy, history, and other areas in humanities as well as social sciences. Providing such comprehensive knowledge-based education is our university’s strength, which, despite its small size, offers a wide variety of programs. Our most important tasks are twofold. First, we must broadly share the knowledge and experiences we have diligently accumulated with society by proactively disseminating our educational and research achievements in Japan and overseas. Second, we must continue to pursue advanced and creative research, and disseminate and share our findings.

Established as the Tokyo Women’s Normal School, Japan’s first national institution of higher education for women in 1875, our university will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2025. Women aspiring to scholarship gathered here from all over the country. Our university has blazed a path as a pioneer in women’s education, even when it was difficult for Japanese women to receive a higher education and play an active role in society. Our role has been to educate women who recognize and respect people from diverse backgrounds in gender, age, race, nationality, culture, religion, and social class among others, and help them create a better society. As its name implies, the Tokyo Women’s Normal School was established as an institution for educating future teachers. However, its graduates went on to pursue successful careers not only as educators but also as excellent researchers and leaders in fields including economics, industry, and the media.

While it is true that Japan has made a progress in the advancement of women in recent years thanks to various initiatives, our country placed 120th out of 156 nations in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021. This ranking places Japan the lowest among the G7 nations. Most notable was the slow advancement of Japanese women in political empowerment and economic participation and opportunity. Our country was also unable to achieve its goal of having women in at least 30 percent of leadership roles by the year 2020.

The percentage of female researchers in Japan, especially in STEM-related fields, also remains low compared to those in other countries. Cultural and systemic factors in Japanese society continue to hinder the success of the extremely capable and talented women who account for half of the country’s population. In this context, I believe that educating outstanding women at women’s universities has a great social significance.

When we became a national university corporation in 2004, we articulated a singular mission to “be a place where all women who are motivated to learn can realize their earnest dreams.” This mission is meant to help every woman and girl around the world realize her vision, and includes supporting the education of girls in developing countries and elsewhere—something our university has worked on for many years.

This mission is also directly connected to our goal of “leaving no one behind,” the central principle of the SDGs. Ochanomizu University aims to show the world that we are a leader in the drive to create a society in which all of humanity can happily coexist, and to become an educational institution that confronts and endeavors to solve social issues through our world-class education and research, and advanced university management.

April 1, 2022
Sasaki Yasuko
President
Ochanomizu University

Mission

“Ochanomizu University will support all women, regardless of age or nationality, in protecting their individual dignity and rights, freely developing their unique qualities and capabilities, and pursuing learning so as to satisfy their intellectual appetites.”
As a pioneer of women's education in Japan, Ochanomizu University offers programs that will develop women capable of being opinion leaders in politics, economics, academia, culture, and other fields on the international stage.

These programs that of the “21st century Ochanomizu University model” focus on three areas:

  • 1. Development of higher education for women into the future
  • 2. Centralization of research and 21st century liberal arts education
  • 3. Social contribution and international exchange

Cutting-edge research and development based on new ways of thinking is a unique feature of research at Ochanomizu University.

Educational Characteristics

Highly specialized education to develop women leaders

Ochanomizu University‘s undergraduate courses offer highly specialized education in small class sizes. We have in place a free learning environment that protects the individual dignity and rights of women so as to develop women capable of contributing to the realization of a gender-equal society and to the empowerment of women around the world.

Advanced graduate research closely linked to undergraduate courses

Graduate research promotes a variety of projects, the outcomes of which are deeply reflected in undergraduate courses. We pursue evolutions in the university‘s curricula through their link to cutting-edge research in the graduate school.

Promotion of 21st century liberal arts education integrating the humanities and sciences

The globalization of society in the 21st century is giving rise to concurrent trends in knowledge and technology: specialization and diversification. That is, the knowledge that students acquire must be specialized or it will be useless, and at the same time it must be communicable to people with different national and cultural backgrounds.
In the past, the university offered liberal arts as a preliminary step to specialized education. Whereas at present, we are required to foster in students communication and negotiation skills, a cross-disciplinary viewpoint, and the ability to make judgments in response to change so as to support and enable full utilization of highly specialized education.
Ochanomizu University‘s 21st century liberal arts education aims to build on the foundation of knowledge itself, or the general (liberal) skills (arts) that students can use throughout their lifetime.

Launch of a multiple program elective course system in 2011

The new system enables students to freely combine “core programs,” “specialty programs,” “subprograms,” and “interdisciplinary programs” so as to acquire, in addition to the in-depth knowledge required of them in the past, the knowledge and skills suited to their needs.

History

1875

Tokyo Women's Normal School, Japan‘s first institute of higher education for women and the predecessor of Ochanomizu University, opens in Ochanomizu, Tokyo (now Yushima, Bunkyo-ku)

1879

The school produces its first graduating class of 15 students

1923

School buildings are destroyed by fire during the Great Kanto Earthquake

1932

The school moves into new buildings at the present location (Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku)

1949

Ochanomizu University is established as a women‘s university with a Faculty of Letters, a Faculty of Science and Home Economics

1963

Graduate School of Home Economics (master's program) is established

1976

Graduate School of Humanities and Science (doctoral program) is established

1992

Faculty of Home Economics is reorganized into the Faculty of Human Life and Environmental Sciences.

1997

Master's research courses in humanities, science, and home economics are reorganized into the Graduate School of Humanities and Science (master's program with 6 divisions).

2004

According to the National University Corporation Law, Ochanomizu University becomes a national university corporation.

2007

Strengthening Education and Research through Reorganization of the Graduate School.

For more information, click on Ochanomizu University Digital Archives.

Ochanomizu University Digital Archives

Disclosure of Educational Information

For more information Japanese

Institutional Data

Number of Students

Undergraduate Students
Undergraduate Freshmen Sophomores Juniors Seniors Total
Faculty of Letters and Education 213 204 227 275 919
Faculty of Science 130

129

134 147 540
Faculty of Human Life and Environmental Sciences 130 130 143 158 561
Total 473 463 504 580 2020

(Numbers include foreign students. As of May 2021)

Graduate Students
Graduate 1st Year 2nd Year 3rd Year Total
Master's Program 241 256 - 497
Doctoral Program 52 47 191 290
Total 293 303 191 787

(Numbers include foreign students. As of May 2021)

Grand Total
Grand Total Number of Students
Grand Total 2807

(Numbers include foreign students. As of May 2021)

Number of Staff

Administrative Staff
Administration Office Number of Staff
Administration Office 106
Faculty Staff
Faculty Staff Number of Staff
Undergraduate Courses 1
Faculty of Core Research 179
Others 80
Educational Staff (Attached Schools) Number of Staff
Kindergarten 9
Elementary School 32
Junior High School 27
Senior High School 22
Izumi Daycare Center 4
Center for Early Childhood
Education and Care
19

(The Graduate School faculty are also responsible for teaching classes in the Undergraduate Faculties. As of May 2021)

  •  
  • このエントリーをはてなブックマークに追加