JAPANESE TERTIARY EDUCATION
requests and assessment of the success of individuals on these different
committees. Often otherwise unpalatable choices for committee chairs that are
unavoidable for reasons of reciprocity and exchange are softened with by choosing
a strong, supporting cast of committee vice-chairs and committee members to
ensure the committee will run effectively. This was certainly the case when the
president chose the otherwise administratively inexperienced Oshihara-sensei as
the chair of the important admissions committee. He placed Aimiya-sensei and
Yokoi-sensei in roles of vice-chair, with Umehara-sensei, Wakajima-sensei and
Tateyama-sensei and a few other younger cast members on the committee as well
to boost what was an otherwise ineffective performance by the chair, Oshihara,
himself.
Age and Gender
Indeed, these younger faculty members are playing an increasingly powerful role
in the university administration. Contrary to presuppositions of the importance of
an aged-based hierarchy in Japanese society, in order to effectively implement
changes at EUC, most of the committee chairs appointed were in their thirties or
forties, while the older professors have been given less voice administratively.
Some younger male professors do not necessarily resent this added workload. The
youngest member of the faculty says that, “I feel that my most important role at
this university is to help make changes. Though this may come across as somewhat
conceited, honestly I feel that if I do not help to make and implement changes [in
the curriculum], nobody will.” This commitment to the institution contrasts sharply
with the recent voice of faculty members in North America. “Increased demands
on faculty to participate in the management of their own institutions means more
time spent doing committee work, a source of frequent complaints [among the
professoriate in the U.S.]” (Pescosolido & Aminzade 1999a, p. 602).
On the contrary, women have not been given roles of responsibility within the
administration and committee structures at EUC. Nor do they necessarily want
such positions, knowing full well the time commitment of belonging to
committees. For example, one woman told me that, “As a woman I am not asked to
participate in a lot of meetings and committees. This can be seen as either a
positive [more time to focus on research and teaching] or as a negative [being
excluded].”
This is cause for concern among certain people at EUC, and some men wonder
aloud whether this is healthy. At a secret, inner circle meeting with only young
male members of the professoriate in attendance, a younger faculty member
complained directly to the university president: “What about the women
professors? President, none of your choices for committee chairs involves women.
Aren’t you wasting a valuable resource, since many of the women professors are
capable leaders and interested in taking on committee responsibility?”
This awareness of gender issues is atypical, however, as one woman professor
noted in an interview. “Not only at EUC, but at many universities there are [male]
35
CHAPTER 1
professors who express openly their opinion that women should not be given
positions of responsibility [within the university].” She continues. “Some openly
assert that we must include more women on committees [and in the reform
process], which I think is missing the point [that individuals should be judged on
their ability and not their gender].”
In the eyes of the president, working hard on committees shows a professor’s
individual commitment to the university. Regardless of research output, and
teaching ability to some degree, if a professor is deemed a capable, though not
necessarily willing, administrator he is quickly brought into the fold of the
president’s inner circle. The president is quick to offer disparaging remarks about
individual professors who shirk what he considers their fair share of administrative
responsibilities. As a professor of organizational management, he takes great
interest, and pride, in managing the faculty personnel at the university. He admits
openly to playing favorites but insists that the reasons for assessing poorly certain
individuals is entirely their own fault and well deserved. Of course such favoritism
is part of an organizational management style that is crucial to the ideology of
“family education.” Through his network of insiders he monitors closely the
amount of work that the faculty is accomplishing for the university. Though the
import of research is officially important for career advancement at EUC,
administration and teaching, to a slightly lesser degree, are the basis for unofficial,
practical assessment.
In fact, too much attention to one’s research, at the expense of time devoted to
the university in terms of administrative work, is not regarded positively by the
president. Though research productivity is the de facto method for assessment for
promotion, the unwritten rule is that this should be balanced with hard work on
committees. Academics who spend too much time at research might be looked
upon suspiciously because they are more likely to get jobs at “better” research
universities. Faculty attrition is a reality, and a good number of younger staff is
often on the lookout for opportunities outside EUC.
KYŌJUKAI—FACULTY MEETINGS & CONFLICT
The cultural and linguistic knowledge of meetings in Japan proves useful in
understanding more fully indigenous categories of thought. In her description of
the untranslatable ethical code (1946, p. 177) of Japanese culture, over fifty years
ago Ruth Benedict analyzed for a western audience such enigmatic categories as gi
(righteousness), gimu and giri (obligation repayment), on (obligation incurred),
and haji (shame). Following suit, in recent years scores of authors, not necessarily
trained in the social sciences, have attempted in less rigorous fashion to describe
“inscrutable” Japanese “national characteristics” to an interested western
audience—a genre of literature (nihonjinron) that has been examined critically by
numerous social scientists (cf. Dale 1988, Mouer & Sugimoto 1990, Befu 2001).
Titles such as Anatomy of Dependence (Doi 1971), Japanese Cultural Encounters
and How to Handle Them (Kataoka & Kusumoto 1991),
The Unspoken Way
36