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Outline of the Education Scheme　

Framework of the Scheme:
‘Initiative for Attractive Education in Graduate Schools’

‘Initiative for Attractive Education in Graduate Schools’ is an educational scheme promoted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of the Government of Japan. The scheme offers supports to graduate schools and their promising students who wish to design their future careers as creative young researchers and to meet the new requirements emerging on the cutting edge of contemporary society. With the selective support of the ministry, the scheme aims to bring about substantial improvement for the systematic development of the curriculums in graduate schools, which take innovative and serious educational efforts to educate future-researchers.

Nara Women’s University’s proposal entitled ‘Education and Training of Female Researchers Acting to Formulate Objectives and Discover Solutions in Human Life and Environment’ has qualified for such selective support and was implemented in April 2005.



Outline of Our University’s Program for the Scheme

General Purpose of Our Program

In the course of the program, the graduate students are expected to become self-reliant, independent female researchers full of creative talent, who dedicate themselves to enriching human life and environment as well as to leading our society towards a better quality of life. To accomplish this end, our program requires the graduate students to identify, through intensive fieldwork in their living environments, themes for study, and thence derive solutions, through their own efforts. Our program is designed to encourage graduate students to submit their doctoral dissertations and to obtain Ph.-D.s within the standard period for an education program.

 

Departments participating in the Program

【Master’s Course】
Department of International Studies for History, Sociology and Geography
Department of Human Behavioral Sciences
Department of Human Environment
Department of Culture and Humanities
Department of Residential Environment and Design

 

【Doctoral Course】
School of Social Life and Human Environment


Characteristics and Contents of Our Program

  1. Coursework based on enhanced curriculum to prepare for the master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation.


    • The enhanced curriculum now used for both the Master’s and Doctoral course is composed of five subject groups.

    • Three of the five subject groups are the 【Basic special group】, the 【Applied special group】 and the 【Master’s thesis/Doctoral dissertation】, which are subdivisions of the existing 【Special subjects group】. Meanwhile the other two groups, the 【Research management group】 and the 【Career development group】, were newly-established to support those who intend to become researchers. With the introduction of such subdivision among the five subject groups, the program aims to offer the students a clear understanding of the whole structure of their education as well as helping the students learn the necessary subjects systematically.

    • The establishment of the 【Research management group】aims to develop a series of abilities essentially important for identifying themes, solutions, and tasks in the course of research. The 【Career development group】will help the students acquire the practical skills and knowledge.



    • Two types of credit acquisition patterns are available in the Master’s course based on students’ research themes. One is the ‘specialized pattern’, suitable for the pursuit of studies in a particular academic field. The other is the ‘interdisciplinary pattern’, helpful for broadening a student’s academic field of vision.

  2. Educational process prepared



    • In the course of both the Master’s course and the Doctoral course, graduate students can obtain academic advice on their research from various points of view by utilizing the ‘Multiple Supervisors System’, so as to produce sound results.

    • The ‘Monitoring System’ and the ‘Memorandum for Doctoral Dissertation Submission’ provided in the doctoral course function as a conscious controlling method for the progress of both the research and the doctoral dissertation, by the doctoral candidate and her supervisors.

  3. Improvement upon support conditions for research and education including the introduction of assistance for activities initiated by graduate students.

    • A new support program called ‘Assistance for Activities Initiated by Graduate Students’ supports graduate student’s creative and motivated research activities.

    • The program will more efficiently and extensively apply existing support, such as Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant Programs.