Search - universities

 
 
Reader Mail
Mar 10, 2011

University deans need to wake up

Maybe my ethical clock is way behind the times, because I can't imagine why disallowing cell phones in test venues or, for that matter, any type of electronic device, unless specifically required to take the test, would be difficult to enforce. The test room is a controlled environment that should not...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 10, 2011

Robocon founder Dr. Masahiro Mori

Dr. Masahiro Mori, 84, is a specialist in robotics and Emeritus President of the Robotics Society of Japan. Mori is the founder of Robocon, the robotics contest he started in 1981 when he was a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Since then, Robocon has developed into the world's most famous...
COMMUNITY
Mar 10, 2011

Achieving happiness and well-being through positive psychology

Positive psychology is a hot topic these days. Books with "happiness" in the title are pouring out of publishers' lists, and studies on resilience, well-being and gratitude have made their way from academic journals to mainstream magazines. More than 200 colleges and universities in the United States,...
COMMENTARY
Mar 10, 2011

What to do about Gadhafi?

LONDON — There ought to be many more red faces among the world leaders who used to kowtow and suck up to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, an insane megalomaniac bully. But only a minority will ever admit that they were wrong.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 27, 2011

Don't give up on Japan's kids

Last March, the president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, visited Japan to find out for herself what has become of Japan's once-vibrant contribution to American academia. The numbers of Japanese students enrolling in Harvard have declined steadily over the past decade, and in September 2009...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 20, 2011

The trouble with today's youth is nothing new

Here we go again. "Young people," frets Sapio magazine, "are rapidly becoming stupid." They can't read, can't calculate, can't communicate. They have no manners, no ambition, no interest in anything; no consideration for other people, no knowledge of world affairs. New technology enabling instant communication...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 19, 2011

Annals of cheap: Only Free Paper

Print publishers find success in the formula of 'make it free, and they will come.'
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2011

The world needs more elephant mothers

MELBOURNE — Many years ago, my wife and I were driving somewhere with our three young daughters in the back, when one of them suddenly asked: "Would you rather that we were clever or that we were happy?"
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2011

Egypt should worry China

BERKELEY, Calif. — A strictly economic interpretation of events in Tunisia and Egypt would be too simplistic — however tempting such an exercise is for an economist. That said, there is no question that the upheavals in both countries — and elsewhere in the Arab world — largely reflect their...
Reader Mail
Feb 10, 2011

School name, not degree, counts

Regarding the Feb. 3 letter "Educational reforms too slow" (writer's name withheld): Those calling for educational reform of universities are missing something. The reasons reform will be slow in coming, if it comes at all, is that there are too many old people; young people do not vote; and having an...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2011

The inequality wild card

DAVOS, Switzerland — As the dramatic events in North Africa continue to unfold, many observers outside the Arab world smugly tell themselves that it is all about corruption and political repression. But high unemployment, glaring inequality, and soaring prices for basic commodities are also a huge...
BUSINESS
Feb 9, 2011

Job seekers hold pep rally in Tokyo

With cheerleaders shouting encouragement, more than 1,000 young people trying to break into the job market held a pep rally Tuesday in Tokyo to underscore what officials say is the bleakest employment outlook in years.
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Feb 1, 2011

Diplomats relate cultures in Japanese

"Goseicho arigato gozaimashita" (thank you for listening), a regular way of ending a speech, echoed in the meeting room after each foreign speaker gave their presentations and received a big round of applause from the audience.
COMMENTARY
Jan 29, 2011

The task awaiting Tunisia

SEATTLE — Hunger strikes. These were the last resort for Tunisian activists as they fought against a brutal and highly oppressive regime. Prior to the ousting of Zineal-Abidine Ben Ali by an unprecedented people's uprising on Jan. 14, there seemed to be no end in sight to the regime's wide-ranging...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CAREER-SEARCH CRISIS
Jan 28, 2011

Flawed recruiting system sparks some to fight back

When it comes to job hunting in Japan, there is something called a "naitei," an informal promise of employment given to students who pass the applicant screening, written tests and mind-crunching interviews.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2011

Governor pitches cash for TOEFL-sharp Osaka schools

OSAKA — Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto plans to offer a total of ¥500 million to high schools whose students score highest on the Test of English as a Foreign Language to boost competition and raise the level of language proficiency.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2011

Exposing globalization's dark side

WATERLOO, Ontario — The pronouncement of "the end of history" may have been a tad premature, yet, in a flat world, globalization — the intensified exchange of goods, services, capital, technology, ideas, information, legal systems and people — has brought "the end of geography" closer.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 18, 2011

Up the prosecutor's road

Public Prosecutor General Hiroshi Obayashi was forced to resign after being in office for only six months in the wake of a series of scandals involving the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office's special investigation squad, including the tampering of evidence by one of its prosecutors.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 18, 2011

U.S. NPO seeks 'social entrepreneurs'

A U.S.-based nonprofit organization that has helped "social entrepreneurs" around the world opened a Japanese office this month, its first branch in East Asia, with the goal of creating a similar community in a country where the concept itself is little understood.
Reader Mail
Jan 16, 2011

Japan-China comparison misses

Regarding Roger Pulvers' Jan. 9 article, "Let's hope China doesn't fall into the same traps that Japan once did": I wonder whether Pulvers holds too pessimistic a view of China. True, there seem to be some similarities between China in the early 21st century and Japan in the 1930s, but there is also...
Reader Mail
Jan 16, 2011

Improve teacher training at home

Regarding the Jan. 8 Kyodo article "Language teachers to go to U.S. for exchanges": I was surprised to hear about these people-to-people programs, because I had learned last year that a similar program would be discontinued because of the lack of followup on its effects.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 14, 2011

'The Social Network' wins friends among film critics

The Japanese tagline for "The Social Network" translates as "Genius, backstabber, dangerous guy, billionaire." Probably not the kind of sentiment a website trying to connect friends wants to be associated with. However, for a film — it's damn sexy.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 11, 2011

Smart grid pursuit slow off mark

The term "smart grid" is coming up a lot as the United States prepares to replace its aging electricity infrastructure. While President Barack Obama pledged $3.4 billion in 2009 to spur an early transition to the new distribution grid, Japan isn't expected to follow anytime soon.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 9, 2011

Serendipity set a course to fish the high seas

In 1969, I was living at Hapuna Beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. I was 25 years old and had recently taken a leave-of-absence from Southern Illinois University, where I'd been a PhD candidate and an instructor in the English department. As I'd spent 20 of my 25 years in schooling by then, it seemed...
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2011

Too much respect for 'officialdom'

Regarding Shinji Fukukawa's Dec. 25 article, "Revitalizing national politics": The problem of Japan as seen by an outsider like myself is that the Japanese give enormous respect to bureaucrats and officialdom. Such respect is very uncommon in many other countries. As in most countries, officials are...
Japan Times
JAPAN / AT JAPAN'S EXPENSE
Jan 6, 2011

Japan far behind in global language of business

Last in a series
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2010

Piyasvasti battles Thai Airways' beasts

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?