r/japan • u/Ohisama001 • 7d ago
University of Tokyo selects 1st female president
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/education/university-of-tokyo-selects-1st-female-president13
u/brevity142 6d ago
Article should show more qualities justifying why she was one of the number one choices. Primitive news like this makes it look like they are just trying to fill in checkboxes.
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u/brevity142 2d ago
In the first round of the "Vote of Intent" on September 28, Someya received 818 votes, and Fujigaki received 400 votes. In the second round of voting, Someya received 1,107 votes, and Fujigaki received 553 votes.
This voting has caused a stir in public. On the 29th, Ochiai, who also serves as an associate professor in the Department of Creative Science in New Fields at the Graduate School of Science, posted on X, "I thought that the results would be announced immediately after voting "I see, that's a large majority", but then the second-place candidate was selected and overturned the votes."
On the 28th, Professor Keitaro Yamauchi of the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences also quoted and reposted Tokyo University's X post reporting that Fujigaki had been elected as the next president, saying, "So, what was it that caused you to stop work today and vote twice this morning?" Does Someya's majority vote mean nothing? I don't understand it at all. Voting for what?"
In addition, on the 29th, Shiori Yamao, a graduate of the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo and a former member of the House of Representatives, wrote on X, "The vague explanation that this is a 『general opinion』 only seems to favor women, and this will make the first female president of the University of Tokyo 『female leader』." "If gender is not the reason, perhaps the University of Tokyo should be more specific about the reasons for selection," he asked for an explanation.
Moreover, Fujigaki's research profile and reputation are far inferior to those of Takao Someya, who was the first-place candidate by popularity. Someya has a proven track record as an engineering researcher, served as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, and has been involved in university administration. He remained a finalist in the 2020 presidential election and once again came out on top in the vote of intent.
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u/Elsiselain 7d ago
This one was the most rigged election of all time
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u/yacaiste 7d ago
Why would you need to rig that. Aren’t university presidents selected by a board of like seven people or something?
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u/Elsiselain 7d ago
Idk what’s it called in English but there was an 意向投票 and other candidate got twice as much votes as her
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u/iku_iku_iku_iku [神奈川県] 7d ago
Yeah not sure what folks are on about, there maybe some polling within the university community and faculty body about leadership preferences or what not, but typically universities have a search committee and narrow down potential candidates that are then presented to a board of trustees. Or some variation of that kind of job search process. Folks in this thread spouting corrupt elections nonsense lol
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u/International_Cat519 6d ago
Until 2000, the president was elected by faculty members through an internal election, but following the establishment of national university corporations in 2004, the president has been selected by the Presidential Selection Committee regardless of the election results.
That said, at the University of Tokyo, the election results and the actual decision of the Presidential Selection Committee had always aligned until now; this time, however, a candidate who lost by a margin of two to one was selected as president.
Kyoto University saw a similar outcome in its president election this year. This is a regrettable development that seems to symbolize the further erosion of university autonomy.
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u/princethrowaway2121h 7d ago
Aren’t all uni president elections rigged?
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u/Orchid-Analyst-550 6d ago
What universities actually run elections for President though? This is the first time I've heard of another (historical) mechanism besides selection by committee.
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u/TheRealBejeezus 6d ago
Controversial selection mechanism, I see.
Also, hair straight from Fallout 3 character generator.
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u/FizzyCoffee 22h ago
This looks bad because the other dude wasn’t chosen is because he’s a highly suspicious accomplice in a recent embezzlement scandal
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u/Organic_Friend_4805 4d ago
She has been elected not because she stood out but just because she was a woman. Period.
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u/Genmaka2938 6d ago
This whole thing is blowing up because an external selection committee picked her in a pretty opaque way, and people on X plus a bunch of academics are calling it out.
In the faculty runoff at the University of Tokyo, she only got 553 votes (25.5%), putting her in second place. The top candidate, a male professor, got 1,107 votes (51%), so she wasn’t even close, not even half. And then the committee just ignored that and picked her anyway, saying they made a “comprehensive judgment” with zero real explanation. What makes it worse is that her citation count is less than 1/70 of the top candidate, who actually has a strong academic track record. She doesn’t really have any standout achievements either.
So yeah, a lot of people think she was picked just for being a woman, and some are even saying decisions like this could actually backfire and hurt women’s standing in Japan.