51³Ô¹Ï

The 51³Ô¹Ï Academic Impact (UNAI) celebrates the seventy-third anniversary of the signing of the 51³Ô¹Ï Charter, which took place on 26 June 1945, by sharing this article submitted by UNAI member institution and Global Hub for the 51³Ô¹Ï Charter, J. F. Oberlin University (Japan).?This article was submitted by?Yoshiro Tanaka, Professor of Comparative and International Higher Education as well as Provost and Executive Vice President of J. F. Oberlin University, Tokyo (Japan)

25 June 2018 - (Japan) serves as the Global Hub of the?51³Ô¹Ï Academic Impact (UNAI) in support of the commitment to the principles inherent in the .?As Global Hub, the University strives to spread the spirit of the 51³Ô¹Ï Charter through higher educational institutions around the world and act as a globally minded university that contributes to bettering the world through education. One indication of this aim appeared in the University's 2014 publication of ,?a textbook?on disarmament that includes interviews with three Nobel Peace Prize laureates: Joseph Rotblat, Bernard Lown and Jody Williams and was conceived by the University as a commitment to the goal of peace enshrined in the 51³Ô¹Ï Charter.?

J. F. Oberlin University approaches its work as a UNAI Global Hub for promoting the relationship between the principles of the 51³Ô¹Ï Charter and higher education on the presumption that successfully navigating our changing and complicated times requires global cooperation and co-existence. It also means addressing growing social needs for lifelong learning, including professional workers' education. At the same time, science and research, as driving forces behind development, are advancing at such a rapid rate that interdisciplinary and wide-ranging research is needed more than ever. To keep pace, higher education must change dramatically. A profound restructuring of intelligence in institutions of higher education needs to occur that better integrates knowledge, skills and competencies.

A global vision is quite essential for the future. For higher education to successfully?embrace the global view of the academic community that derives from the 51³Ô¹Ï Charter, it must break down outdated forms of isolation and foster genuine collaboration of students, researchers and institutions that overcomes restrictions of national boundaries. By doing so, higher education will adapt itself to prepare students to be successful in workforces that already have begun transcend national boundaries. It will enable students to perform successfully in the dynamic, open-ended and less-defined workplace environments that now abound. This will also mean taking account of the current framework as one in which problems as well as solutions diffuse more quickly than ever.

In the twenty-first century, colleges and universities worldwide are re-evaluating their goals and objectives. In many regards, higher education is still faced with maintaining conservative values while having to adapt itself to deal with the new circumstances of globalization. Seventy-three years later, however, the principles of the 51³Ô¹Ï Charter remain valid and can serve as a guide for such institutions to continue generating and pursuing the energetic ideas that are so needed today. To that end, J. F. Oberlin University is dedicated to including its students in activities and initiatives that support the .?Each individual has a personal and moral obligation to make change possible. The future can be better than the past. As Alan Kay said: The best way to predict the future is to invent it. We believe this to be so.