[Feature: The COVID-19 Crisis and the University] Roundtable 1: What the COVID-19 Crisis is Bringing to Education, Research, and International Exchange

Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules. The theme of today's roundtable is "What the COVID-19 Crisis is Bringing to Education, Research, and International Exchange," and I would like to discuss the impact it is having primarily on the aspects of education, research, and international exchange.

First, regarding education. The new coronavirus infection originated in Wuhan, and the impact began to be felt in Japan from February. The first impact on academic affairs was the cancellation of the graduation ceremony and the graduate school commencement. Subsequently, the entrance ceremony was postponed, and it became impossible to hold classes for the new semester on the regular schedule.

As a result, the start of classes was delayed until April 30, beginning the Spring Semester late. During the Spring Semester, the principle was that Keio students would not come to campus; facilities were closed (April 7), and classes were moved almost entirely online.

This was a first-time experience for most faculty and staff. Initially, there were debates and some confusion regarding how to proceed with online classes. However, since then, from my perspective, everyone has worked very hard to implement online classes, and perhaps because they are young, the Keio students have also responded flexibly.

Thanks to this, I believe no major troubles have occurred so far. While there may be minor issues, I feel things are proceeding relatively smoothly.

Since face-to-face classes cannot be held in classrooms, we naturally had to prepare the environment for online classes. Regarding the communication environment, Vice-President Kokuryo, who is in charge of IT, has been working hard on this. Could you tell us how the environment has been developed?

It was around the beginning of February when I started to become aware that a campus closure might be a possibility, while watching the lockdown in Wuhan and the situation in South Korea. I realized we might have to envision a situation where not just classes, but workplaces would have to close, and the staff who support them would be unable to come to campus.

Initially, I was just thinking about it myself, but it was February 14 when I told the staff at the ITC (Information Technology Center), the university-wide system department, that they "should start preparing." At that point, the total closure of the campus didn't feel real, but IT environment preparation isn't something that can be done instantly the day after you're told to "do it." You have to look ahead and consider the worst-case scenario.

Since a university is a place where an unspecified large number of people come and go, we considered various things on the assumption that classes might become completely impossible, and I felt that the necessary components were there. A web conferencing system already existed, and accounts had been distributed to all students. Also, the Education Support System and class support systems were functioning to some extent.

The important thing is that the IT group should not be too overbearing. In other words, what kind of education one wants to provide belongs preeminently to each faculty. This time, under the leadership of the Vice-President in charge of education, we have moved forward with a unified policy of conducting online classes centered on on-demand types. However, regarding whether they wanted to do it on-demand or in real-time, the IT department worked while thinking that we had to respond to various needs on the ground. It's problematic if there are too many combinations, though.

Also, since there were many faculty members using the class support system for the first time, how to raise literacy was also important.

However, on that point, I really think Keio University is an amazing place. When the corporation prepares the environment to some extent, provides basic manuals, and conveys that information to key individuals, independent study groups start popping up all over the place in no time. The students also create an environment where they help each other while participating proactively through Keio Gijuku Shachu cooperation. The capacity for self-help and mutual assistance is incredibly high.

In that sense, delaying the start of classes by exactly one month was, I think, good timing. Thanks to those who considered the academic calendar, including Aoyama-san, we were given time to improve our skills.

Of course, there were inadequacies on the system side, and for example, we received a lot of pressure saying that one thing was hard to use and another would be better. There were budget issues as well, but we hurried to obtain accounts for the requested systems and responded while reinforcing them in a great rush.

There were parts where it felt like walking on thin ice, and that's still the case. Actually, not just for classes, but for course registration, it is very important for faculty to be able to confirm who the registered students are, and to be able to communicate necessary information to students when classes are not in session. Looking at examples of system troubles at other universities, failures in the class support system were a major risk factor.

Two of my students ended up being unable to come to Japan and have been taking classes in South Korea the whole time. The class support system is essential to continue delivering educational content while communicating necessary matters to students who have scattered to regional areas or overseas.

However, while almost everything else had backups, the class support system for communicating with students was the only one with a single line, and I was nervous that it might go down. We will introduce a backup system for class support starting in the fall.

I see. I shouldn't say "considering it's the first experience," but Keio's online education started without any major trouble.

