NEWS

2025 Spring Commencement Ceremony was held

Update: March 25, 2025

522 undergraduate students and 50 graduate students graduated from ICU at its spring commencement ceremony held at the University Chapel on Tuesday, March 25.

At the ceremony, each student's name was read out in keeping with tradition that has continued since the first commencement ceremony. Also, students sang hymn together and listened to the scripture reading and President's commencement address.

After the ceremony, students cheerfully greeted their schoolmates and family at various places on the calm campus where the arrival of spring can be felt.

 

Scripture Reading

Matthew 13 : 3-8 by Nozomi Sato (Religious Affairs Committe)

Commencement Address by Shoichiro Iwakiri, President

Congratulations to all who have completed your Bachelor of Arts program in our Division of Arts and Sciences as well as to those who have finished the MA or PhD programs in our Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and who are graduating today. I also offer my sincere congratulations to all family members, relatives and friends of our graduates.

Many of you entered ICU when social activities were restricted due to the coronavirus pandemic. Your student activities were also limited. You must have felt frustrated during those days when you had to abstain from close contact with people.

After restrictions were lifted, it was as if you were seeking to restore the more immediate relationships that had in practice been banned in the name of restraint; in this way, you voluntarily resumed many activities within ICU and in collaboration with society, creating new activities and making the campus a place where we can learn together, dialogue, understand each other more deeply and talk about the future. I'm very proud of your resilience.

Here at ICU, students of many nationalities pursue their studies. You, today's graduates, come from diverse backgrounds, from different parts of Japan, different countries and regions abroad, including from Syria and Ukraine. And you gathered on our peaceful campus to learn and enhance your ability to realize your dreams. From now on, you will use this power to make the world a better place. ICU graduates are working all over the world with similar hopes. I recently attended an ICU alumni reunion in Los Angeles, organized by the JICUF(Japan ICU Foundation), where I met members of the ICU community of all ages, including those who entered ICU during its first and second years of existence. In fact, there are ICU alumni not only in the U.S., but around the world. I hope you will join this network and continue to deepen your connections with them.

※

In the Bible reading we just heard, the Lord says: "Others {=Other seeds} fell on good soil, and yielded fruit: some one hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty."

I believe that for at least the past year, you have been attending seminars organized by your thesis advisor and that you benefited from research coaching. The word "seminar" comes from the Latin, seminarium, meaning "breeding-ground" for seeds. From there, it also referred to an establishment where young people were prepared for ordination. A "thesis seminar", or small-group teaching delivered in the style of a seminary, is a kind of breeding-ground where students are raised to become bachelors, masters or doctors of philosophy.

"Fall on good soil and bear a hundred times more fruit". This, I hope, describes your studies at ICU. Our Liberal Arts represent very good "soil". Each of you came here, put down roots, absorbed knowledge, grew over time and transformed into a person who bears the fruit of life - which can be an invisible spiritual asset - and it is that which has brought you here today.

There are indeed two types of soil: good and not-so-good. What is good soil? According to the introductory soil book I've read, good soil has an aggregate structure, made up of sand, clay and humus. The soil particles form small aggregates and there are appropriate spaces between the grains, allowing air and water to pass through, making the soil soft and rich in nutrients. Conversely, soil with a monogranular structure drains either poorly or too well and is unsuitable for plant growth.

We can think of this analogy of soil as having an aggregated structure; but doesn't ICU's Liberal Arts education, which is composed of a variety of specializations, also resemble a system that has an aggregate structure? You've not simply learned one subject, but you've also combined elements from several disciplines to create a unique combination of knowledge. Creating something that has never existed before through new combinations, creating a new being within you - that's innovation itself. It's very pleasant to be innovative, not only in the social and technological spheres, but also within yourself. The Liberal Arts offer a way of learning to develop a state of mind capable of sustaining this pleasure for many years to come. When you look back on this apprenticeship, I hope you feel that it has been well drained and well ventilated, encouraging dialogue and discussion and allowing for the honest expression of ideas.

Soil particles, which have an aggregate structure, are held together by plant and animal secretions, micro-organisms, molds and mycelium, which act like glue. Sticking with this analogy, what is the glue that holds together the different areas of knowledge and experience within us? In the intellectual and spiritual spheres, I think it's something very sensual, the culture we feel and transform into our internalized capital: for example, the way we speak, the way we behave, the way we interact with people, the way we understand others with our emotions, which is so much a part of everyday life on campus.

I hope that the voices and gestures that surrounded you at ICU, the academic and moral behavior you shared through your Liberal Arts learning, and the trusting eyes focussed on humanity, along with the wind, light and rain of the natural world, will be remembered and become the invisible "good soil" that will support your life and continue to bring you rich harvests.

※

If we look at the world today, we see seeds everywhere, which, despite their similarity, fall by the wayside and are eaten by birds, that die because the soil is too thin for them to take root, or that fall among thorns preventing their growth. Many people suffer from poverty, oppression and violence creating a disparity that cannot be managed by individuals.
And the world seems to be heading down the path of increasing domination by force, with state selfishness to the fore, rather than along the path of prosperity by balancing competition and coexistence in an attempt to alleviate this suffering.

Today, we are still a free society. Nevertheless, in the face of invasions, massacres, destruction and political arrogance that have produced nothing beautiful, we are forced to realize that concepts such as freedom, diversity, equity and inclusion, which previously seemed to be shared as more or less universal values, are in fact no more than ethical values that have been shared with the scientific and technological progress of modern society and which, once a major paradigm shift has taken place, could easily be eliminated from popular society.

In this social context, we know what it means to study the Liberal Arts. It means that we choose symbiosis and coexistence over domination and occupation. That we always seek an existential form in which the dream is incorporated into reality, even if that reality is painful. We reject a world that destroys even the dream, a world that drags people into destructive battles, a world that suffocates.

I pray that each of you graduating today will become peacebuilders, which is ICU's mission, and that you will bring love and happiness to society, while making your own lives fruitful.

Congratulations on your graduation and on the commencement of this new stage in your life.