News & Event

2020 Practical Wisdom for Freedom Awards Ceremony held

News & Event

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The 2020 Practical Wisdom for Freedom Awards Ceremony was held on Saturday, December 19 in Satta Hall on the 6th floor of the Sotobori Building (Ichigaya Campus), with this year’s grand prize winner being “Online learning support for international students isolated by the coronavirus pandemic involving 32 volunteers from the “Multicultural Education” course (student volunteer activity)”.

The Practical Wisdom for Freedom Awards was established to honor and broadly share/disseminate educational, research and other efforts manifesting the Hosei University Charter formulated in 2016 in order to promote deeper understanding of the Charter and to further strengthen and publicize the Hosei University brand. The awards ceremony is planned and managed by a Branding Promotion Team comprising faculty and staff members from a variety of faculties/offices, and this year’s ceremony was the fourth since 2017. A live stream of the proceedings on YouTube was accessed by a total of 694 viewers.

You can see the video of the live stream of the day from here.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGXbKy7Nwso (Japanese Only)

Successful initiatives involving education, research, services or activities manifesting the Hosei University Charter and carried out by University faculty members, affiliated school teachers, staff members and/or students in or after the 2016 academic year were invited to submit entries via the University’s website and other means. With a particular emphasis this time on entries displaying “practical wisdom for surviving the coronavirus pandemic”, an above-average number of impressive applications were received, with 10 of the 42 entries ultimately being nominated.

The students and faculty/staff members involved in the nominated initiatives were invited to the awards ceremony, where the grand prize and other prizes determined through a final screening by the President were announced. There were four awards presented this year named after key concepts within the Hosei University Charter or indicative of the University’s philosophy derived from the Charter. A new feature of this year’s ceremony was set up award whose winner was determined through online voting by ceremony viewers/participants following presentations on individual initiatives by the nominated groups. Award recipients were given an award certificate and a supplementary prize by President Yuko Tanaka.

The initiatives that received awards are listed below.

Name of award

Winning initiative

Implementing entity

Grand Prize

Online learning support for international students isolated by the coronavirus pandemic

32 volunteers from the “Multicultural Education” course (student volunteer activity)

Learning Problem Solver Award

Various efforts emphasizing real-time two-way communication by leveraging the advantages of online access

Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences

Independent Citizen Award

Hosei Orange Community (HOC)

Alumni Association

Free Academic Culture Award

Library services accessible at home, etc.

Library

Practical Wisdom Pursuit Award

“Practical Wisdom” forums linked up by a lecture series

Faculty of Business Administration

Award chosen by ceremony viewers/participants

Library services accessible at home, etc.

Library

At the end of the awards ceremony, President Tanaka offered the following general comments:

“We saw an extraordinarily large number of entries this year. In this particularly challenging year, these entrants forged ahead with utmost effort, convinced that now was the right time to broaden their own activities and exercise their own capabilities. The sum of their efforts was what sustained Hosei University over the past year. In addition to being surprised at the number of entries, I was quite impressed by their content. Against a protracted and worldwide calamity, I think the best we can do as an organization is connect with each other and help each other out.

Faculty, staff, students, parents and guardians have made their goal the continuation of our university as a university, addressing such issues as how as a library to get people to read books or how as an undergraduate faculty to conduct classes under these circumstances. One of the key criteria considered in selecting the prize winner was that those involved had made it possible to engage in two-way communication rather than simply present a lesson.

The persons submitting entries this year have given students opportunities to experience. This was a year in which we learned the importance of interacting from the very fact of being unable to interact. Even interacting online expanded one’s options. Online communication has the benefit of transcending space, and full advantage was taken of this. If and when circumstances return to normal in future, we will not let go of the diversity of options that we have in hand. I hope we can further deepen and broaden interactions from here on out.

I have been responsible for presenting recipients with their awards since 2017 but, as I will be retiring this coming March, 2020 was my final year in that role. I have learned many things from the Practical Wisdom for Freedom Grand Prize awards over these past few years. I have garnered from experience that university faculty members do not simply work together with staff or simply teach students but in fact are also taught many things. I certainly hope to see this continue in future. It is very important to become able to see that which was previously not visible. I would like people to gain a better understanding of the spirit of “practical wisdom for freedom” through this award, and my genuine thanks go out to all those persons who submitted entries.”

Following these remarks, the ceremony concluded with commemorative photographs being taken of each of the nominated groups.

President Tanaka also provided comments on both the reasons the awardee initiatives were selected and on all of the entered initiatives, and these are presented in the article below. There were numerous other brilliant initiatives generating “practical wisdom” besides those that received awards, and we invite you to take a look at all of them.

Link: President’s comments on the reasons the 2020 Practical Wisdom for Freedom award winners were selected and on all of the entered initiatives

Those initiatives that won the Grand Prize and other awards as well as the impressions of the award recipients will gradually be presented on ‘the Hosei Phronesis’ branding website and in the “Hosei” PR magazine.

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“Online learning support for international students isolated by the coronavirus pandemic”/32 volunteers from the “Multicultural Education” course (student volunteer activity)” was selected for the Grand Prize. The recipients responded: “Thank you for such a tremendous award. Our initiative will not end here, and we hope to maintain these connections for a long time. We are interacting via Zoom (a Web conferencing tool) at the moment but, once we are able to meet face-to-face, we want to engage in activities that enable us to work in close cooperation with others.” President Tanaka presented the winners with an award certificate, a large Ecopyon stuffed character and a crystal trophy engraved with a 3D Ecopyon.

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This year’s ceremony was also streamed live on YouTube, providing the university’s faculty and staff as well as graduates and others across Japan and around the world with the opportunity to watch and participate.

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In the interest of preventing the spread of coronavirus infections, admission to the ceremony venue was limited to relevant personnel and seating was socially distanced.

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Nominated groups offered presentations on their successful initiatives. Each presentation offered an overview of the initiative, discussing the approaches adopted, future plans and participants’ thoughts, and was met with a loud round of applause from the audience.

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The Library received the award of which the winner was determined through an online vote among ceremony viewers and participants. Among the comments received from the voters were “the presentation gave me the opportunity to become more familiar with ways of using the library and convinced me that the number of users will increase” and “what a wonderful effort to keep things fun and interesting even during the coronavirus pandemic! It’s given me courage!”