Chairman, Kimiro Meguro
I'm Kimiro MEGURO, and I have been appointed as the chairperson of the Alumni Association of the Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Tokyo this year, 2022. As vice chairpersons, Mr. Masayasu KAYANO (graduated in 1974) from outside of the university and Professor Takeshi ISHIHARA (special member of the alumni association) from our department were newly appointed. This year, based on the past two-year experience of the "reunion activities that respond to new lifestyles under COVID-19" implemented by both chairpersons, Professors OZAWA and KOSEKI, by combining the above mentioned activities and those before COVID-19, we will do our best to carry out alumni activities with a new style. Specifically, in addition to activities utilizing the online environment, we would like to resume face-to-face activities and strengthen the financial base to realize sustainable activities of the alumni association.
The purpose of the alumni association is to deepen mutual relationships among members and help each other's activities. In order to achieve this purpose, the main activities are creating and updating the member list, holding the general assembly meeting and party, online symposiums, helping activities of regional chapters of our alumni association, issuing newsletters and creating alumni websites, e-mail newsletters and a Facebook page. Also, we disseminate information, hold alumni association council meetings to support our activities, and collect membership fees. Besides the above mentioned activities, we operate a host family program for the purpose of improving the education and living environment for international students.
The alumni association council meeting, normally held in June every year, resolutions were made by e-mail and in writing, as was the case last year. But this year, in light of the continuation of the COVID-19 problem, we would like to take precautions based on the number of infected people and the trend evaluation of symptoms, and plan to resume face-to-face events. The alumni general assembly meeting and party, normally held around October every year, will be held face-to-face for the first time in three years on October 21 (Friday) of this year. Also, based on the situation in each region, we would like regional alumni chapters to resume face-to-face activities in regions where possible. The Hokuriku alumni chapter has already held a site tour in June. In addition, we would like to hold the online symposium, which has been highly evaluated for the past two years, again this year.
We would like all of the alumni members of the international students who graduated from our department to actively participate in the activities of the alumni association, and the alumni association would like to support their activities. If there are any comments or requests, please let the Alumni Association know.
Regarding the collection of membership fees, which is the foundation of our activities, in addition to promoting the payment of membership fees by credit card, we will introduce a method that allows payment at convenience stores in response to requests from young members this year. About the member list, in order to improve the reliability of member information, we will utilize existing networks such as laboratories, classmates, home countries, and internal alumni association in each organization to enable regular updates of member information. The newsletter will be created as usual, but when sending it, we plan to create and enclose a leaflet requesting donations from the Department of Civil Engineering, the University of Tokyo, email news, and a booklet excerpt from the Zoom dialogue "Ayuko's Room." We will also work to increase the number of members registered with ShakiNet in order to enable smooth management, updating, and viewing of information related to alumni activities. Currently, about 46% of the 5,342 alumni members are unregistered. Regarding the host family program, in the past two years, due to COVID-19, we only held Zoom meetings with host families once every three months, but this year we plan to somehow hold an event in September.
In FY2022, we plan to carry out the above mentioned activities. We sincerely ask for your continued cooperation and support.
Aug. 2022.
