´ºÓêÖ±²¥app

´ºÓêÖ±²¥app

Outdoor Entrance Ceremony on Mita Hilltop Square

Publish: June 30, 2020

Writer Profile

  • Keiko Kurata

    Graduate School of Letters ChairpersonFaculty of Letters Professor

    Keiko Kurata

    Graduate School of Letters ChairpersonFaculty of Letters Professor
The Mita Public Hall (Grand Hall), which had been the venue for ceremonies until before the war, was reduced to rubble inside by air raids in May 1945. Consequently, after the war, graduation and entrance ceremonies were held in the Mita Quad, beginning with the first entrance ceremony of the new university system on April 23, 1949. Outdoor ceremonies continued until the old Hiyoshi Commemorative Hall was completed in the fall of 1958. In the photo above, the Student Hall, completed in 1949, can be seen to the left of the First School Building. The Student Hall, which housed a cafeteria and student facilities, was moved to the north side of the campus in 1961.

These two photographs were taken by Professor George S. Bonn (1913¨C2003), a visiting professor from the New York Public Library who was assigned to the Faculty of Letters Department of Library Science (at the time) from the 1954 to 1955 academic years. While the exact dates of when Professor Bonn arrived in and departed from Japan are unknown, these photos were likely taken at the entrance ceremony held on April 11, 1955.

Looking at the photo above, you can see students lined up facing the First School Building and the Ginkgo Tree in the Quad. The white two-story building on the left is the Third Research Building, and the brick Public Hall can be seen behind it. The Public Hall was built in 1915, and unicorn statues were installed on the third-floor balcony during repairs following the Great Kanto Earthquake. It was destroyed by fire in the 1945 air raids and demolished in 1957. In the other photo, the Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall) is slightly visible among the trees behind the Third Research Building. The Third Research Building was designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi and completed in 1952.

There were 2,578 incoming students that year. While the presence of female students can be confirmed in the photos, there is no record of exactly how many there were. However, since records show that 76 of the 1,967 graduates from the previous year were women, the number of incoming female students was likely just under a hundred.

After returning to the United States, Professor Bonn, who took these photos, worked again at the New York Public Library. Later, he also taught at the library schools of the University of Hawaii and the University of Delhi in India, showing his international involvement in library and information science education. He returned to Japan several times thereafter and maintained a high interest in Japanese culture, collecting ukiyo-e prints from the late Edo and Meiji periods. His collection was donated to the ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app Media Center and can be viewed online.

The 2020 entrance ceremony has been postponed due to the impact of the new coronavirus. It is considered difficult to hold the ceremony in its traditional format. These photos of the entrance ceremony in the Mita Quad from an era when resources were likely still scarce after the war strengthen the feeling that we must seek new ways to celebrate the enrollment of our students.

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.