About TUMUGMessage from the Director of TUMUG

Dr. Mami Tanaka

 Associate Executive Vice President for Gender Equality / Professor, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering & Graduate School of Engineering

 

 

Since 1907, the year that Tohoku University was established, we have been  engaging in our primary principles, “Open Door Policy”,  “Research First” and “Research Based on Practical Learning”.  Tohoku University accepted the first female students in 1913, and has been working on diversity since the early days of its history.

In 2001, we established a committee for gender equality promotion, and in the following year we announced the “Tohoku University Proclamation for Gender Equality Promotion”.  In 2013, we celebrated the 100 year’s anniversary of first female students at Tohoku University, and created the action guidelines for gender equality promotion.  It helped to develop more equality, so that the ratio of female PhD students increased to 30.9% in 2021, and in 2022 the ratio of female faculty members increased to 19.9%.  

So far we had been establishing the guidelines, principles and announcements in order to increase the equality promotion, and on April 5, 2022 we announced the “Tohoku University Declaration of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)”.  On this declaration, we committed ourselves to promote awareness, environments and systems based on the DEI, and respect each other’s diversity. 

It has been 115 years since our establishment, and we have our 100 year’s anniversary of first female students.  We have decided to challenge ourselves to add a new social value to our community and  create a better world for the present and future.  We also try to reach out to people on and off campus to succeed in our mission.

April 5, 2022
Tohoku University Associate Executive Vice President for Gender Equality
Director of Center for Gender Equality Promotion (TUMUG)
Mami Tanaka

Committee Chair on Gender Equality Promotion

Dr. Noriko Osumi

Vice President for Diversity Promotion/ A faculty member of Medical Research

 

 

 

The Center for Gender Equality Promotion (aka. TUMUG) was established in 2014, and I took over the Director’s position from President Toshiya Ueki in 2018, and this year 2022, I have handed it over to Vice President Mami Tanaka (Gender Equality Promotion, a faculty member of Medical Engineering). I will continue to serve as Chair of the Gender Equality Committee, and together with the Gender Center, I will work as two wheels of the cart to promote diversity and co-participation in the University.

Tohoku University was established as the third national university in 1907, and accepted the first female students in 1913.  However, since the university had mainly focused on the natural sciences, the number of female students had not distinctively increased. 

Then, we established a committee for gender equality promotion in 2001, and announced  the declaration for gender equality promotion for supporting female researchers and developing the awareness of gender equality.  For example, we had the Tohoku Women’s Hurdling Project for three years (from 2006), and the Tohoku Leading Women’s Jump Up Project 2013 for 5 years (from 2009) that were supported by the MEXT(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology).  Moreover, we had self-supported projects to promote/support female researchers such as the Science Ambassador Project (used to be called  “Science Angels”) starting from 2006.  

In 2013, we distributed the action guidelines for gender equality promotion as the 100 year’s anniversary of the first female students, which are based on seven principles;

1.) providing work-life balance support & improving conditions  2.)   nurturing female leaders 3.) nurturing the next generation 4.) honoring achievements  5.) facilitating local collaboration 6.) promotion internationalization 7.) creating a support organization.  Since then, our center run by the gender equality promotion committee has become a core of gender equality promotion at the university.

In 2016, we promoted “ Tohoku Women’s Empowerment Project” as a the MEXT Science Technology Diverse  Project, and opened “Aobayama Midori Daycare” as our third day care center, expanded “Hoshinoko Daycare” in Seiryou-ku, and added “Kawauchi Keyaki Daycare”.  We now can accommodate 258 children on campus, which is the largest facility in universities in Japan.  These facilities are available for both faculty/staff and students.

Our activities were mainly targeted on women as a minority group; however, our original “Open Door Policy” is not only for women.  Our goal is to open a door for many kinds of people besides high school graduates who wish to study at higher education.  In 2017, Tohoku University was chosen to be one of the national university corporations in order to promote globalization and achieve the international standard.  As well, we understand that we still have issues with how to include the  international faculty/staff, students, and those who have disabilities.  

On April 5, 2022, we announced ”the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Promotion Declaration”.  Within international academia, Tohoku University will work on creating a truly inclusive campus in consideration of diversity and equity.

In order to enforce the promotion, the committee and the center have started working as one entity this year.  TUMUG will move forward with Director Tanaka’s leadership, promoting the supporting programs including the SA program, and at the same time, the committee will collect all the voices from each department and discuss how to make the DEI principles apply to the university, aiming the 3 % increase of the female researchers that was an objective for the 4th period midterm plan.

We will continue working on the DEI in the university.

We appreciate your continuous support  and your generous donation toward Tohoku University Gender Equality Promotion Fund.

May 1, 2023
Vice President for DEI Division
Chair of Gender Equality Promotion Committee
Noriko Osumi