One point, as Kokuryo-san mentioned, is that we recommended online education centered on on-demand content. Naturally, real-time classes are also being held in some areas, but I think the fact that the base is on-demand is one reason the system has continued to operate without crashing.

Certainly, Keio students seem relatively adapted to online classes using IT technology. Conversely, it seems there are many faculty members who are not used to using it and have been taught by the Keio students.

I suppose that is also "learning while teaching, teaching while learning." I have also received opinions from science faculty members at Hiyoshi that trying out experimental lectures online was actually quite good. Various experiences are being accumulated, and I believe we can make use of them in the future.

On the other hand, there were concerns regarding the communication environment of Keio students for online classes. What kind of support can be provided to Keio students who cannot set up a communication environment? Some people buy or rent equipment themselves, and others increase their packet communication contracts. Therefore, we took quick action to provide support in the form of subsidies.

Following support for the communication environment is economic support. For Keio students in financial difficulty, we have invited applications for the Keio University funds and a specially established support fund for COVID-19 measures (Keio University Degree Completion Scholarship), and after selection, we have prepared economic support for students of up to 400,000 yen.

Also, the campus remains almost closed even now (as of June 25). Keio students cannot enter freely unless they have a special reason, such as wanting to get a certificate from the Office of Student Services, wanting to go to the career services room, or wanting to borrow a book from the library.

In such a situation, how to handle the activities of the Athletic Association and officially recognized clubs and circles becomes an issue. Regarding this, the plan is to allow the use of on-campus facilities under certain guidelines by submitting notifications in stages, provided that thorough preventive measures against virus infection are taken.

In this way, the face-to-face classes we've had until now suddenly switched almost entirely to online. While there are cases where online was good, I think there are also things that must be face-to-face. Now that nearly two months have passed, Suzuki-san, what is your impression?

I give lectures to about 120 students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and initially, I had a lot of resistance to online classes. As you mentioned, first of all, I didn't know how to do it, and I was overwhelmed just getting through the process. Recording audio over PowerPoint, giving report assignments to students, and interacting with them—I've finally gotten used to these, but it still feels much more natural to have the students in front of me and teach them various things.

When I prepare for classes in advance for online delivery, things get quite organized in my own head, but I find myself wondering, "Will the students really watch this?" There is a download rate on "keio.jp," which is the Keio University portal site, so I can see how much the students have watched. When I ask the students in my lab, they say that even if they watch properly at first, they tend to let them pile up gradually, and sometimes they don't watch the final parts, which makes me a bit anxious. Also, since we can't do tests, it inevitably becomes about submitting assignments.

However, online has its own merits, so even when the time comes that is called "post-COVID," I don't think we will stop doing everything face-to-face as we did before. I'm conducting my classes while thinking that we will probably keep the good parts and supplement the parts we can't do with the power of IT.

I think it's exactly as Suzuki-san said. Online classes are not perfect, but the level of proficiency is increasing considerably. Various tools released by vendors in the world have also evolved tremendously in these three months. That's because there is demand, after all.

On the other hand, for work like making things while gathered around an object, I think the honest feeling is that people want to do that together in person. This time, thanks to the consideration for the load on the IT environment, we focused on the on-demand type, but with real-time online education, it's possible to have quite dense two-way communication. Devising and providing the optimal environment depending on the educational content, and how to combine them to produce the best results—isn't this what we should be thinking about from now on?

I am optimistic about this new environment. I feel the reason for that boils down to the high level of both Keio University faculty and Keio students. Saved by that high level, they will use their ingenuity, and I believe a good teaching environment will emerge. Of course, in fields like engineering, I think there are things that cannot be done without experimental equipment.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that the activities of the Athletic Association, Mita-kai, and circles are being seriously affected. Regarding those parts as well, I want to pick up as much as possible of what can be done with IT.

Does Sumida-san have anything from the perspective of the Global Engagement Office?

I am involved in student exchange, and the real thrill of student exchange is not just the classes you take at the host institution, but the opportunity and experience of traveling to and living in a foreign country. The timing for going on an exchange during the four years of undergraduate study is very limited, and students prepare carefully years in advance, thinking, "I'll go in this year."

Since this Spring Semester, plans for study abroad have been up in the air, and the future outlook for the Fall Semester is also difficult to see. Seeing how the study abroad plans students had envisioned are not proceeding as they wished, as a staff member supporting them, I feel very sorry.

