2018 new year greetings

January 5, 2008
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Hiroyuki Ohno, Director
 

Happy New Year to everyone. I look forward to working with you again this year.
The new executive team started in April last year, and the nine months have flown by in a flash. Every day has been a new experience, but it has been very fulfilling. During this time, I have been mindful of analyzing the situation at our university while carrying out my daily duties. I have also compared the situation at our university from an outside perspective and the trends at other universities. As a result, I have been able to see our university's strengths and future challenges.
Its strengths include: 1) Faculty Member are highly motivated to conduct research and have a good track record of publishing papers; 2) the university attracts excellent students who are motivated to improve themselves even after enrolling; 3) the ratio of female students and the rate of students going on to graduate school are high; 4) the barriers between departments have been lowered and academic exchanges have become more active; 5) Faculty Member and staff are close to each other and both are highly motivated to improve the university; and 6) external funding accounts for a large proportion of the total budget.
Meanwhile, future challenges include 1) to fairly evaluate the activities and achievements of faculty and staff, 2) to evaluate professors who are particularly active in the field of education, 3) to determine the future direction of the university and promote personnel management in line with that, 4) to comprehensively review the execution of the university's budget and implement dynamic measures to maintain and even raise the current level of education and research, and 5) to make efforts to significantly increase the university's recognition.
This year marks the third year of the third Medium-term Objective plan. We will continue with the four strategic goals set by the previous executive board, and promote the strengthening of research capabilities, globalization of education and research, industry-academia collaboration, and the development of highly innovative human resources. Let's continue with our previous goals, such as obtaining external funding, progress to doctoral programs at graduate schools, international co-authored papers, opportunities for graduate students to study abroad, and the number of international students accepted, and work together to achieve them. In particular, we expect the professors belonging to the Graduate School to perform even better than before. On the other hand, we would like you to change your awareness of education at the university. The mission of the university is to provide quality education to students. We expect the professors belonging to the newly established Organization for the Advancement of Education and Global Learning to play an active role in the education of our university from a leading position. It may be difficult to ask you to work harder than ever in both education and research, but let's all come up with various ideas and do our best to make sure that students are satisfied with their campus life at our university and that we, the faculty and staff, can work with a sense of fulfillment.
At the end of the year, we received the good news that Institute of Global Innovation Research 's Human Resource Development Acceleration Project Cost was included in the core expenses. I would like to thank Deputy Director General of the Finance Department and many others for their efforts. However, the budget situation remains tight. The executive team is united in its determination to do everything in its power to make our university even better than it has been, so I would like to ask all faculty and staff for their cooperation. With this, I would like to conclude my New Year's greeting.