Graduate School of Law: Goal of Fostering of Human Resources / Goal of Education and Three Guidelines

Based on Meiji Gakuin’s founding philosophy of Christian-based character-building education and university founder James Hepburn’s lifelong basic educational philosophy, “Do for Others,” the Graduate School of Law emphasizes thought and action taking the other’s perspective, and in its Legal Studies and Political Science Studies majors seeks to offer its students advanced research skills which will serve them in good stead as future researchers or specialized professionals, and to foster individuals able to contribute to the further development of higher learning on both the theoretical and practical fronts.

Doctor’s course

In its Legal Studies and Political Science Studies majors, the Graduate School of Law seeks to offer its students advanced research skills and practical abilities, and to foster future researchers or specialized professionals able to contribute to the further development of higher learning on both the theoretical and practical fronts.

Doctor’s course

Based on the content of the submitted Ph.D. thesis and the results of the student’s oral examination, and with reference to the items listed below, the student is recognized as displaying independent research ability.

1. The student’s thesis has a basis in previously established knowledge and results (important theories (including reference to literature published in Japan and overseas), precedents, etc.)
2. Reference to this previously established knowledge and results clarifies the student’s thinking with regard to the theme of the thesis, based on new materials including literature published overseas and precedents, or a new positioning of the problem in question.
3. The composition and structure of the thesis are appropriate to the resolution of the problem in question.
4. The author’s intention is expressed adequately, and the conclusion of the thesis answers the questions raised in the presentation of the problem forming the subject of the thesis.
5. The thesis makes a contribution to academic knowledge, i.e. it overturns established theories or offers more convincing explanations.

Because the Graduate School of Law currently only offers a Doctor’s course, the offering of research guidance by advising professors is the only mechanism by means of which students earn credits. The curricula for research guidance are formulated and supervised by advising professors in each specialized field based on the most advanced research, with the most important element being guidance in the writing of the doctoral thesis.

In order to ensure that students are offered effective thesis guidance, the Graduate School of Law formulates a thesis guidance schedule that makes clear the roles of students, advising professors, and the school itself. Based on this schedule, one advising professor and two assistant advising professors offer students guidance as a group. In addition, once a year the Graduate School of Law publishes the Legal Studies Journal exclusively for graduate students, in which students announce their research outcomes for each fiscal year. In addition to increasing motivation for research, this system makes it possible to control the progress of the three-year process of thesis writing.

Most doctoral theses produced in the Graduate School of Law to date have been published in the Legal Studies Journal to cap the students’ efforts. The Guidelines for Formulation and Implementation of Curricula discussed above have had a significant effect in terms of the conferment of degrees.

Students wishing to enter the Graduate School of Law will be reviewed based on the following items.

• First, the standard of the Master’s thesis or equivalent thesis or paper submitted by the student has been reviewed by specialists in the field, and the student is recognized as possessing the potential to produce a doctoral thesis.
• Second, the student has been given a language test in order to verify their potential for the study of comparative law and comparative political science, and is recognized as possessing the requisite potential.
• Third, having been successful in the reviews discussed above, the student has been given an oral examination in order to determine whether they possess the ambition, research ability and attitude to study to complete a doctoral thesis in three years.

Only students who successfully pass all three of the above reviews will be admitted to the Graduate School of Law’s Doctor’s course of Law.