Dean’s Greetings to New Students in Autumn AY2021
I am very glad to welcome you all to GraSPP at the University of Tokyo.
It is always the special time of the year, welcoming new students. The number of incoming students this year for Master of Public Policy and International Programs are 61 from 28 countries, including 8 double-degree students and 8 exchange students. We have three new students to our PhD program. Just FYI the ratio of female students is 66 percent out of 64 entering students.
Today’s event is held remotely as most of you are unable to enter the country. The health condition has recently improved in Tokyo, but the spread of Delta variants forces us to be under the state of emergency, and sadly, we have to start our fall semester remotely. Some classes allow for in-person meetings, but even those classes will be held jointly with virtual meetings, until you will be able to stay safely in Tokyo.
I am afraid that some of you may be nervous about how your fall semester goes, but for the past year and a half, our faculty and administrative staff have accumulated experience on how to deal with setbacks and challenges in online teaching and learning. We are all here to assist you not merely to survive but to thrive.
Of course, we do not pretend that we have everything figured out. We will need your ideas in the coming months to improve the way we do, as we did in the past months. If you have any questions or needs, please feel free to ask us. (GraSPP Graduate School Office: ppin.j””gs.mail.u-tokyo.ac.jp *When you contact us, please replace “” with @.) I am confident that you will have exceptional experiences this fall, with GraSPP offering a wide range of public policy courses, based on rigorous inquiries and employing evidence-based analysis, that I believe the hallmark of our approach.
Good luck in your classes, I hope you take advantage of everything the GraSPP education has to offer. Again, welcome to GraSPP.
21 September, 2021
Hiroshi Ohashi, Dean
Graduate School of Public Policy, the University of Tokyo