Faculty of Regional Studies Professor
IGAKURA, Masashi　Professor

Our community is where we live and our daily lives. For those of you who wish to cherish and improve your communities, let me share a folktale from a foreign land. A traveler visits a village struck by famine, where the inhabitants are hiding food from one another. He says, "Please let me stay the night. In return, I will treat you to a delicious stone soup." When the inhabitants gather, the traveler tastes the stone soup and says, "It's delicious, but it would be even better with salt." So one of the inhabitants adds salt to the pot. The traveler tastes the soup again and says, "It would be perfect with beef." So another inhabitant adds beef to the pot. In this way, various ingredients are added to the pot, and what started as a simple stone soup becomes a soup of the finest flavor. To create a better community, it is important to involve many people, gain their empathy, and work together. Through your studies in this faculty, I hope that you will gain a deep understanding of your community, enhance your collaborative and proactive nature, and put into practice the biblical teaching of being "the salt of the earth and the light of the world."