Plan Afloat For Chuo’s “Comeback” to Urban Center

   Chuo was founded as Igirisu Horitsu Gakko (English Law School) in July 1885 at Tokyo’s Kanda-Nishikicho by 18 young attorneys. Their prime objective was to “teach all subjects of British (American) common law, write books about them and set up a storeroom for them” for the purpose of fostering human resources competent in practical law application, which was known to be a strong point of the common law. The founders attached greater importance to a practical system than an abstract one, believing that a better understanding of the common law and permeation of legal knowledge was indispensable for Japan’s independence and modernization. It was from this viewpoint that they set out to “nurture judicial professionals cultivated in character” and “improve Japan’s legal system” through education to “foster the ability to apply knowledge to practice.” They thought the common law was most appropriate in order to change Japan into a modern constitutional state and wanted to bring up people needed in the real world through instruction on the common law that values experiences and respects freedom.

 The school was renamed Tokyo Hogakuin (Tokyo College of Law) in 1889 and was changed to the present Chuo University upon the establishment of the faculty of economics in 1905. The faculty of commerce was launched four years later in 1909. The narrow Kanda-Nishikicho campus was burned down in a big fire that followed the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. The school moved to nearby Surugadai when a new campus building was completed there in 1926.

 While Chuo was located at Surugadai, it ranked top in the number of successful applicants in the national bar exam for 20 consecutive years from 1951 to 1970 and in the number of successful applicants in the certified public accountant exam for 21 years from 1948 to 1969. Chuo thus came to be known as the "icon of legal profession and qualification."

   Chuo’s prosperity overlapped with Japan’s phenomenal economic growth in the postwar years. But a number of social problems came to the fore during that period. As families became wealthier, more boys and girls began to aspire for higher education, creating a situation where private universities had to accept more students. However, they were in dire shortage of class rooms and teachers, which often led to degradation of their research and education environment. They carried out various reforms to improve the situation. But most of them had no choice but to increase their tuition to finance those reforms.

 Angry students stepped up their campaign to oppose tuition hikes and call for more campus democracy, which developed into prolonged disputes at many universities across the country in the latter half of the 60s. At Chuo, riot police had to be called in to remove the students who had occupied the Surugadai campus. No classes and exams were practicable as many arrests were made. Faced with the situation, the school authority had to use the land which the faculty of literature had bought in Yuki Village in Tokyo’s Minamitama County as a makeshift campus. This gave an impetus to the plan to transfer the Sugugadai campus to Tama. An official decision was made in 1973 to relocate the faculties of law, economics, commerce and literature to Tama and the faculty of science and engineering to Korakuen. Some students opposed the proposed relocation and went on a strike in protest. However, daytime classes were transferred to Tama in 1978, followed by evening classes in 1979. The Surugadai campus was finally closed in March 1980.

 The Tama campus is more than twice bigger in space than the Surugadai campus. Blessed with nature, it has an advantage to allow students to lead a relaxed campus life and throw themselves into study. But there are problems, too. Many students cite (1) inconvenience in attending school from the center of Tokyo, (2) difficulties in doing a part-time job, (3) fewer opportunities to get associated with alumni who can be helpful in bar exam guidance and (4) inconvenience in visiting companies for job hunting, etc, etc. Those problems are obviously responsible for the persistent trend among applicants to stay away from Chuo. The matter has been taken up for discussion from time to time by the persons involved in the school management. Hisano was gravely concerned. He said in a recent interview, “We have to find our direction within the next five years or even before that. If we leave this problem unattended for 10 years, we will be outcompeted by other colleges both in quality and quantity. We will be losing our global reputation…we will be making a fatal mistake.”

 Chuo opened the faculty of policy studies in 1993 and launched a new interdisciplinary education platform called “faculty-linkage program (FLP)” in 2003 in an attempt to break the situation. This provided “topics” to the media and helped to call back applicants to some extent. In the meantime, however, Meiji University has increased the number of its faculties from seven to nine, Hosei University from six to nine and Rikkyo University from six to 10. Chuo has fallen behind in the MARCH league (that groups five metropolitan universities ranking next to Waseda and Keio). What is worse, its faculty of policy studies is now trailing behind that of Keio.

 Not everything was wrong with the relocation to Tama. Yuki Village in Minamitama County was an underdeveloped area when Chuo moved in. But it transformed itself into a big new town with sophisticated social infrastructure during Chuo’s presence there in the past 30 years. In a way, Chuo contributed to the regional development. As the Tama campus has a vast land space, it has a large parking lot which a university in the center of Tokyo cannot have. Above all, it has many cherry trees that bloom in the spring. Many people visit the campus every year to view the cherry blossoms. In fact, Chuo is one of prominent cherry blossom viewing spots in the Tama region. 　

 Regrettably though, it is an "isolated inland islet" as many Chuo people say. Its rich nature that lets one wonder if it is really a part of Tokyo is apt to make sensation-seeking students leisurely and boring. Students who go after their dream may find the place rather monotonous and unsatisfactory.