Tohoku University is one of seven former imperial universities (other six
are Hokkaido, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kyushu), and is proudly famous
for being the first Japanese national university to accept female students. This
happened in 1913, exactly 100 years ago, so there have been many events on
campus to celebrate the hundred-year anniversary. It was truly an
unconventional incident at that time. Thereafter, other universities such as
the University of Tokyo started to welcome female students within a few years.
The university accepted three students: Ms. Chika Kuroda, Raku
Makita and Ume Tange, and their distinguished careers flourished later. Ms.
Kuroda became a professor at Ochanomizu University as a physicist. Ms. Tange had
a long career contributing to research on vitamins as a Doctor of Agriculture.
Ms. Makita became a mathematician, and taught at a teacher’s school for women
for a while.
At "book＋cafe BOOOK” on Aobayama Campus, a book
fair, from July 8 to August 9, is taking place to commemorate the anniversary. On
the corner, various books that are recommended by Tohoku University’s female
researchers are displayed. Prof. Mami Tanaka at the School of Engineering chose
comic books such as “Space Brothers (宇宙兄弟 in Japanese),” which was adapted as a film during the
last year.
Eight out of 22 FGL 1st year students are female. Whether
they will stay in Japan or go back to their home country, we look forward to
their future careers.