2020 New Year Message from President

January 1, 2020

Dear students, colleagues and friends,

I wish you all another successful, healthy and joyful year. Welcoming a new year is always worth celebrating. It must be much more so this year, since 2020 is a round number and will be remembered as the year of the second Olympic Games held in Tokyo as well.

In whatever way you may be celebrating the new year, I hope these holidays give you a good chance to reflect on the past and the future. I look forward to seeing you back on campus with renewed enthusiasm.

As we start the year, let me take this opportunity to share our plan at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies for the year 2020. Since its foundation, the mission of our university has always been to connect Japan to the world through education and research on diverse languages, cultures and societies of the world. However, the boundary between Japan and the world is quickly becoming blurred. Now you find "the world" at every corner in Japan. Such social changes have brought about many new issues and challenges in intercultural coexistence. I believe that TUFS can play a very important role dealing with and providing solutions for them. This year we will significantly strengthen our educational, research, and social programs in support of intercultural coexistence by building up the Center for Intercultural Studies that we established last year. We will continue to look aggressively for ways to create changes for the better future of the world, and we look forward to opportunities to work with you in this endeavor.

Thank you.

President, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Kayoko HAYASHI