Tsuru University (都留文科大学 ''Tsuru Bunka Daigaku'', literally Tsuru University of Humanities) is a small

municipal university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in state ownership, owned by the state or receives significant government spending, public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private unive ...

located in Tsuru City,

Yamanashi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Yamanashi Prefecture has a population of 817,192 (1 January 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,465 km2 (1,724 sq mi). Yamanashi Prefecture borders Saitama Prefecture to the no ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The university has around 3,000 students and 85 faculty. The campus rises into the mountains overlooking the 35,000 residents of Tsuru City.

History

The university was first created by

in 1953 as the Temporary School for

Teacher Training Teacher education or teacher training refers to programs, policies, procedures, and provision designed to equip (prospective) teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, approaches, methodologies and skills they require to perform their t ...

. In 1955, Tsuru City renamed the facility Tsuru Municipal

Junior College A junior college (sometimes referred to colloquially as a juco, JuCo or JC) is a post-secondary educational institution offering vocational training designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations and workers in su ...

to reflect the expanded programming being offered. The school curriculum consisted of two courses: Teacher Training for Primary School Education and Commerce. In 1960, the college was reorganized into a four-year university and became Tsuru University. The curriculum emphasized a

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the ...

education overseen by a Faculty of Humanities. Many alumni have gone on to become teachers all over Japan.

Japanese Studies Program

Tsuru University inaugurated its Japanese Studies in Tsuru (JST) Program in 1998 under an agreement with the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

as a part of bilateral efforts to promote friendly relations and academic exchange between the two universities. This program is administered by Professor Mineko Takiguchi. Every semester, an average of 10 UC students have the opportunity to take classes in

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...

and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

. In exchange, Tsuru students are able to compete for the chance to study at any of the UC campuses. The first international contact came about in 1978 when then-student Masanori Sakaguchi (currently retired school principal in

Wakayama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Wakayama Prefecture has a population of 944,320 () and has a geographic area of . Wakayama Prefecture borders Osaka Prefecture to the north, and Mie Prefecture and Nara Prefecture ...

) invited an Asian-American friend to stay with him and to tour the campus. Thus sparked a greater interest by many in the student body in

international relations International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such as ...

Undergraduate courses

* Faculty of Humanities ** Primary School Education ** Japanese Literature ** English Literature ** Sociology ** Comparative Culture ** Global Education

Graduate courses

* Graduate School of Humanities (Master Courses only) ** Clinical Pedagogy ** Japanese Literature ** English Literature ** Sociology ** Comparative Culture

References

External links

Tsuru University

都留文科大学

{{authority control Universities and colleges in Yamanashi Prefecture Public universities in Japan Educational institutions established in 1953 1953 establishments in Japan Tsuru, Yamanashi