2. Division of Roles and Coordination Between the Plenary Council and Plenary Council Representatives’ Meeting

In recent years, the Plenary Council Representatives’ Meeting, as a body established under the Plenary Council, has served to identify topics for discussion and clarify disputes, drawing upon feedback and concerns expressed by undergraduate and graduate students through five-party discussion meetings, departmental and campus-level discussion meetings, discussions focused on specific topics, and various surveys (conducted by the Student Union, the Graduate Student Council, and the University among others).

Depending on the topic, the Plenary Council Representatives’ Meeting has also functioned as a forum for sharing and outlining any underlying assumptions, disputes, and approaches to the review process, prior to the University coming to a decision.

The open session of the Plenary Council in AY 2022 served as a milestone, providing an opportunity for the University as a whole to reaffirm the assumptions and key issues that the University should share, as well as the nature of undergraduate and graduate student participation. Subsequently, the Plenary Council Representatives’ Meeting has been responsible for sustaining and further developing these key points by organizing the issues presented at five-party discussion meetings and other discussion forums, and reflecting them in subsequent deliberations and instances of implementation.

Within this division of responsibilities, the open session of the Plenary Council and the Plenary Council Representatives’ Meeting have functioned in close coordination. Each fulfills a distinct role, with the former serving as a forum for milestone deliberations and the latter for the ongoing organization of key issues—thereby supporting a process of dialogue and collaboration in alignment with the concept of Academy co-creation.

For instance, the Student Union and student associations gathered feedback from undergraduate and graduate students on the impact of the academic calendar from AY 2025 onward on their studies and student life, and shared their feedback with the University through five-party discussion meetings and consultations with the Office of Academic Affairs. Building on views of student participation expressed at the open session of the Plenary Council in AY 2022, the Plenary Council Representatives’ Meeting and other discussion forums have continued to organize and review these issues since AY 2023.