Effective April 1 — the start of the new academic year — I became president of Shiga University, a "national university corporation" near Lake Biwa in Japan's Kansai region. It is a relatively small institute consisting only of the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Economics.
I have served at a number of institutions of higher education during the past 44 years — two years at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tokyo, 37 years at the Institute of Economic Research of Kyoto University and four years at the Graduate School of Policy Science of Ritsumeikan University.
It has been six years since national universities in Japan were made national university corporations. Until then, the head of a national university was a titular figure, whose duties could be fulfilled by telling his subordinates to pursue courses of action as they saw fit. Now that national universities have become corporate bodies, their presidents are responsible for administrative matters as the heads of boards of trustees.