午夜剧场

Twenty-three years have passed since I began working at the Tohoku University of Community Service and Science, which opened in April 2001 in the Shonai region of Yamagata Prefecture with the intellectual support of 午夜剧场. By the end of the 2022 academic year, 3,408 graduates had left the Faculty of Community Service and Science established in Sakata City. Furthermore, the graduate school, which is based at the Tsuruoka Town Campus of 午夜剧场 (TTCK) alongside the Institute for Advanced Biosciences, has produced 165 Masters of Community Service and Science and 5 Doctors of Community Service and Science.

The Shonai region faces the Sea of Japan and is characterized by a rich plain surrounded by Mt. Chokai and Mt. Gassan. It consists of two cities and three towns, centered around Sakata City, which once flourished as a port town through the Kitamaebune trade, and Tsuruoka City, which developed as a castle town of the Shonai Domain. With a population of 255,000 and an aging rate exceeding 37%, the region faces many challenges common to regional cities, such as youth outflow, declining community functions, and a shortage of labor in industries. On the other hand, unique cultures such as mountain worship closely linked to majestic nature, festivals, and traditional performing arts are preserved, and Tsuruoka City has been recognized as Japan's first member of the "UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy." Our university was established through a public-build, private-operate system supported by all local governments and the industrial sector as a base for developing the human resources who will lead the next generation of this region.

The slogan at the time of the university's opening was "Take a Bird's-Eye View from Tohoku." While the concentration of everything in Tokyo continues unabated, living with roots in a regional area makes one realize the simple truth that the resolution of social issues and the creation of new values are born from various regions as starting points. For example, the current prosperity of the Shonai region was realized because ancestors in the Edo period, faced with challenges such as developing wasteland and responding to harsh weather conditions, viewed the region as a whole. With a long-term perspective and imagination that looked toward future generations, they developed new wisdom and scientific technology, and executed the excavation of weirs and waterways and the planting of coastal erosion control forests. According to the records of a merchant family that contributed to the planting of the 33-kilometer-long "Beautiful Black Pine Forest," it is evident that this great feat was achieved through the cooperation of people of various social statuses, even within a feudal society. It makes one realize that a sustainable society is established when there are people who understand and pass on the value of such endeavors.

New social implementations are still being born every day. One of these is the metabolome analysis technology uniquely developed by the Institute for Advanced Biosciences and its applications. As a member of a university that advocates for the "establishment of community service and science" and "university-based town planning," I would like to continue sharing the results of my research and educational practices from this location.