University History
University History
During the turmoil following the French Revolution, St. Julie Billiart, who considered education “the noblest mission in the world” and wished to provide Christian education to her children, founded the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a Catholic educational order named after the Virgin Mary (= Notre Dame), the mother of Christ.
St. Julie Billiart’s wise decision to send members all over the world, despite the opposition of those around her, was truly the “grain of wheat” described in the Bible.
The grain of wheat, which would have perished had it remained as a single grain, fell to the ground and died, thus bearing abundant fruit all over the world today.
One of the fruits in Asia is Notre Dame Seishin University.
1927
Our beginnings
The six sisters who first ventured to Japan
In 1924, six sisters who practiced the spirit of St. Julie Billiart were dispatched from the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in the Waltham Province of the State of Massachusetts, U.S.A. to take over the Seishin Koto Jo Gakko.Located in the Town of Yumino, Okayama City at the time, the Seishin Koto Jo Gakko was run by a different French convent.In 1886, sisters from the Congregation of the Sisters of the Infant Jesus of Chauffailles paid a visit to Okayama Prefecture at the request of Tsuru, the daughter of Takamasa Chisaka who served as prefectural governor at the time. There, the sisters founded the Okayama Girls' School, the first private school for girls in Okayama City.Subsequently, the name of the institution underwent several modifications, including a change to Maikai Girls' Private School and Maikai Girls' Private High School. In 1911, the institution was renamed again to the Seishin Koto Jo Gakko. This became the parent body of Seishin School Corporation as it exists today.Then, in 1924, in line with a change in its missionary area, the Congregation of the Sisters of the Infant Jesus of Chauffailles withdrew from Okayama. At the request of Archbishop Doering (Bishop of Hiroshima), the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur would take over management of the institution.On August 13, 1924, with the institution now under the management of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, the new "the Seishin Koto Jo Gakko" was established.In 1929, a new school building lauded as the finest in the Orient was built in Kamiifuku (the current location of the university) in northern Okayama City, where rural scenery still remained at the time. In the following year, the institution was relocated from the Town of Yumino, Okayama City in an attempt to improve its environment and enhance its facilities and educational content.
1941
Overcoming hardship
The sisters who were interned at the camp in Miyoshi
In 1941, upon Japan's entry in the Pacific War, American sisters were branded as "enemy nationals."Despite having ventured to Japan with the determination to dedicate their lives to the education of Japanese girls, the sisters were interned at a camp in Miyoshi, Hiroshima Prefecture. Eventually, the decision was made to deport them, and they were forced to swallow their tears and return to the U.S.A.As the war intensified, the Japanese government and military tightened their grip on Christianity, all things American, and so forth. At the beginning of the year after the war commenced, the three Japanese sisters who remained were forbidden from wearing their habits.
1944
The opening of Okayama Seishin Women's Vocational School
For some time, the Seishin Koto Jo Gakko principal Sister Mary Kostka Kemper held the idea that should the fighting intensify, it would become difficult for girls to learn in a large city such as Tokyo, and therefore sought to establish vocational schools for girls in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions.For that reason, in place of her non-Japanese sisters who were interned, Sister Aoki and two other Japanese sisters as well as Chairman Shitomi Suzuki, who were engaged in the management of the academy, spearheaded efforts by Japanese faculty and staff to open Okayama Seishin Women's Vocational School in April 1944.This institution is the predecessor of Notre Dame Seishin University as it exists today.The first students to enter the school toiled away at sewing military clothing not long after entering. At times, they were even deployed to agricultural villages, leaving them unable to normally attend classes.Once 1945 began, they were drafted into the likes of aircraft production due to student labor mobilization.The air raid on Okayama that June resulted in the loss of fourteen precious academy student lives. In this and other ways, the Okayama Seishin Women's Vocational School era was a trying and difficult time for our academy.
1949
The founding of Okayama Prefecture's first four-year women's university
Called the hall of white marble, Notre Dame Hall was painted black during wartime
It would not be until October 1946, after World War II had ended, that the sisters who were deported to the U.S.A. all returned to Okayama.The school building, which had been painted black to avoid being bombed from the skies, remained intact and unscathed by the war.One could say that it is a miracle the building managed to escape disaster given that only five fire-scarred steel-reinforced concrete structures remained in all of Okayama City due to the air raid.Thanks to the contributions of the sisters who returned to the school, it returned to its original form.Sister Mary Kostka Kemper, who was principal of Okayama Seishin Women's Vocational School at the time and would become the university's first president, had also considered the option of establishing a junior college. However, based on the present state of higher education in the U.S.A., as a junior college did not hold enough promise for the future, in a society where there was confusion over postwar values, she arrived at the conclusion that it would be highly desirable to establish a four-year university for the sake of education for all girls that would foster firm conviction and an unshakable perspective on life.
This bold decision by Sister Mary Kostka Kemper resulted in the establishment of Notre Dame Seishin University in 1949 as the first new system-based university in Okayama Prefecture and the first four-year university for women in Japan's Chugoku and Shikoku regions.Interestingly enough, this year fell on the 400th year since Christianity made its way to Japan, as well as the year in which the “Miraculous Right Arm” of St. Francis Xavier was displayed in the university cathedral during his mission to Japan.The year prior to that, Miss Helen Keller paid a visit to the Seishin School Corporation.This history speaks volumes on the rich tradition and internationality of this institution as a Catholic university.
