To the last students of Department of Language and Culture

Department of Language and Culture Long　SHIDA, Mitsuo

Our Faculty of Liberal Arts was a unique entity among universities nationwide. In particular, Department of Language and Culture was highly regarded for its pioneering multilingual education practices. Unfortunately, however, we have already stopped accepting new students. This means that the current students will be the last students, and will have no "juniors." Some students may feel lonely or anxious, wondering if the learning style of Department of Language and Culture is outdated, or if they are being left behind.

However, that perception is misguided. At the heart of learning in Faculty of Liberal Arts, particularly in Department of Language and Culture, lies a tradition of linguistic and humanistic education. I believe that its importance will only be re-evaluated in the future. Precisely because, in an era where language acquisition is considered replaceable by machine translation, and literature and philosophy seem poised to be replaced by database searches, I believe that the fact that humans are beings capable of reading, writing, and speaking, and that they are beings who cannot help but express their heartfelt thoughts and feelings in their own words, will be increasingly recognized. To confront the words and ideas left behind by our predecessors and to be able to respond to them with one's own words and thoughts—the fundamentals of learning that this department has sought from its students will never change as long as universities exist.

Furthermore, I would like to emphasize that you certainly do have "juniors" ahead of you. What this department has particularly valued is that students complete their own "works" (for example, in the form of a graduation thesis) through their four years of study. The word "liberal arts" originally includes the meaning of creating works from one's own life. However, this is not simply for self-satisfaction. Your works, no matter how modest, contribute to enriching the stockpile of human knowledge. They remain after you, planting seeds in someone else's words and thoughts. When you have almost forgotten about it, a "junior" you have never met may call out to you with an opinion on your thesis. In that case, you have a responsibility to respond. Learning at university inevitably connects people across time. I would like you to take this sense of responsibility and make full use of the remaining learning opportunities in Department of Language and Culture.