Recently, even regarding student exchange, a movement is gradually emerging, mainly overseas, to do it online even if one cannot go physically. I would like to talk about this later.

Regarding studying abroad at overseas universities, the impact is becoming quite significant.

On the other hand, education in science faculties includes experiments and practical courses. For example, in the Faculty of Pharmacy, it is necessary to take lectures for experiments and practical courses to obtain pharmacist certification. Since various certification systems do not accommodate the COVID-19 crisis, education must be provided as before. Although it has been very limited since June, the Faculty of Pharmacy has been conducting experiments and practical courses on-campus after taking sufficient preventive measures against the new coronavirus.

In particular, for a comprehensive university like Keio University that has three medical-related faculties, it is difficult to set a single policy across the board. We are in a situation where we proceed with a certain degree of flexibility depending on the campus and faculty, while also taking preventive measures against the new coronavirus.

Next, I would like to ask about research. Education and research can be said to be the two wheels of a car for human resource development, but for research as well, campuses were closed and research activities almost stopped. Recently, campuses have been opening in stages, and research activities are gradually returning to normal, but I think the situation varies depending on the campus. I would like Suzuki-san, the head of the Office for Research Coordination and Administration, to explain the situation so far and the current response status.

The campuses were closed on April 7. A while after that, Vice-President Aoyama asked me to consider the possibility of restarting research. We have been working in a trial-and-error state regarding how the Office for Research Coordination and Administration should respond. Seven of us, including myself, the two deputy heads—Toru Takebayashi from the School of Medicine and Junichi Yamamoto from the Faculty of Letters—and Director Tomoyuki Fushimi of the Office of Research Development and Sponsored Projects, continued to hold web meetings.

Since Deputy Head Takebayashi is a specialist in public health, he explained to everyone his knowledge of COVID-19 itself and predictions for the future situation. What left the strongest impression was when Takebayashi-san said, "We might have to be prepared for the possibility that no research can be done at all for the next year." Also, we received a lot of advice from Kaori Tonaka, a staff member at the Health Center and a specialist in infectious diseases, who said, "If we do it this way, we might be able to enter the campus little by little."

Since there were no people on campus during the closure, we started from the idea that it would be safe for 10 or 20 people to enter, and we talked thoroughly about things like letting people in stages and what kind of safety measures were necessary.

We also shared information with the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Tech, Waseda, and others, and of course, we frequently contacted Fujisawa, Shinanomachi, and other campuses to grasp the situation. In the School of Medicine, conversely, there were faculty members who felt they had to do research precisely because of COVID-19. I heard that even during the period when the infection risk was highest, about 20% of the School of Medicine was operational.

However, the operation at Yagami Campus was zero. Both Aoyama-san and I are in experimental fields, and about half the people at Yagami are the type who can't do anything without a lump of iron. The first thing our group did was to find out who was in trouble across the whole Juku. Faculty members are one thing, but students in Doctoral Programs are particularly in trouble. Even though they were third-year students, they were told "don't come," and I received emails saying, "I absolutely need to be let in."

In June, things started to settle down a bit, so we began letting people onto the campus in stages. Since Yagami has only one entrance, I thought management would be easy. We manage entry and exit with ID cards and measure body temperatures. Thanks to Dean Hidefumi Okada of the Faculty of Science and Technology, who went to great trouble to create detailed regulations such as how many people are allowed per room, we have effectively lifted the closure since June 1.

I hear that Mita is still coordinating various things because it has many faculties. Town campuses such as Shin-Kawasaki, Tonomachi, and Tsuruoka also have equipment and facilities, so research cannot be done unless you are on-site. So, under Aoyama-san, who is the person in charge, I am currently working on the ground to create various rules.

I think the situation is different depending on the campus. When restarting research activities at each campus, how should we manage it, and what kind of guidelines are necessary? Those points were hammered out by the Office for Research Coordination and Administration through many web meetings.

This also relates to education, but for Master's and Doctoral Programs, research for obtaining a degree stops. Also, for example, international conferences are cancelled. For journals, I think things are moving because you just have to submit, but academic society activities both in Japan and abroad have stopped. In such a situation, students in Master's or Doctoral Programs who are required to publish a certain amount of research results must be having a hard time. Yagami has many Master's students, after all.

