令和3年度 秋季入学生への祝辞

　本年度秋の入学に際し、大学院入学・進学者63名をお迎えいたします。ご入学、ご進学、誠におめでとうございます。
　コロナ禍にあって、大変な努力を重ねてこられた学生の皆さん、そして、皆さんを支えてこられた全ての方々に敬意を表したいと存じます。
　今、申しましたようにコロナ禍にあって、昨年度一年間、ほぼ全面的な遠隔による授業を実施しました。本年度４月からは、対面の授業を再開し、学生の元気な顔を見ることが出来るようになりました。しかしながら、コロナ禍は、δ株など新種の株が猛威をふるい、現在は、研究活動に関する感染防止策の徹底、キャンパス内の施設の使用制限など、決して予断を許さない状況となっています。やむを得ず、対面での入学式は中止といたしました。皆さんのお顔を見ることができないのは、大変残念ですが、各学部長、研究科長、学府長などから祝辞や歓迎の挨拶があると思います。
　このような困難に直面する中で、私自身が身に染みて理解し、確信したことがあります。
　それは、横浜国立大学は学生・教職員・卒業生・地域の方々など多様なステークホルダーとともにある強固なコミュニティであるということです。
　本学では、教育に関して、遠隔による授業を行い、学生にアンケートを取り、それを基にYNU遠隔授業の手引きを作成するなどによって、その歩みを止めることなく、行いました。一方、新たに横浜国立大学というコミュニティのメンバーになったばかりの昨年度の新入生は、大学構内での諸活動が制限され、親しい友人がなかなかできず、大学の研究活動に触れることができないなど、コミュニティのメンバーとして参画することが大変困難な状況ではありました。しかし、バーチャルオンラインキャンパスツアーなど、学生・教職員が交流する機会を作ることにより繋がりを保つことができました。研究についても、感染防止策を徹底しつつ、その活動の火を絶やすことは決してなく、成果を生み出し続けてきました。これらの活動を支えるため、卒業生をはじめ多くの方々から、六千万円をこえる緊急学生支援の寄附金をいただき、改めて本学のコミュニティが強固である事を確信いたしました。

　さて、日本を含む先進諸国は低成長と財政危機、少子高齢化、環境問題など多くの困難な課題に直面しているといえます。このような時代であるからこそ、国立大学は、学問の発展と新たな価値を生み出す知の創出、イノベーションの創造に貢献しなければなりません。横浜国立大学は、強固なコミュニティとして、一丸となってコロナ禍を乗り切り、世界水準の研究大学として、学問の発展と新たな価値を生み出す知の創出、イノベーションの創造に貢献します。
　新入生の皆さんも我々、横浜国立大学コミュニティの一員となられました。
　ともに、成長してまいりましょう。
　ご入学、ご進学、誠におめでとうございます。

令和３年１０月４日

横浜国立大学長　梅原出

Message to New Students in Fall 2021

Welcome to the Yokohama National University—the campus of studies and science nestled in a beautiful greenery setting.

In this academic year, YNU have welcomed 1,726 undergraduates and 928graduate school students. Congratulations on your admission to YNU. I would like to express my deepest respect to you for your hard work as well as to your family members and others for their dedicated support during this pandemic.

This pandemic made last year a challenge for us, too, compelling us to launch online classes almost at full scale, take thorough infection prevention measures to ensure safe research practices, and put restrictions on the use of facilities on campus. None of them have ever happened in the long history of our university and, in retrospect, we keenly feel that we did everything we could every single day.

Under such circumstances, there is something I came home to learn and feel convinced of, which is that the YNU forms a robust community with diverse stakeholders such as students, faculty and staff, alumni, and people in the community where we belong. Universities are institution of research and education. They are indispensable like a pair of wheels in a car, and I believe that elements like internationality, regionality, and diversity are an axle interconnecting the wheels.
We have strived to continue education over the past year. We held online classes and prepared YNU guidelines for online classes based on a student questionnaire. Some extracurricular clubs achieved wonderful results through concerted efforts under severe constraints on the hours of activities and use of facilities on campus.
Regrettably, on the other hand, new students who joined our YNU community last year could not adequately participate as members of the community due to restrictions on activities on campus; the students found it difficult to get to know each other and practically engage in research activities on campus. In an effort to secure connection, we organized opportunities to promote communication between students, faculty, and staff, such as a virtual online campus tour. In research, we never spared our efforts to continue our activities by taking thorough anti-infection measures and achieved excellent results. One of them is the development of a remote-controlled and automated PCR inspection robot through medical-engineering collaboration. This is a splendid achievement contributing to the prevention of the spread of the virus even though we don’t have a medical school as such.

To support these activities, our alumni and many others contributed a total of more than fifty million JPY to provide emergency support to our students, which reassured us of how robust our YNU community is.
History tells that the Black Death or the Plague, rampant in the 14th century, was one of the factors that brought about the Renaissance in the 15th century. A likely explanation is: When society needed a change, the plague took place, which primed humans to think profoundly about life and death in order to get out of their despair with culture and civilization. And, after a century of contemplation, they garnered the victory of the Renaissance.
Many people assume that we are in such an era. Today, Japan and other advanced counties are facing a number of challenges, such as slow economic growth, financial crisis, an aging society with a declining birthrate, and environmental issues. And because we live an age of such adversity, national universities are asked to contribute to academic development, construction of knowledge that generates new values, and creation of innovation. For the first time in fifty years, we at YNU established a new faculty— the College of Urban Sciences—to tackle issues faced by Yokohama as well as other cities and regions in Kanagawa, and new talents are being developed under the programs which merge humanities and social sciences with sciences and engineering and use metropolitan cities as venues for field work. The College of Education and Human Sciences will function as the College of Education specializing in school education curriculum, while the Professional Degree Program (Professional School for Teacher Education) will play a central role as an advanced teacher training course. The College of Economics and the College of Business Administration have been reorganized to be placed under an educational system that enables acquisition of a wide range of knowledge required in the era of globalization. The College of Engineering Science and the Graduate School of Engineering Science have been restructured to foster advanced engineering science talents who will create new knowledge and lead technological innovation. The Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences and the Institute of Urban Innovation, which are embodiments of integration of arts and sciences, are active in education and research. In this academic year, we started recruiting students for the Interfaculty Graduate School of Innovative and Practical Studies and the two social-science related programs—the Data Science Education Program (DSEP) and Lawcal Business Economics Education Program (LBEEP). Along with this comprehensive restructuring, we aim to further enhance academic exchange with universities of excellence in the world, develop practical human resources, and become among world’s leading education and research institutions.

You are now a member of our YNU community.
Everyone, let’s grow together.
Welcome to the Yokohama National University—the campus of studies and research nestled in a beautiful greenery setting and congratulations on your enrollment in our University and advancement to graduate studies.

UMEHARA Izuru
President, Yokohama National University