Notes from the President

"Because you can see the ocean"

Once, when I was talking to a group of students about how APU came to be established, one of them asked me why we built the university on the top of a mountain. "Because you can see the ocean," I joked, and the classroom filled with smiling faces.

Indeed, the scenery from APU is dramatic. Yes, you can see the ocean—the sunrises that turn the bay red and the quiet, moonlit nights are especially breathtaking—but the campus also becomes enshrouded in fog, and sometimes the wind is so strong it feels like it will blow you over.

In the beginning, even I thought it might not be a good idea to build a university here, but the students remind me time and time again how much they love this environment.

This year, the College of Asia Pacific Studies began offering a new subject called Introduction to APS, and I was asked to give a lecture to around 400 first-year Japanese-basis students about APU—a very broad topic indeed! Considering the objective of the subject, I spoke about what it means to learn at APU and in APS.

Given my age and position, I speak in front of people all year round, but lecturing at a university brings with it a certain kind of tension. In the end, I tried to cram too much information into my lecture, but I made sure to read all of the students' comments. It was very interesting to see their refreshing responses. A lot of students told me the following Steve Jobs quote I mentioned in my lecture inspired them: "Most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

After the lecture, a group of students who wanted to talk more came to see me, and this is what led me to write my first article for this page in a year.

During my lecture, I said that the history of APU resembles academic inquiry in several important ways. Multiculturalism born from the mingling of different ideas about common sense; remote, non-urban locations; and playing the role of a minority or a non-conformist.

These are all vital to academic inquiry—a pursuit with the noble aim of questioning common sense, uncovering discrepancies, and creating new value. These are all part of APU's DNA as well. In other words, I don't think that new discoveries with the ability to re-write the status quo can be made in convenient big cities where everyone operates under the same status quo and is forced to submit to the same majority values.

So, what should you do when you notice a contradiction, make a discovery, or are not being recognized by those around you?

What do you think? Share your thoughts with the author here.