President's Message

Positioning the UoA for Long-Term Success in Graduating the Finest Full-Fledged Minds into ICT Worlds

　The University of Aizu (UoA) was founded in 1993 as a legion of internationally acclaimed computer science and engineering experts teamed up under one roof. Ever since, we have carried on as an upstanding institute of technology imbued with the ethos of world-class universities who pledge to engage with society. We are now one of Japan's top-tier intellectual hubs that wholesomely integrate education and research, resolute in fine-tuning of curricula and research while keeping tabs on the unpredictable demands of society.

　

The UoA is proud to excel in both hardware and software domains. We carve out the blueprint for success by taking full advantage of our core ICT education resources and know-how. We rejoice in the privilege to showcase our sustained progress in all applied fields, including AI, Big Data, IoT (Internet of Things), semiconductor integrated circuits, medical engineering, robotics, and space technology, to name just a few.

　

Touching on education, allow me to briefly delve into UoA's unique undergraduate program. Our enrollment number is 240 per graduating class. That number may at first seem unimpressive. However, nurturing that many ICT conversant students each year is indeed unique in the field of information science in Japan and places us among the largest of all like-minded, informatics-leaned universities in Japan. We retain approximately 110 full-time faculty members. That means each faculty advisor's fair share is two to three students per graduating class. Such a low student-to-faculty ratio affords us the opportunity to provide our students with a complete package of individual lessons imparting knowledge and skills, followed up by caring and trusted mentoring to ensure students graduate with confidence in their abilities.

　By the time of graduation, UoA students have mastered their specific concentration to the point they are prepared for immediate and effective social engagement. Those facts make the UoA stand out as one of the more prolific institutions fostering tomorrow's engineers in the country, which is important during the current national shortage of skilled ICT workers. The following corroborating statistic speaks volumes: 97% of UoA graduates are employed immediately after graduation. That number jumps to 100% for UoA's Master's and Ph.D. degree recipients.

　We stand firm with our second-to-none education and research programs, which also lay the foundation of UoA's signature formula to amass well-versed, highly sought-after, graduates in the ICT market. To not mince words, we are blessed to receive glowing reviews from media outlets that publish university rankings worldwide. Of particular note is our international outlook, for which we are ranked as outright top-tier in the nation.

　The UoA is a bilingual institution to its core―English and Japanese. The UoA has always had a very strong representation of international faculty (currently a staggering 40% of faculty are with international background). All internal business documents are in both languages. All meetings are bilingual. Being a dual-language entity is UoA's business motto; it is fundamentally in its DNA. It has always been this way since the time of its foundation.

At the UoA, students write up theses in English, and then present their research in English. With few exceptions, our graduate courses are English-medium. Such a bona fide bilingual, international ethos makes us truly a one-of-a-kind Japan-based tech institution.

Our diverse faculty significantly contributes to the international dimension of our research. Often using their home country as their stronghold, UoA's multinational faculty have built worldwide collaborative research networks, and make the best of them day in, day out. The number of internationally co-authored papers at the UoA is notably high when compared with other Japanese universities. In moving forward, I aim to utilize this characteristic to pursue a vision of becoming an overarching institution that always stays connected with both domestic and international communities of inquisitive minds.

Universities are destined to compete against their peer institutions. That is a "given". The cold hard fact is, as we speak, the terrain of competition between ICT departments/schools―UoA's major battlefield―is becoming fiercer and fiercer. I am bent on ensuring we effectively communicate the quintessence of the type of computer science and engineering pursued at the UoA to the broader educational community in Japan, with a particular focus on prospective students and their educational support circle. By painting a clear picture of what we really do, our prestige will continue to rise. To lay the groundwork for this, I will personally host "sneak peek" events for high school teachers and counselors.

In 2023, the UoA celebrated its 30-year anniversary. People who are 30 years of age are often considered to be at their prime. By analogy, the UoA becoming 30 years old is a significant milestone which underscores our tremendous potential. You have my word: as an institution, we will continue to develop and build upon the foundation established over the past 30 years.

In closing, I wish to express my deepest appreciation for all of you who have supported the UoA in one form or another. Your altruistic gesture is priceless and means the world to us and will have a lasting positive impact on the lives of the entire extended UoA family. As a diverse and inclusive collegiate siblinghood that epitomizes UoA's values, together we can go further than we can ever imagine. I welcome you with open arms to join me in seizing this opportunity to further support the important mission of the UoA.

December 2023

TSUKAHARA Tsuneo
Chairperson of the Board of Executives,
the Public University Corporation,The University of Aizu