Ritsumeikan University’s groundbreaking new Global Liberal Arts (GLA) Dual Degree Program with The Australian National University (ANU) was launched in April this year. With the first cohort of students well settled into their studies, the first ever Global Liberal Arts Summer Camp to be held since the establishment of the program, took place in the second week of July (8 – 13) at Osaka Ibaraki Campus (OIC).

Designed to provide high school students, from year ten upwards, with an insight into the English-based dual degree, as well as a genuine taste of what daily life is really like for students at Ritsumeikan University (RU), this year the camp took the form of a comprehensive six day residential.

Staying in on-campus accommodation, participants were provided with the opportunity to talk informally and frankly with current students, and introduced to many of the sights, sounds and tastes of Japan’s second largest city, Osaka.

The focus, however, was on introducing the academic content of the Dual Degree Program itself, with four undergraduate-level seminars ensuring a genuine, immersive academic experience:

Day 2 Introduction to Global Liberal Arts

Day two’s seminar saw Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Global Liberal Arts, Eugene Choi, introduce students to the reasoning behind the establishment of the dual degree program.

Focusing on the history and development of Liberal Arts as a subject, the professor addressed the need for the establishment of the program by explaining how the core of the program, in the form of the ‘Essential three Pillars’ of ‘Cosmopolitan Studies’, ‘Civilization Studies’ and ‘Innovation Studies’, complimented also by a ‘Japanese Studies Cluster’, provides students with the knowledge, skills, creativity and critical awareness required to become successful and adaptable members of society in the forthcoming age of 100 year lifespans.

In this way the stage was set for the following days during which a seminar each day provided participants with examples of course content from each of the three pillars.

Day 3 Cosmopolitan Studies

Day three saw Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of the College of Global Liberal Arts, Christophe Thouny, give a cultural studies seminar from the Cosmopolitan Studies pillar. Entitled ‘The City in Maps: cartographic culture and urban life’, the seminar used participant’s own contributions, together with the concept of cartography, to introduce different ways of thinking about and methods of studying culture.

Interactive and challenging throughout, participants were asked to brainstorm in small groups around the concept of ‘culture’ and encouraged to engage with questions such as ‘What is Cultural Studies?’ and, in the context of a reworking of a Hokusai image using plastics salvaged from the world’s oceans, ‘Is this beautiful?’.