NEWS

2016 Spring Matriculation Ceremony

Update: April 4, 2016

ICU welcomed over 650 new undergraduate and graduate students at its Spring 2016 Matriculation Ceremony held at the university chapel on Friday, 1 April. The cherry blossoms from the main gate up to the University Chapel were in full bloom greeting the new students.

According to the tradition which has been kept since the founding of ICU, the students were announced individually and they sweared the "Student Pledge" to uphold the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In her address, President Junko Hibiya mentioned that many students in the world still do not have access to higher education. "What will be required of you who have been fortunate enough to receive a secondary education and to be able to further your study? The path to bachelor's degree, or to the graduation, is up to each student's free will and proactive choice. What and how to study, which major to declare, whether to learn a language other than English, whether to study abroad, how to balance study and extracurricular activities, it is you, nobody else, who must decide. The purpose of attaining the abilities I have discussed in this address is exactly to serve God and humankind, in other words, to contribute to others and the world by fulfilling your mission. The next four years, two or three years if you are entering a master's or doctoral program, will be period in which, through your studies and extracurricular activities, you will discover what role you must fulfill in society and the world. May the years ahead of you be fruitful. Congratulations on your entrance to ICU."

The Chair of the Board of Trustees, Kakutaro Kitashiro encouraged the students: "Each individual is required to have the abilities to make a good judgment, to create something new, to understand diversity and to communicate with others, by learning broadly in both the sciences and humanities and in depth in a specialized field. The world needs the very individuals who studied in the ICU's liberal arts education."

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