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Center for Global Education (UTokyo GlobE)
Center for Global Education (UTokyo GlobE) was launched in April of 2023 to support the UTokyo students to gain more global experiences. UTokyo GlobE is a university facility that serves all undergraduate and graduate students. By aligning itself closely with the goal set by the university headquarters and coordinating its functions with various faculties and schools, it functions as a platform for international education for the entire university.
One of the features of UTokyo GlobE is Global Liberal Arts Courses, offered to all undergraduate students in the Senior Division and graduate students. These courses give opportunities for our students to learn and discuss topics related to the SDGs in English. They serve as a forum where students of different academic, social and national backgrounds come together and reflect on some of the most imminent issues of the day.
Additionally, UTokyo GlobE will serve as a “Global Education Concierge” for students through its various global programs, including “Go Global Gateway.” Its aim is to offer robust support for the internationalization of all students from the time of their entry to graduation of the university.
UTokyo GlobE is committed to offering a range of programs to assist UTokyo students' global career.
From the Director, Center for Global Education
This photo was taken in a museum called The Broad, located in downtown Los Angeles in the United States. It’s a picture of me in front of a table and chairs.
But wait. What kind of table and chairs? As you see, the scale is completely out of proportion: either I am too small or the table and chairs are too large.
This artwork is entitled "Under the Table" and was created by Robert Therrien in 1994. It focuses on a seemingly mundane set of objects--a table and chairs--that everyone is so used to seeing every single day at home, at school and at work. But it also unsettles the taken-for-grantedness of these objects by enlarging them to an extraordinary size. That is, by turning these furniture into an unnatural size, "Under the Table" urges us to reassess things that seem natural and reevaluate the fundamental significance of norms that we have internalized.
What, for example, are tables and chairs for? After all, some societies, including Japan, did not use them in households for a long time. It’s not “natural” for many of us to have them in our daily lives. Why do we need them now? How do they condition and impact the ways in which we see and understand this world?
This may seem like a silly exercise but it actually resonates perfectly with the fundamental purpose of higher education. Like Therrien's work, the university is a place where widely accepted norms and rules are questioned and reconceptualized to generate new ways of looking and thinking.
The Center for Global Education was established in April of 2023 to do just that. It exists to push UTokyo students to step outside of their comfort zone and think out of the box by offering them cross and interdisciplinary courses taught entirely in English as well as by providing a variety of exciting global programs. Just like Therrien's table and chairs, it encourages students to reassess their internalized norms so that they may cultivate new ways of seeing and appreciating the world.
The new outlook gained through such experiences may not always be pleasant or easy to swallow. Nor do we know when it will become useful--Therrien's table and chairs ostensibly have no functional purposes as there is no way for me to sit at this table comfortably. But the new way of seeing will certainly enrich and deepen one's vision and knowledge by generating so many questions. It will also offer you multiple paths to understand the world from different angles and enable you to become a global citizen who is capable of engaging in a constructive dialog with people of different backgrounds and values.
So please take advantage of the amazing resources we offer. We present chances for you to find your own version of blown-up tables and chairs through such exciting programs as Go Global Gateway (GGG), University-Wide Student Exchange Program (USTEP), Global Unit Courses (GUC), Global Liberal Arts Courses and many others.
We are here to assist your journey into the larger world!
Yujin Yaguchi
Director, Center for Global Education
Vice President, The University of Tokyo
History
| Year.Month | Event |
|---|---|
| 2005.4 | Division for International Relations established |
| 2010.4 | Restructured Division for International Relations,Division of International Affairs established |
| 2012.4 | Under Division for International Affairs, Global Campus initiative, Center for Japanese Language Education and International Center established |
| 2014.10 |
|
| 2017.4 | Restructured Planning and Public Relations Division,Education Promotion Division and Student Exchange Division, Planning and Strategy Division and Education and Student Division established |
| 2018.4 |
|
| 2021.6 | UTokyo Global Unit Courses(GUC) launched |
| 2023.4 |
|
