This year’s joint symposium for the six Programs for Leading Graduate Schools (Leading Program) at Nagoya University was held on 23^rd November 2016 at the Higashiyama Campus. This was the third joint symposium to be organized by the six Leading Programs. The symposium was attended by 67 participants including graduate students, faculty and staff of Nagoya University, and invited guests.

The theme for the symposium was “The Future of Graduate School Education in Nagoya University”. Participating students discussed about their experiences and lessons learned from the Leading Program with a view to offering concrete suggestions on how the Leading Program could be integrated into the education curriculum of the Graduate School.

The symposium started with two keynote speeches. The first speech on “Gender Equal Society” was given by Ms. Haniwa Natori, Former Director of the Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office and currently the President of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs of Japan (BPW Japan). The second keynote speech on “The Impact of the Self-Driving Car” was given by Dr. Kazuya Takeda, a Professor in the Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University, and also the Coordinator, Real-World Data Circulation Leaders Program.

The keynote speeches were followed by four student Group Discussion Sessions on 1) Curriculum Development for Transdisciplinary Studies, 2) Experiential Opportunities, 3) Employment, and 4) Financing. The results of the Group Discussion Sessions were reported in a final plenary Presentation Session. The symposium ended with a reception in which students interacted with guests, faculty and staff. In comparison with the past symposia, students reported that in this year’s symposia they mostly enjoyed the Group Discussion Sessions which were not included in previous symposia. We hope to provide more opportunities for students to interact with each other across disciplines and fields of specialization.

Please see this link for some photos of the symposium.