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On 20th May, students of College of International Relations on the ‘Professional Workshop (Journalism)’ course enjoyed a visit from guest speaker Fukushima Bisei Koshu (福島美生虎舟), formerly a creative director at the AsatsuDK advertising agency and now an artist, whose work, which uses an primeval form of kanji (kodai moji) as a start for expressive calligraphy crosses the border between writing and painting, and teacher.

Mr Fukushima had a long career in advertising, working primarily for Asatsu DK, he was also involved in overseeing the creation and development of Ritsumeikan University’s ‘R’ logo mark and institutional identity. The workshop session brought together Mr Fukushima’s two passions ‘communication’ and ‘calligraphy’, it invited students to think about how to express ideas in a very compact and abbreviated way - a television commercial is just 15 seconds long but, as Mr Fukushima explained, it is possible to communicate a lot during that brief time.

The session started with a discussion of the difference between tsutaeru (‘expression’) and tsutawaru(what ‘comes across’) and the potential difficulties involved in getting one’s ideas over to television viewers (who might be uninterested or distracted). He suggested that the key to successful communication, in this context, is to remove the unnecessary, to simplify and ‘cut away’ distractions. After hearing about the many advertising campaigns that Mr Fukushima had been involved in, students were tasked with imagining a new brand of sake or wine and choosing a kanji to represent what the brand stood for.

Picking a character that was meaningful, aesthetically pleasing and represented the right idea was far from easy but when we got started, students showed their artistic side and, with advice and encouragement from Mr Fukushima, everyone managed to produce something worthwhile, and in some cases quite beautiful.

Mr Fukushima afterwards praised the enthusiasm and open-mindedness of the participating students and said he is looking forward to coming again next year. Before that though, his work will be on display in a exhibition at Tokyu Bunkamura in Shibuya, 23 - 29 June 2016.

Professional Workshop (Journalism) is career development course in Japanese taught by expertized professors.

URL of the program.

https://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/ir/education/professional-journalism.html/

URL for exhibition webpage

http://www.bunkamura.co.jp/gallery/exhibition/box_160623fukushima.html

On Sunday, March 20, the Ritsumeikan University Undergraduate and Graduate School Fall Graduation Ceremony 2015 was held at Kinugasa Campus. There, 272 students from the College of International Relations and 23 students from the Graduate School of International Relations were awarded Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.
At the University-wide graduation ceremony, Mr. Syunya Asano and Mr. Yu Hashimoto were commended by University president. Mr. Ryuhei Sugiyama, Mr. Syunya Asano and Ms. Sato Wakabayashi gave a speech as the student representative at the departmental ceremony. Many family members and friends of graduates, faculty and staff members were there to celebrate. Graduates will soon start their new careers here in Japan and around the world.

On Thursday, December 24th, “Cultural Hour” for 1st year GS students of the College of International Relations Ritsumeikan University was held at Kinugasa Campus.

10 groups gave a presentation on seasonal celebrations around the world and introduced them by dressing in their national costumes or others.

The topics included Christmas, Chinese, Taiwanese, Songkran Festival in Thailand, Japanese, Halloween, Korean, Vietnamese arts and Indonesian dawn drum parade. They shared other ways to spend holiday season and enjoyed various cultures and customs.

On Friday, December 11^th, the 16^th Annual Open Seminar Competition 2015 for undergraduate students of the College of International Relations Ritsumeikan University was held at Kinugasa Campus.

This competition started in 2000 as an opportunity for students to examine the problems that face international society from multiple perspectives and to share the findings with the community.

6 groups who cleared preliminaries held on November 16^th gave a presentation. Over 30 companies joined as judges and gave opinions from the business point.  Not only the faculty members but also other students attended to learn the results of their research.

During questions and answers, there was a lively discussion between presenters and the audience.

Winner : ”Community Shops save Japan?! ” (Professor Ms. Kwamura’s seminar)

2^nd place : “New Proposal of Saury” (Professor Mr. Nishimura’s seminar)

After the competition, an exchange meeting was held at Ryoyukan. This was a productive party in which companies, faculty members and students exchanged their opinions on many topics, not just on what was presented.

Open seminar details:

https://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/ir/open-seminar/index.html

Career Support : https://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/ir/recruit/

On Monday, December 14th, the Introductry Seminar Competition 2015 by undergraduate students of College of International Relations Ritsumeikan University was held at Kinugasa Campus.

Steering committee composed of 1st year students managed this event which is the summarization of their research and presentation.

14 classes, that cleared preliminaries, competed together at two venues.

GS and IR major classes held together and also had all 1^st year students, faculty members and Ritsumeikan UJI senior high school students as guests.

Their theme are environment, politics, gender, sightseeing, industry, education, culture, IT which linked to international relations.

winner :

GS-C class 

“The Thucydides Trap : USA vs China”

IR-B class

“Harassment from the perspective of sexual harassment