Currently, at Yagami, we are limiting the number of people considerably and allowing not only Master's students but also fourth-year undergraduate students onto the campus, but I feel they were quite frustrated around April and May.

I also served as a secondary examiner, and doctoral examinations surprisingly went well over the web, with not many complaints. Of course, we can't go to international conferences, but for original papers and such, we originally interact with journals via email, so I think it has ended with only light damage, just having lost two full months.

What is the situation regarding research activities at SFC?

Since SFC has many different types of laboratories, I think a characteristic is that the way they are affected differs greatly by type. Similar to what was just discussed, there are students of the type who can't do anything because the equipment is only on campus. Also, in the last few years, there have been more people who want to do "monozukuri" (making things) in the design field, and those people have the worry that they want to do it but it's not going well.

On the other hand, since SFC has a lot of research related to software, many people can do quite a bit at home if they can secure access to the system.

In the humanities and social sciences, the story is different again. In my field, most data exists online. However, what we cannot do is field research. So, rather than the campus, the big worry is that we cannot go out of the campus to conduct interviews or collect data.

In this way, I think SFC was quite divided between laboratories that had "no problem at all" and those for which it was a "huge problem."

On the other hand, there is the problem of being unable to process research contracts.

That's exactly right.

Since we hire young people as Project Assistant Professors, it directly affects their livelihoods, and it is a major problem if contracts cannot be made or if the settlement of payments is delayed. I myself interacted with a company in Hong Kong in April that said, "We can't proceed any further unless more money is deposited." Since the university's accounting wasn't moving, when I went to the bank personally to try to make an advance payment, they suspected I was trying to do a drug deal or something (laughs). I ended up wandering around the bank for about three hours.

At that time, as the person in charge of IT, I realized that we absolutely had to work on eliminating seals and moving forward with electronic contracts. Aoyama-san probably feels this, but the electronization of the approval system went live in April and was in time. The time from drafting to final approval, which used to take an average of 17.2 days, has decreased to 5.9 days since electronization.

This was something of a blessing in disguise; whereas normally we would have taken about three months for people to get used to it, because working from home was forced, we suddenly told the President and all Vice-Presidents, "Take this iPad home and give approvals at home."

Until now, things drafted at Yagami were sent to Mita via internal mail, and secretaries would be wandering around saying, "Aoyama-san is on a business trip, so it's no good today," but now the system chases you to your home and prompts you, "The approval isn't done yet." Creating this situation has increased speed.

However, we weren't in time for research-related contracts and settlements. Therefore, we are preparing and want to move to make the entire expense settlement system online within this fiscal year.

Since contracts were delayed until June, there must be a considerable number of assistant professors who couldn't be hired at Yagami alone. I think this is a regrettable thing. How to bring Keio University into the 21st century in these areas is a very big point, I think.

So the COVID-19 crisis became a major catalyst for accelerating administrative systems. The approval system is indeed amazing; it chases you constantly. If you leave it alone, your email inbox fills up with approval request emails, so there's a sense of being threatened (laughs).

You mentioned assistant professors just now; there are many people who are fixed-term assistant professors, basically for three years, and who are supposed to produce research results during that time. If there are people who become unable to do research due to the COVID-19 crisis, it is a very painful situation. If this drags on, I think we may have to consider this issue as well.

Next, I would like to look at international exchange and international cooperation. In both education and research, not only domestic but also overseas universities are similarly affected by the coronavirus. I would like Sumida-san to talk about the situation in those areas and how Keio is currently thinking.

In addition to university-wide student exchange, in recent years, under the policy of accepting not only international students seeking degrees or exchange students but also more diverse international students, the International Center has been accepting international students for several weeks in short-term programs during the period from late January to February when regular classes end. On the other hand, during spring and summer breaks, we also conduct short-term dispatch programs where Keio students are sent for several weeks to overseas universities in Europe, the US, and recently Singapore. The students participating in those programs during the spring break were hit directly by the period of the global pandemic, and it was quite a struggle.

What I worried about most was the program at Sciences Po in Paris, France, which is a Grande École. For the students participating in that, everything stopped from that day because French President Macron suddenly declared a lockdown at the national level. The person in charge at Sciences Po emailed us saying, "France is in lockdown by order of the President. Everyone, please go home. We, the university faculty and staff, cannot go to the campus from now on. This program ends today," and at that time, I was really nervous.

