With Shimane prefecture’s being one of the three corona virus free prefectures in Japan, the University of Shimane held the entrance ceremony on April 2, 2020 as scheduled.
In welcome address, the University Shimane’s President, Dr. Masayoshi Kiyohara congratulated the 248 undergraduate and graduate students, wishing a fruitful and enjoyable student life ahead. He stated the college experiences form the foundation of an individual as it is the time to foster various abilities such as creativity, understanding, cooperation, overcoming difficulties through meeting a variety of new people.
Dr. Kiyohara encouraged the new students to play an active part in various fields of the campus and community as the “anchors” of the Faculty of Policy studies, as they are the last cohort of the faculty, which will be reorganized into the Faculty of International Relations and the Faculty of Regional Policy Studies in 2021.
Miss Momone Kakita made an oath on behalf of the new students, promising that they would like to acquire foreign language and communication abilities as well as expert knowledge on policy studies to contribute to the development of society.
The entrance ceremony was shortened this year for 20 minutes with health authorities recommending social distancing in order to prevent the corona virus from spreading across Japan.
Announcing all the students’ names, speeches by guests, singing songs and photo shooting were cancelled.
The mother of a freshman, who waited outside of the auditorium, said that she was very pleased at the fact the University of Shimane did not cancel the entrance ceremony, as it is a very memorable day for parents.
Mr. Takenao Masuda, a male student, said he liked the short ceremony. For him the most memorable part of the ceremony was the song Dr. Kiyohara offered: The breeze of spring across the hills, to tell the start of new learning. He would like to learn a lot of new things so that he can become someone who can make people smile.
Despite the request of social distancing, the freshmen hung out in front of the auditorium. They took photos and discussed what to do for a week, because the orientation programs and classes will be cancelled next week. They will have nothing to do until Monday, April 13.
Students were wondering when they would receive their PC’s, how to log on the University’s wifi network, which courses to register, etc. A lot of students were at loss because face to face orientations were cancelled, and they must read written documents with college jargons to navigate the first few weeks in a new environment.
