Kwansei Gakuin is one of Japan's most prestigious private schools, dating back to 1889, founded in Kobe by the American missionary Reverend Walter Russell Lambuth, M.D. It is now a comprehensive and integrated educational institution spread across six campuses: Nishinomiya Uegahara, Nishinomiya Seiwa, Kobe Sanda, Osaka Umeda, Tokyo Marunouchi, and Takarazuka.
Kwansei Gakuin is relatively large learning and research community with 27,000 students from kindergarten through undergraduate and graduate levels and an International School (K-12), spread over seven campuses—two in Nishinomiya with Sanda, Takarazuka, Senri, Osaka, and Tokyo. When the parents and guardians of those students and our more than 200,000 alumni are included, that community extends throughout the world.
At the time of its founding 127 years ago, Kwansei Gakuin had just 19 students. Nonetheless, the school conceived by Walter R. Lambuth, the missionary who served as Kwansei's first chancellor, was a global one, just like today's Kwansei Gakuin. For him, it was not the institution's size but rather the global perspective that shaped its essential studies. He returned to the United States two years after founding the school and subsequently worked in locations including South America, Europe, Africa, and Siberia, earning the description on a monument in Mississippi that memorializes him as a "World Citizen and Christian Apostle too many lands."
All schools of Kwansei strive to endow their students with an awareness of being part of the larger world. When he created the school motto of "Mastery for Service," C.J.L. Bates, the school's fourth chancellor, wrote of his wish to "render some useful service to humanity in order that the world may be better for our having lived in it" (C.J.L. Bates, Mastery for Service, 1915).
Everyone connected by Kwansei Gakuin is an essential member of a united community in its dedication to making the world better. We hope that we will be able to achieve a better society that expresses humankind's uniqueness and excellence. We are Kwansei!
Kwansei Gakuin University (KGU) is an independent institution for higher education, offering Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees in over 35 different disciplines to about 24,500, including approximately 800 international students. The University maintains academic standards that rank among the highest of all Japanese universities and colleges.
Our school motto, "Mastery for Service," is based on the institution's founding principles. After introducing this motto in his statement, he said, "We do not desire to be weaklings. We aim to be strong, to be masters," urging his students to be vital for their self-culture and to train themselves to be healthy not only for their own sake but also for all humanity.
One thing you should do is to become aware of what the problems are. To determine the presence of problems in a particular event, you should have your standards. In other words, you should have your view of the world. Learning at University prepares you to form your view of the world.
Another important thing you should do is master the basics that will enable you to keep learning even after graduation. Rapid changes are taking place in the world, and what you learn at University soon becomes obsolete. It would help if you always tried to continue acquiring new knowledge and information. To that end, it is essential for you to acquire scientific thinking skills—thinking skills to conclude by making scientific investigations in your field of specialization.
In the 21st century, the so-called "soft power" created by information, knowledge, and wisdom has come to have great value for the progress of humankind. We are entering an age in which there will be ever-increasing demands for sophisticated intelligence if society continues to develop. The role that higher education and research organizations like Kwansei Gakuin play will become critically important.
We see it as our sublime mission and social obligation to train young people and send them out into the world, equipped with sufficient capabilities to carry the progress of the 21st century. We believe that we can achieve our mission and contribute to realizing a spiritually prosperous society by vigorously promoting world citizens' education who embody our school motto, "Mastery for Service."
To meet these aims, we will strive to educate young people who commit themselves unceasingly to academic endeavors during their time with us and go on to put the knowledge they have acquired to fair use after graduation. We will achieve these goals based on the cornerstones of the philosophy and traditions that Kwansei Gakuin has cultivated over the years while maintaining our determination to take on new challenges.
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