2026 New Year's Greetings President Mika Suzuki
We would like to extend our best wishes for the New Year.
The new year began with a strong start, with our university's ekiden team placing 8th overall in the Hakone Ekiden, earning a seeded spot for the seventh consecutive year. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone who has supported our university both across Japan and around the world, as well as to the warm support for the ekiden team.
Our university was born in 1971 with the three guidelines set forth by its founder, Professor Daisaku Ikeda, namely "Be the highest seat of learning for humanistic education," "Pillar of New Great Cultural Construction," and "Fortress to Protect the Founding Spirit Peace of Mankind." Since then, we have devoted ourselves to fostering "global citizens" who will face complex social issues head-on and create new value. Since its inception, the university has been carefully expanding its network with overseas universities with the aim of providing a place of learning open to the world, and now extends to 278 universities in 72 countries and regions around the world. On campus, friends with diverse values and backgrounds learn from each other and grow together.
Last year was also a year in which the students' activities were remarkable. In the bar exam, 6 students from our university Law School students (including graduates) passed the bar exam, bringing the total number of successful applicants to 461. In addition, he made breakthroughs in a wide range of fields, such as winning an off-campus business contest and nominating two professional players from the baseball club. In addition, the gold medal at the World University Cheerleading Championships and the seminar activities that challenged the solution of local issues attracted attention, and the tireless efforts on a daily basis bore a variety of fruits. For more information on last year's main topics, please also check out the "2025 Soka University Top 10 News".
Now that society is changing drastically due to the spread of generative AI, I feel that the importance of learning from each other on campus has become even more important. The University sees this change as an opportunity to further deepen human education, and will promote education that fosters "rich humanity" and "intelligence that opens up the future" while mastering new technologies and competing with peers.
In order to support the growth of these students, in April this year, Soka University will evolve into a new structure of "7 faculties and 10 departments". In addition to the new establishment of "Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Department of Business Studies" and "Department of Green Technology" and "Department of Life Science and Technology" of Faculty of Science and Engineering, we will change the name of Faculty of Law Department of Law to "Department of Law and Politics" and the Department of Education of Faculty of Education to "Department of Psychology and Education". Other faculties and departments will also introduce new curricula to provide learning opportunities that maximize the potential of each individual.
This year, based on the Founding Spirit presented by the founder, Dr. Ikeda, all faculty and staff will sincerely support each student studying on a diverse campus so that they can shine in their own way.
January 2026 Soka University President Mika Suzuki