Human Rights Education Today
October 2011
Banner photo: Leicester, UK [© Justin Jin/Panos Pictures]
Soka University of America's 10th Anniversary
"What our world most requires now is the kind of education that fosters love for humankind, that develops character--that provides an intellectual basis for the realization of peace and empowers learners to contribute to and improve society." --Daisaku Ikeda, founder of SUA
Founders Hall and the new Soka Performing Arts Center
August 2011 marked the 10th anniversary of the first entrance ceremony of Soka University of America (SUA). On that occasion, the university greeted a freshman class of 120 students from 18 countries and 18 US states. There are now around 450 students, about half from the USA; since the university's establishment, students have come from more than 40 other countries including Fiji, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Zambia.
SUA is an independent, nonprofit institution of higher learning. Its first campus in Calabasas, California, was dedicated in February 1987, and the Graduate School opened in 1994, offering a Master of Arts degree in Second and Foreign Language Education. In 1995, Soka University of America acquired a 103-acre site in Aliso Viejo for a four-year liberal arts college. The formal opening was on May 3, 2001. The Graduate School moved to the Aliso Viejo campus in 2007 after the Calabasas campus was sold to become parkland.
The commencement ceremony on May 27, 2011, celebrating the university's 10th anniversary, was held in the new Soka Performing Arts Center--a state of the art, 1,000-seat performing arts center.
A member of the seventh graduating class, speaking on behalf of her peers, summed up her feelings on graduation: "While we can recognize that our paths may be different, our ultimate goal in life is the same: We want to go out there and work for the world. Here, we have learned to treasure friendship, education, effort, struggle and much more. We have learned to stand firm on what we believe. Now, it is our turn to go out and put all of this into practice."
A classroom discussion [© Seikyo Shimbun]
SUA is founded upon principles that are embraced within the Buddhist tradition but that are also universal--peace, human rights and the sanctity of life. The curriculum is nonsectarian, and the school is open to students of all nationalities and beliefs. Educational objectives, rooted in an ethos of "global citizenship" and social contribution, are fostered through a commitment to rigorous academic endeavor, free and open dialogue and an appreciation for human diversity.
Student-centered Education
At the core of SUA's approach to learning is the idea that student-centered education is the best way to promote peace and human rights. Classrooms are centers of dialogue and discussion, and much of the coursework is student-led. Individual students propose research topics which are then pursued in "learning clusters," seminars where students work in small teams with faculty facilitators. The course is designed to help students learn to apply a range of investigative and analytical tools in the discovery and presentation of trends and ideas, including policy recommendations that could enhance the quality of human life.
All undergraduates also study a nonnative language and spend a semester of their junior year in a country where that language is spoken.
The theory of Soka or value-creating education was first elaborated by the Japanese educator and founding president of the Soka Gakkai, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871–1944). He promoted the idea that education exists for the well-being of children, a radical idea in Japanese society of the time, dominated as it was by extreme militaristic nationalism.
SUA students hold a memorial to commemorate the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the USA [© Seikyo Shimbun]
Makiguchi's student-centered educational philosophy called for a transformed role for teachers. "Teachers . . . should not be masters who offer themselves as paragons, but partners in the discovery of new models."
Education, in Makiguchi's understanding, is not a mere injection of knowledge, but a humanistic process that nurtures wisdom and enables the individual's potential to bloom to the fullest. Soka education now forms the basis for an extensive school system in Japan from kindergarten to university level, as well as a thriving distance-learning program, and is also being applied in schools in numerous other countries, including Brazil, India, Malaysia and Korea.
Alumni Reunion
An alumni gathering was held on May 28, as part of the celebrations of the university's 10th anniversary, with over 250 alumni from all over the world returning to their alma mater.
Over 30 percent of SUA's graduates have been accepted to graduate schools at universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, USC, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, Columbia Teachers College, Cornell, Duke, Boston, NYU, Oxford and Cambridge.
Members of the graduating class of 2011 [© Seikyo Shimbun]
Many graduates are pursuing careers in teaching, medicine and law, and others work with a variety of United Nations agencies and NGOs. One student from the second graduating class teaches hip-hop dance to underprivileged youth in Los Angeles; another is in northern India promoting the sharing of agricultural technology. Graduates from the fourth class include the leader for a sustainable development project and a support specialist at an NGO promoting youth mentoring. Other alumni work in business, in the arts, in sport and in humanitarian support for displaced persons in Sudan.
One of the alumni remarked that returning to the campus had filled her with hope and renewed resolve: "I was reminded of the promises I had made and the dreams I had dreamed. . . The words just sent to us by SUA's founder--'Dare to be bold!'--have reminded me of our promise to courageously take on whatever may come our way, in the spirit of being the 'young founders' of the university. It's up to each one of us to spread the culture of care that we've cultivated at SUA. That will become our step toward peace."
