Chapter 1: Activities of the Research Center for Graduate Schools
1. Overview
The Research Center for Graduate Schools was established in 2008 in order to conduct a five-year study of practice-based doctoral programs in the arts (practical fields such as art and music), which was funded by a Special Funds for Education and Research grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). Since then, the center has reviewed numerous doctoral programs in Japan and overseas, and examined their degree conferral processes as well as supervisory and assessment systems. In particular, it has extensively investigated potential of integrating artistic practice into research dissertation writing. As a part of this research, the center has provided students in practice-based doctoral programs with technical support for dissertation writing and new methods for presenting research outcomes.
2. Background
The university established its doctoral programs in 1977 and the first doctoral degrees were awarded in 1982 with steadily increasing numbers during the subsequent years. However, when the MEXT revised the criteria for establishing graduate schools and presented its policies on graduate school education in 1991, there was a marked increase in the enrollment of doctoral programs. Although the university improved its graduate school administration in order to cope with this increase, more drastic measures were necessary. Therefore, the Research Center for Graduate Schools was established in 2008 to examine and conduct research on practice-based doctoral programs.
3. Organization
As shown in Fig. 1, the Research Center for Graduate Schools consists of the Research Center for the Graduate School of Fine Arts and the Research Center for the Graduate School of Music, which are both overseen by the Research Center Director. In 2010, the Research Center for the Graduate School of Film and New Media was added. Since the beginning of the project, the steering committee has decided the policies and overseen its administration. In 2011, a working group was established to handle operational matters across the three gradate schools, which comprised of each of the graduate schools in the research center. The number of staff members in each graduate school, who were actually in charge of conducting research and providing student support, was determined according to the size of the particular doctoral course of study.
Fig. 1. Organizational Chart
