What Is EALAI?

The East Asia Liberal Arts Initiative (EALAI) is an international education program of The University of Tokyo which was inaugurated in 2005.

Liberal arts education, as integral, foundational part of university education, is indispensable in equipping the new generations of young men and women with the broad outlooks and powers of comprehensive judgment that they will need in order to act as the pioneering leaders both in the society as a whole and in the scientific community. The University of Tokyo is the only national university in Japan to have maintained and continued to develop its liberal arts department, which is now known as the College of Arts and Sciences and which continues a tradition going back to the former Daiichi Koto Gakko (First High School). Up to the present day, the College of Arts and Sciences has been continuously reforming and improving its educational program by pursuing the creative integration of the advanced research conducted at the graduate school level into its liberal arts program. The purpose of EALAI has been to share our experience of this kind of liberal arts education aimed at the holistic development of students with our counterparts in East Asia. Through educational exchanges with other universities in East Asia (Peking University, Seoul National University, and Vietnam National University, Hanoi) EALAI has been working to create a new form of liberal arts education that is best suited to the needs of East Asia and can be shared with our partners throughout the region.

EALAI has been and remains an innovative project for international contribution which aims to foster mutual understanding and to develop the human resources that will be required for the building of an “East Asian Community.”

EALAI’s Projects

Since 1999, the University of Tokyo has been holding the annual East Asia Four Universities Forum together with three other leading East Asian universities: Peking University, Seoul National University and the Vietnam National University, Hanoi. This group of universities has been named BESETOHA, taking the first two letters of the names of the cities in which the four of them are located. Building on BESETOHA’s accomplishments, EALAI is at present pursuing the following projects:

(1) Transmitting to East Asia

EALAI aims to share its ideas and knowledge about liberal arts education through lecture exchanges with partner universities in East Asia, development of common educational materials, and translation and publication of the University of Tokyo’s textbook series on liberal arts education. To date “A Book Guide for Liberal Arts Education” (written by Kobayashi Yasuo and Yamamoto Yasushi, University of Tokyo Press, 2005) has been translated and published in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.

(2) Receiving from East Asia

We have been inviting faculty members from other East Asian universities to the University of Tokyo to give joint lectures to our first and second-year undergraduate students on topics of common interest for East Asia. We hope in this way to stimulate and encourage our students to go on to pursue international careers.

(3) Liberal arts education originating in East Asia

In order to go one step further in deepening mutual understanding in East Asia within a globalizing world, we aim to build a liberal arts education that is rooted in the cultures and issues of East Asia. We are also working to introduce innovative teaching methods into liberal arts education by utilizing information and communication technology (ICT) and placing an emphasis on hands-on learning and discussion-based teaching.

Projects during the year

(1) East Asia Four Universitites Forum

EALAI has been playing a central role in organizing and ensuring the success of the East Asia Four Universities Forum. Held in autumn each year, the forum provides the presidents and professors of the four universities with an opportunity to meet and discuss topics that are common to liberal arts education in East Asian universities. The forum was held at Seoul National University in 2005, at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, in 2006, at the University of Tokyo in 2007 and at Peking University in 2008. Since then the forum has been held again at each of the universities in turn and in 2011 it was hosted once more by the University of Tokyo.

(2) Offering thematic lecture courses

Since 2005 EALAI has been organizing omnibus lecture series on themes related to East Asia in coordination with a university-internal project, inviting lecturers at the forefront of the various fields selected each semester from within and without the university. These lecture courses are mainly aimed at undergraduate students (first and second years). The classes also incorporate much discussion, and are always very lively. The topic for Summer Semester 2011 was “Asian food - In the midst of globalization -” and the lectures were held in the specially-equipped classroom at KALS (Komaba Active Learning Studio).

(3) Conducting E-lectures (Distance lectures with universities overseas)

Since 2008 we have been holding E-lectures with Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and Seoul National University. E-lectures are conducted using a television conference system and the lectures are transmitted in real-time to the students at the partner universities. Via the screen the students can view and listen to the lecture being given in a distant place and conduct discussions with students in another country. The courses offered through this system so far include courses on Japan-related topics offered in Japanese to students at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, courses offered in English to students in the College of Economics of the same university, and courses mainly in the social sciences offered in English to students at Seoul National University .

（4）Holding EALAI Open Sessions (Lectures)

The Open Sessions, which have been conducted since 2009, are open discussion-based seminars. Each time, a specific theme is set and after one or several speakers have raised points for discussion, the participants conduct a free discussion taking these issues as a starting point. The first Open Session was held in July 2009 on the topic “The ‘magnetic field’ of Chinese characters - The principles behind East Asian characters”. In the academic year 2010–11, we invited speakers from Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and Seoul National University to hold three further open sessions, all of which were well attended and stimulated active discussion