Dean's Message
Satoru Kato, Dean.
The School of Science, originally started with the Departments of Physics and Chemistry in 1961, took a big step forward in April 2002 by adding two new departments, the Department of Informatics and the Department of Bioscience and by renaming itself the School of Science and Technology.
As the second step, the Department of Mathematical Sciences which is derived from the sub-department of Mathematics within the Department of Physics, and the Department of Human System Interaction which has expanded the field of interaction between human and machines or materials were newly established in 2009. As a result, the enrollment of all the freshmen of the School of Science and Technology now totals 460.
The School of Science and Technology has substantially expanded its enrollment size, but at the same time, the number of full-time faculty grew from 38 to 69, and on top of that, four Instructors of English as a Foreign Language were invited to help strengthen the English language program. By increasing its staff, the new School is determined to maintain the good educational and research environment and the homey atmosphere that it has enjoyed since its foundation with the freshmen enrollment of about 100 over five decades ago.
In addition to enrollment, the School of Science and Technology has also expanded in terms of facilities. In the summer of 2001 a new building with the latest equipment was completed on the Kobe-Sanda campus to enable the School to move from its original 1961 facility on the Uegahara campus to its new home in the fall semester 2001.
Since its foundation, with support from the University, Kwansei Gakuin and also from outside funds such as that from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, the School of Science has always been able to equip itself with first-rate facilities for education and research, and has accomplished many outstanding achievements.
In 1997 as part of the Private University Research Promotion Project under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Kwansei Gakuin University's Advanced Research Center of Science(ARCS)was established on the Kobe-Sanda campus and two five-year-long research projects were carried out and continued until March 2002, ending with a great success. After that thirteen projects were adopted for various research projects again under the leadership of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture and six projects are still continued These are just a couple of examples to show how the School has been active and has gained high reputation in research activities.
The School aims to produce creative individuals who possess good fundamental knowledge and flexible thought and who can discover and solve unknown problems by themselves in the fast developing fields of natural science and information technology. Particularly, the Departments of Informatics and Human System Interaction, with their rather strong orientation toward an engineering school, aim to train prospective professionals in a wide range of information technology fully acquainted with solid fundamental knowledge and entrepreneurship. For that purpose, our new curriculum is so designed that all the students, regardless of their majors, can learn the fundamental and broad knowledge of natural science and information technology. Based on Christian principles and ideals, the School also hopes to educate youths to help them become researchers and engineers who place emphasis on ethical values as human beings.
The twentieth century was an era of great advances in natural science, and numerous outstanding results were achieved during this period. It was also the time when all the outcomes of scientific research were put into practical use. In return, practical applications of research results also gave birth to new research and, as a result, promoted the development of fundamental research. And this trend is expected to continue and even accelerate in the 21st century. While maintaining its predecessor's tradition of the emphasis upon the teaching of the fundamentals of natural science and upon fundamental research, the School of Science and Technology aims to provide educational and research opportunities where the fundamentals and the applications are interrelated with one another, influence each other and, consequently, promote the whole educational and research activities here at our School of Science and Technology.