Congratulatory Message from the President for the Fall 2026 Graduation Ceremony
Graduates,
On behalf of Niigata University, I offer my heartfelt congratulations to all of you who celebrate your graduation or completion of your programs today. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude and respect to your families, friends, and all those who have supported you along the way.
Today, you bring one chapter of your studies at Niigata University to a close and begin to walk along new paths. As you set out on this new journey, I would like to speak to you about what it means to choose for yourself.
Throughout our lives, we make choices.
Where to work. What to continue learning. Whom to share our lives with. What to value, and what to try to change.
Of course, there are many things in life that we cannot choose: changes in society, unexpected events, and the circumstances around us. Some things are simply beyond the reach of our own efforts.
The society in which we live is also undergoing profound change. Science and technology, including generative AI, are advancing rapidly. At the same time that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected, we face growing divisions in the international community, climate change, demographic shifts, and many other challenges for which the assumptions of the past no longer provide ready answers.
Precisely because we live in such an age, even if we cannot predict everything that will happen, it is increasingly important that we decide for ourselves how to respond to the circumstances we face, what to think, and which direction to take.
The founding philosophy of Niigata University is “Autonomy and Creativity.”
I do not understand “autonomy” to mean deciding everything on your own or living entirely by yourself. Rather, it means listening to views different from your own, engaging in dialogue with others, and at times questioning your own assumptions—and yet, in the end, thinking for yourself, making your own choices, and taking responsibility for those choices.
That, I believe, is what autonomy means.
Perhaps this is also what your learning at university has ultimately been about.
A university is not simply a place where completed answers are handed to you.
Why is this so? Is it really so? Does it have to remain this way?
To ask such questions, to think for yourself, to engage in discussion with people who hold different expertise and values, and to reshape your own thinking in the process—this, I believe, is what it means to learn at a university.
Advances in technologies such as generative AI have made it possible for us to obtain more information and more answers in less time than ever before. Yet no matter how far technology advances, it is still up to us to decide what questions to ask, what we value, and which answers we choose.
That is why, in the years ahead, I believe that continuing to ask questions will matter even more than simply knowing the answers.
And good questions rarely arise in isolation. By encountering people whose fields of expertise, cultures, generations, and experiences differ from our own, we sometimes begin to see things that had previously been invisible to us.
Niigata University is a comprehensive university that brings together diverse fields of knowledge, including the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and the medical and dental sciences.
Here, each of you has studied deeply within your own field while also encountering people and forms of knowledge different from your own. Deepening your expertise and connecting with people beyond the boundaries of your field are not opposing pursuits. It is precisely through encounters with different forms of knowledge that our own expertise can deepen.
I believe this is one of the great values of studying at a comprehensive university.
The places to which you now go will be different for each of you.
Some of you will continue your lives here in Niigata. Others will move to other parts of Japan, return to your home countries, or set out for new countries. Some will continue your studies or research, while others will take new steps in business, government, education, healthcare, and many other fields.
Wherever you go, continue to ask your own questions. And never assume that you can understand the world through your own perspective alone.
Meet people. Listen to ideas different from your own. Do not be afraid to change yourself when change is called for. At the same time, when important moments come, think for yourself and make your own choices.
And as you make those choices, I hope you will also consider how they may affect not only your own lives, but also the people around you and society as a whole.
None of us lives apart from society. The judgments and actions of each individual shape our relationships with one another and, over time, help shape society itself.
To choose for yourself is to exercise freedom, but it also means taking responsibility for your choices as a member of society.
“Creativity,” too, does not mean only creating something extraordinary or grand. It can begin by questioning what we take for granted, by connecting different people and different forms of knowledge, or by working with others to make something a little better than it was yesterday. New value can emerge from these acts as well.
If each of you continues to practice this kind of creativity in your own place and in your own way, those efforts can, over time, become a force that changes society.
From today, you are no longer people who study at Niigata University; you are people who have studied at Niigata University. And you will carry the knowledge and experiences cultivated here with you to the places where your lives now take you.
Your relationship with this university does not end today. I hope that through new experiences in society, you will discover new questions—and that someday you will bring those questions back to the university or pass them on to the next generation.
There is no single, predetermined right answer to life. There will be times when you are uncertain, and times when you lose confidence in the choices you have made.
At such moments, remember the time you spent at Niigata University.
You have learned here to meet others, to ask questions, to think, and ultimately to choose for yourself.
Please choose your own path in life. And through the choices you make, I hope you will help move the future—not only your own future, but the future of people and society—even a little in a better direction.
That, I believe, is what it means to put Niigata University’s philosophy of “Autonomy and Creativity” into practice in your own lives.
Niigata University will always remain your alma mater.
I sincerely hope that each of you will walk your own path while remaining connected with others, and that wherever you go, you will create new value in your own way.
Congratulations on your graduation and completion of your programs.
September 24, 2026
Toshiyuki Someya, M.D., Ph.D.
President
Niigata University
