Soka University

[EduCativ]

In 1930, educator Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, the founding president of Soka Gakkai, published the first volume of The System of Value-Creating Pedagogy. "Soka" in Japanese means value creation ("Gakkai" means society or association). In essence, to create value means to enhance life. To strive for good, toward peace, to persevere in the challenges to uphold and protect human dignity to be undaunted by hardship—the essential ideals of Soka education exist in the effort to nurture such creative humanity.

Fellow educator and Makiguchi protégé, Josei Toda (1900-58), succeeded Makiguchi's philosophy of value creation Toda's vision and values, in turn, was succeeded by Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai's third president. In 1971, Ikeda founded Soka University, actualizing the goals and ideals of Soka education and put forth the following founding principles:

• Be the highest seat of learning for humanistic education.
• Be the cradle of a new culture.
• Be a fortress for the peace of humankind.

The 21st century dawned with much hope and expectation on the part of the people of the world. However, turmoil and an increasing sense of helplessness have become a pervasive reality in both the educational community and society. What is most required at this critical juncture in history is the emergence of individuals capable of shaping a new social reality based on peace. Therefore, I believe that those engaged in higher education, responsible for producing people of talent, shoulder a grave responsibility.

The unchanging mission of Soka University is to foster and develop individuals capable of creating new values in whichever arena they are engaged individuals who, irrespective of age, embody the university's founding spirit, as laid out by Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, the founder. Dr. Ikeda has remarked that Soka University is now in its second pioneering period, one in which it must open up a "golden age" of value-creating education. To help usher in such an age, I am resolved to create a new history within Soka University through the united efforts of the faculty, administration, and student body.

The primary mission of Soka University is value creation, to nurture the creative, life-enhancing potential of each student and to inspire students to employ that potential for the more significant benefit of humanity. This is the founder's call.

University education should not be limited to the teaching and acquisition of specialized knowledge. The lack of distinction between knowledge and wisdom is a prime source of the crisis that modern society faces. Society requires individuals who can freely employ knowledge to bring forth the wisdom to confront the challenges of our ever-changing reality creatively. Soka University strives to provide humanistic education that will foster individuals who, exercising wisdom rooted in rich humanity, can fulfill that requirement.

First established in medieval Europe, universities played a significant role in the development of scholastic philosophy based on Christianity that facilitated the Renaissance's birth. Today, an integrating philosophy that embraces and brings order to the diversity of human susceptibilities, culture, reason, and learning is once again imperative. Such a philosophy, firmly grounded in recognition of our common humanity, can provide the basis for fostering global citizens or creative individuals enriched by learning.

A global citizen can be defined essentially as an individual of wisdom, courage, and compassion—the courage to respect and appreciate differences such as race, culture, and ethnicity, and to make such differences a source of nourishment for one's growth compassion to feel empathy and a sense of identification with people in other parts of the world. Such courage and compassion are themselves a limitless font of wisdom. Soka University aims to be a cradle for creating a global culture based on global citizens' solidarity—solidarity of creative humanity.

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