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Five Questions with Rintaro Ohno

Senior Assistant Professor, Tohoku University, Japan

Contact Rintaro

Rintaro chose to be interviewed in chair #7.

Photo of Rihono Ohno

1. What is your job title?

Senior Assistant Professor in the Strategic Planning Office (aka the President’s Office) at Tohoku University, Japan.

2. Briefly, how would you describe your role in terms of your place in your institution?

Jack of all trades, master of none!

I am providing ad hoc support, suggestions and analyses to anyone who knocks on my door. My most frequent ‘customers’ are our evaluation and assessment team, the financial division, as well as our PR team. Unfortunately, since I’m running from one enquiry to the next, there is not much time to personally commit to long-term projects.

3. From your perspective, what are the emerging areas of interest in institutional research?

The effect and influence of (global) politics on higher education and scientific research. This will most certainly impact the direction of our work more than any decision made by local university executives. And it will be part of our job to anticipate upcoming policies, maybe influence them, and be ready when politicians and bureaucrats implement their new and ground-breaking ideas that, without any shadow of a doubt, will solve all of the problems.

Oh, and I am sure the patchwork of brilliant ideas we will be dealing with will also make our work so much easier.

4. What do you believe will be the future priorities for institutional research?

We have to make sure to not miss the forest for the trees!

Lots of data is nice. Detailed, automated analyses might be quite helpful. But, if all it took for good decision making was some data and a textbook analysis, ‘institutional research’ wouldn’t be a profession in the first place. We have to really *research* our institutions (not just produce some shiny graphs and numbers), and we must not forget that we are dealing with real people.

5. Complete this statement: In my role, I can’t operate effectively without …

…tea and cookies.

I hate dry, impersonal meetings. You should at least have the time to ask what people have been up to lately.

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Read the March 2020 AAIR newsletter. Right Here, Right Now!

March 2020 Newsletter

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  • About
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