When I contacted the students, at first they said, "I've only taken classes in the program and haven't been able to sightsee in Paris yet, so I want to stay," but seeing that no one was out in the streets of Paris over the weekend, the Keio students quickly understood it was an emergency and realized they had to return home. So, we had a travel agency coordinate and had everyone return on the earliest possible flight. At that time, I truly felt that the world was in a terrible state.

Also, although Keio didn't have anyone in Wuhan, we send exchange students year-round to famous universities in China. As the infection spread and safe study on-site could no longer be guaranteed, they were told to "return home immediately," and there were exchanges like "I've finally settled into the local university and don't want to go back yet." As the situation worsened day by day, some students returned home with heavy hearts.

Furthermore, since the school year starts in March in South Korea, the students who went to South Korea at that time ran right into the period of infection spread. Australia and New Zealand closed their countries early on, and in February and March, the administrative staff at the International Center were in a total frenzy.

Overseas, campuses were completely locked down by strict laws, and universities were quick to declare, "We will move to online classes." However, Japan has its unique academic calendar, and the decision for online classes at Keio was quite late, so we received daily emails from overseas universities asking, "Is Keio not going to do online?" and felt a lot of pressure.

You've told us about the vivid situation when the infection began to spread explosively. Looking ahead to the Fall Semester, how do you expect things to go?

Because the number of infected people increased tremendously in the US, most of the universities in North America that Keio deals with have decided not to send or receive students until the Fall Semester.

On the other hand, economic activities have partially resumed recently, and a situation has emerged where Europe is preparing to accept tourists and such. Consequently, some European universities have begun to state that they will implement student exchange by conducting classes from the fall in a hybrid format—that is, some things online and some classes face-to-face with a small number of people.

Current students, especially undergraduates, are digital natives, so surprisingly, there are people who can accept "study abroad online." In our generation, we feel that studying abroad presupposes going overseas, but some students think very pragmatically that if they can take classes from top-tier overseas universities online in Japan, "that's also an option."

Students who want to come to Japan from overseas are also getting into a mode of "online can't be helped." The term for study abroad only through online, "virtual exchange," has become a word that frequently comes up among international exchange coordinators.

I see. The hybrid that Sumida-san mentioned is a hybrid of online and on-campus, right? When conducting classes that way, do international students still go to the local site when there are on-campus classes?

That part is not yet clearly visible, but some universities are offering flexibility by using both well, having students take online classes in their home country until they can go to the local site, and saying, "Please come when you are able to come" to the host university's campus.

So that means preparing one class both online and on-site.

Or, it seems they are adjusting the curriculum on a large scale, such as grouping some sets of classes to be online only and others to be face-to-face only.

In the case of Europe, they have positioned international exchange as one of the important and valuable activities of a university until now, so I think there is a very strong awareness that they must not stop here.

I understand. Kokuryo-san, do you have any comments on this matter?

As the person in charge of IT, I felt that we need to think carefully about what preparations are necessary. As Mr. Aoyama is aware, "hybrid" is actually more difficult than "online only."

There are several classrooms at SFC, and also at Mita, that allow for actual in-person classes to be held while simultaneously broadcasting them in real-time, or archiving them for on-demand viewing later. However, the investment required for classrooms that enable that pattern is quite substantial.

Archiving classroom lessons for on-demand use has already been made into credit-bearing courses at SFC. This requires a fair amount of manpower to figure out how to record the audio clearly, even more so than the video. Whether we can use the method Mr. Sumida mentioned—separating the schedules for online and on-demand—will depend largely on whether the university faculty can handle such a complex situation.

As the IT lead, there are various combinations, but I want to be able to catch whatever ball is thrown my way. However, depending on the choice, the hurdles can be high—meaning some things will cost a lot of money.

As a practical matter, I think it is safe to say that it will be impossible to hold large-scale lecture-style classes in classrooms this fall. What we can consider is using a 500-person classroom to hold a class for about 200 people in person, while archiving it for international students and others, so that students who cannot come can participate later. For now, that is how I see things.

