Writer Profile

Akira Nagashima
Other : Professor Emeritus
Akira Nagashima
Other : Professor Emeritus
When you visit the ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app school forests, you can see magnificent trees growing. Behind the creation of these school forests lies a hidden, difficult history of ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app from over half a century ago.
After World War II, ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app was in a predicament due to severe financial difficulties and confusion over Juku management policies, and President Shohei Takamura was caught in the middle of this. To fund the reconstruction of the campus, which had been devastated by war, the only options were to increase the number of students or raise tuition fees. However, ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app became the first university in the country to experience tuition fee protests, and President Takamura was confined during collective bargaining with students. Furthermore, when the author attended a committee to decide the President election system as requested by the Koganei Faculty of Engineering, I was astonished by the loud, heated debates flying around the large lecture hall in Mita. Eventually, the elected President Kunio Nagasawa established a university-wide committee to deliberate on ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app's long-term policies. While I was in a training camp deliberation with Chairman Saku Sato, President Nagasawa suddenly arrived at night, making us feel his strong sense of crisis.
´ºÓêÖ±²¥app managed to survive the crisis by issuing Juku bonds and other means, but former President Takamura set about creating school forests, a measure he had long considered for stabilizing the Juku's finances in the long term. Thanks to the Forestry Mita-kai formed for that purpose, and the enthusiastic cooperation of the Forestry Agency and local stakeholders, the Fukuzawa Memorial Forestry Association was authorized in 1965. With support from the Fukuzawa Fund, the first tree planting was carried out in Nasu-Iono. This photo is filled with the joy of those involved. Former President Takamura took on the role of chairman of the Forestry Association and expressed his expectations of contributing 150 million yen 50 years later.
However, once ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app's finances somehow escaped the crisis, the forestry business was forgotten. Chairman Takamura continued to worry about the forestry business for nearly 30 years, and the Forestry Mita-kai devotedly protected the ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app forests. In addition to the initial method of planting ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app trees in national forests, they also acquired a large Juku-owned forest in Shizugawa, Miyagi Prefecture.
As the era changed from Showa to Heisei, the role of school forests was re-evaluated for environmental protection and educational contribution, and with donations from ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app alumni, the ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app forests began to increase again. The Forestry Friends Association was also formed, and together with the Juku authorities and the Forestry Mita-kai, they protect the Juku-owned forests. Currently, beautiful ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app forests spread across 160 hectares from Tohoku to Western Japan.
*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.