Takeshi Sasaki (佐々木毅) is a Japanese

political scientist Political science is the science, scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of politics, political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated c ...

who served as the 27th president of the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

. He has served as the chairman of the

Japan Academy The Japan Academy (Japanese: 日本学士院, ''Nihon Gakushiin'') is an honorary organisation and science academy founded in 1879 to bring together leading Japanese scholars with distinguished records of scientific achievements. The Academy is c ...

since 2022.

Overview

Sasaki was born in a village called Senya (now Misato) in the northeastern prefecture of Akita in 1942, during the Second World War. His father, Chohachi, served as the mayor of the village. After graduating from

Akita High School is a high school in the city of Akita, Akita Prefecture, Japan. Akita High is the oldest and first high school in the prefecture and one of the earliest pre-World War II middle schools in Japan. School activities Athletics Baseball Runners-up, ...

in 1961, he went on to study political science at the

Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo Faculty may refer to: * Faculty (academic staff), the academic staff of a university (North American usage) * Faculty (division), a division within a university (usage outside of the United States) * Faculty (instrument), an instrument or warra ...

(UTokyo), where he was supervised by Kanichi Fukuda ( 福田歓一).「秋田人自信持っていい…政治学者・佐々木毅さん（下）
��YOMIURI ONLINE 2015.07.09） He earned his PhD from the same university in 1973, with a thesis entitled 'Sovereignty, Resistance, and Tolerance:

Jean Bodin Jean Bodin (; c. 1530 – 1596) was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement of Paris and professor of law in Toulouse. He is known for his theory of sovereignty. He was also an influential writer on demonology. Bodin l ...

's Philosophy of State' (主権・抵抗権・寛容――ジャン・ボダンの国家哲学). In the 1980s, he broadened his analysis to contemporary American political thought, and at the same time, he became active in the debate on contemporary Japanese politics, focusing especially on the keyword 'lateral input (横からの入力)' (American pressure). During his four-year presidency at the university from 2001, the university gained more independence but started receiving less support from the government. He placed this turiningpoint in the university's governance in the wider context of the country's first long-term economic and political stagnation since the Second World War and the widespread pessimism that became widespread in the country. Analogous to this mentality he wished for first-year students, he advocated that the university itself should not be satisfied with merely being the premier academic and educational authority in the world's second-largest economy as it had been. Instead, it should stand on its own feet and commit to self-improvement, especially in the forthcoming era of the country's gradual decline.常に新しさを求めてチャレンジが必要
October 2012

References

{{s-end University of Tokyo alumni Presidents of the University of Tokyo Academic staff of the University of Tokyo 1942 births Living people