Once Mr. Aoyama makes up his mind and says, "This is how we'll do it," I will work hard during the summer vacation to prepare for it.

Mr. Kokuryo always says things like that (laughs), meaning that money is important.

Whether it's international exchange or domestic universities, it may become necessary to adopt a hybrid format. If we say, "Hybrid is impossible," there is a risk that others will say, "Then we cannot collaborate with Keio University." To promote globalization as the way a university should be in the post-COVID era, we must organize our online and hybrid education, research collaboration, and finances.

The ITC alone cannot decide what kind of equipment to deploy in classrooms. The involvement of the Office of Student Services is very important. Collaboration will be necessary there.

Yes. While classrooms and equipment may be a matter for later, I suppose if we are to build new classrooms at the university from now on, we will need studio-like classrooms suitable for online and hybrid formats.

We are now past the midpoint of the spring semester and heading into summer vacation. I believe it is the same for other universities, but the discussion has turned to what to do about education in the fall semester, and we are currently in the consideration stage. Given the current social situation, it is unlikely that everything will return to the way it was on-campus starting from the fall semester. On the other hand, remaining completely closed is also quite problematic, so the question is what we should do as a university.

If that is the case, I think we will move toward a hybrid format in various senses. Regardless of the ratio of online to on-campus, I believe these educational methods will continue to evolve. Right now, it's like we've been in a traffic accident and are taking emergency measures, but instead, how we advance hybrid education and research—including the globalization of the university—will be a major key for the future.

However, as Mr. Kokuryo said, hybrid is difficult. How to invest funds and human resources to advance hybrid education and research is a major challenge. I would like to hear your opinions from your respective positions on how Keio University should respond to university education or research in the future.

What I do is the most "down-to-earth" kind of research—the old-fashioned style where various collaborators, such as people from companies, come from afar and everyone gathers around experimental equipment with the students. Afterward, we might go for a drink. I am currently thinking about how to make that hybrid.

Web conferencing has become so smooth. If we can use that at the experimental site—for example, by having a student wear a camera on their head to film the entire experimental apparatus while working—then a corporate researcher in a regional area watching could give real-time instructions like, "No, that's wrong. Don't drill a hole there. Raise the temperature a bit more there." I think such realistic experiments are possible.

If we can do that, I believe people struggling with experimental systems could achieve a certain level of results without having to travel back and forth. It is still inconvenient now, but if we can create a system that makes you feel like you are experimenting together even if you aren't there, I think we can overcome the second and third waves when they come.

I am hoping to develop such a "real industry-academia collaboration experimental site system" within the next two or three months.

When considering that Keio University is a university that nurtures future young people who will be active internationally, I think there were many negative aspects to having no choice but to conduct classes online in this situation. On the other hand, looking at the way staff work, in an online environment, each individual has an account and must speak up and express their opinions responsibly. The same applies to classes; the way work and meetings are conducted online has become a global standard.

It is very different from the Japanese way of working where everyone is present at a meeting where it's unclear who is sitting where, and only a few people speak. Therefore, trying various things online is very meaningful for students in terms of conducting things according to global standards.

For the past two years or so, SFC has been performing 3D measurements of the campus, and students have used that to build a virtual campus app. To be more specific, since it is easy to fly drones at SFC, we took a vast amount of campus shape data in 3D using drones. It's an app that allows students who can no longer go to the campus to take a walk through it. By pouring the 3D data taken at SFC into a cloud service called "cluster," the campus can be reproduced.

Your alter ego in the virtual world, called an avatar, can move left or right in a space that mimics reality. When the avatar enters a classroom and takes a seat, you can listen to that lecture. And by giving the avatar an identity, you can make it so the same face is always visible.

SFC has a problem with buses that tend to get crowded, and during the spring semester, it became truly impossible to go there at all. However, I believe that unless we share the same thing somewhere—whether it's time or physical space—we cannot share the context between human beings. If we can share time, I think it is important to also share that space on a virtual campus like this.

These kinds of tools are developing tremendously right now. Even if you cannot go to the classroom yourself, you can have this avatar go to the classroom from overseas and give you the exact same feeling as if you were sitting there. This is becoming possible without spending that much cost. So, let's believe in technology.

That is wonderful. It's as if the student went to the campus themselves, and the avatar enters the classroom and the class begins. If you meet a friend, can you have a conversation there?

