Aichi Gakuin University

The university began[3] as a Soto Zen school in 1876, and retains strong connections to Soto Zen. In 1903 in accordance with revisions to education regulations, it was renamed the Sotozen No. 3 middle school. In 1925 it was renamed the Aichi middle school. In 1948 it was reformed as a high school, and in 1950 it became Aichi Gakuin Junior College. In 1953 it was finally established as Aichi Gakuin University. Over the next two decades it added the Faculty of Law, the School of Dentistry (including Aichi Gakuin Dental Hospital), the Faculty of Commerce, and the Faculty of Letters. In 1974 it opened its Nisshin Campus.

It began offering masters and doctoral courses in 1974 and 1976, initially in religious studies and psychology, expanding to all subjects over the next few years. In the 1980s it created departments of Japanese Culture and International Culture (the latter now the Department of English Language and Cultures). In the 1990s, it oversaw the creation of the graduate School of Business, and graduate studies in Japanese Culture and English Language.

In 2002, the graduate School of Policy open. A satellite campus opened in Sakae in central Nagoya in 2003, with the graduate schools of Commerce and Management and of Law moving there. The School of Pharmacy Science was opened in 2005, with graduate studies beginning six years later. A new Department of Global English was established in 2007.

In 2013, the Faculty of Economics was established, while in 2014, the new Meijo Campus next to Meijo Park in Nagoya was opened, housing the faculties of Business, Commerce, and Economics.

The university currently consists of the following faculties and other divisions:[4]

• Faculty of Letters (文学部)
  • Department of History (歴史学科)
  • Department of English Language and Cultures (英語英米文化学科)
  • Department of Global English (グローバル英語学科)
  • Department of Japanese Culture (日本文化学科)
  • Department of Religious Culture (宗教文化学科)
• Faculty of Psychological and Physical Science (心身科学部)
  • Department of Psychology (心理学科)
  • Department of Health Science (健康科学科)
  • Department of Health and Nutrition (健康栄養学科)
• Faculty of Business and Commerce (商学部)
  • Department of Business and Commerce (商学科)

Aichi Gakuin Kusumoto Main Gate

• Faculty of Management (経営学部)
  • Department of Management (経営学科)
• Faculty of Economics (経済学部)
  • Department of Economics (経済学科)
• Faculty of Law (法学部)
  • Department of Law (法律学科)
  • Department of Law and Contemporary Society (現代社会法学科)
• Faculty of Policy Studies (総合政策学部)
  • Department of Policy Studies (総合政策学科)
• School of Pharmacy (薬学部)
  • Department of Pharmacy (医療薬学科)
• School of Dentistry (歯学部)
  • Department of Dentistry (歯学科)
• Junior College (短期大学部)
  • Department of Dental Hygiene (歯科衛生学科)
• Division of Liberal Arts and Sciences (教養部)

Meijo Park (Meijo Koen) campus

Aichi Gakuin is sister school to two other universities originating in Soto Zen institutions, Komazawa University in Tokyo and Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai. Internationally, it has overseas partners in Edinburgh University in the UK, Bond University in Australia, University of Victoria in Canada, the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and University of Arkansas-Fort Smith in the US, and Hunan Normal University in China. It has academic cooperation agreements with Pierre and Marie Curie University in France, University of the East College of Dentistry in the Philippines, Hanoi Medical University in Vietnam, Dalian University, Changchun University and Ludong University in China, the Health Sciences University of Mongolia, the University of California, San Francisco and Elmira College in the US, the University of Dental Medicine, Yangon in Myanmar, Padjadjaran University in Indonesia, and the National University of Laos.[5]

In 2003 on the 50th anniversary of the university's charter, former US President Bill Clinton was invited to give a lecture and received an honorary doctorate for his dedication to world peace, following which he met the parents of Yoshihiro Hattori, a Japanese high school student whose death in the US ten years previously had prompted worldwide calls for stricter US gun control.[6] In 2015, the Dalai Lama gave a speech and interview with journalist Akira Ikegami.[7]

• Official website