A Trans-Graduate-School Education Program Awaking Competencies to Graduate Students in Research University: The Concept of Nitobe School Program in Hokkaido University

To correspond to drastic change in international society such as “globalization”, graduate education plays a key role in development of human resources to nurture competencies such as transferable skills as well as their advanced specialty. We report a new trans-graduate-school educational program called the “Nitobe School” in Hokkaido University, which has unique trials and mechanisms: “3+1 Competencies”, “Microcosm of international society”, “NITOBE Portfolio”, and “Systems of Mentors and Advisors”. Nitobe School give students supportive push to respect and understand different discipline, nationalities, cultures, and discussing in suitable language. Especially, “Microcosm of international society”, i.e. various students having different background learn together in a class room, works well for the students for whom English is not the first language and discuss with diverse students. We spent one year to prepare the coursework as “microcosm of international society” and applied many different mechanisms for promoting students' proactive learning and quality assurance of Nitobe School. In order to realize “microcosm of international society”, it is required for professors as well as students to deeply respect and understand key differences. With these skills and understandings, a good platform can be build for faculty development and student guidance.