Yes, you can. Currently, it can only be done via chat, but it is not impossible to link it with an online meeting system to have a conversation while looking at each other's faces.

It would be great if, with real haptics, you could feel the sensation of shaking hands.

That would be good too. Haptics is exactly what we want to do.

I think this could be very useful for international exchange as well. International exchange is a very expensive part of various university activities. That is because people have to travel back and forth overseas.

At American state universities and the like, not all students are wealthy, so for students participating in international programs, even if there are scholarships, students from wealthy families end up being favored. This kind of shift toward a stratified society has become a problem.

By using things like this virtual campus to enable international exchange without people moving, I think there is a possibility that the path to international exchange will open up for students who could not participate until now.

It's about time to wrap up. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become the case that going to the office is not the only way to work, and going to the university is not the only way to study. I believe these social norms will increasingly take root. Whether it's globalization or education within Japan, these patterns of behavior will become established. Therefore, not just for universities, but for companies and organizations as well, those that fall behind this social trend will see a very different future ahead.

Therefore, Keio University must also use the experience during the pandemic as a catalyst to consider new developments in education and research by balancing online and on-campus presence. I believe we are standing at a very important crossroads. Finally, could you give a brief word about facing such a society?

In terms of research, until now it was normal to do things face-to-face, such as going to international conferences, doing international joint research, or traveling to present in front of others and then coming back. However, we have found that we can actually do quite a lot even with online web conferences.

As a result, we stop using domestic travel expenses, and it becomes possible to conduct the "down-to-earth" joint research I mentioned earlier remotely. This is also true for education. I think the winner will be the one who creates such a format. Even if it's not 100%, if we are 80% or 90% satisfied, that's fine. I think thinking about various things on this occasion is very good for research as well.

That's exactly right. As the form of the university truly changes from now on, rather than simply responding to a difficult situation, by utilizing this, there is a possibility that students from all over the world could virtually become Keio students.

The fact that Keio University was rapidly becoming a university for the Tokyo metropolitan area even within Japan was a major problem, but this also presents a chance to break through that. Sharing physical space and time is very important, so we need to find ways for people to come to campus in shifts, but for the most part, I think we can meet various needs by working creatively online.

Also, I think what Mr. Sumida said earlier is very important. Universities around the world are becoming entities that widen the gap between rich and poor, and that is becoming a major problem. Japanese universities are still better off, but it has become a world where it is natural for it to cost 20 to 30 million yen by the time you graduate, and therefore criticism of universities for widening the gap between rich and poor has become very loud. I believe it is possible to resolve this while using technology.

If I say this too lightly, it might come back to haunt me, but I think it is necessary to transform the business model while gauging the speed. Universities around the world have already realized this and I think they will move rapidly in that direction. From my observation, it is the universities with resources that have moved in that direction first and are now starting to run at full speed.

Rather, I think there is a situation where universities without resources are trying their best to return to the original model. I strongly feel that Keio wants to be among the group that takes the lead and goes ahead.

I completely agree. The Global Engagement Office often hears from presidents and vice-presidents of various universities around the world. Top-class universities are running ahead in both research and education, saying that because of this opportunity, let's connect and do good research, let's do good education, let's do it together. If Keio cannot get on board with that, we will face a slow decline.

On the other hand, staff have also been working completely from home for the past two months. What I find a little scary is that everyone has become accustomed to working online. Recently, I've been going to the office about four times a week, but it has become a world where everyone is silent and conversations are conducted via chat functions on their computers.

If students are in a situation where they are taking classes at home while looking only at computer screens all the time, the way they communicate will change, and I am a little concerned that they will no longer be able to have human-like relationships. Until now, character was formed at the university through people meeting in various places like club activities and exchange programs, and I am worried that this is becoming impossible.

That's true. Hearing Mr. Sumida's talk just now, it seems that online alone is not enough, and on-campus alone is not enough either. The point is how to practice what Yukichi Fukuzawa calls "jinkan kosai (society)" in the post-COVID era of Keio University.

I want faculty, staff, Keio students, and Keio University alumni to not forget their respective experiences and to use them to move forward as a university that firmly advances Keio University's education, research, and jinkan kosai (society). I believe this is very important for the sustainable development of Keio University.

Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules today.