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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] 

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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 

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