Growth by Adding a Faculty of Science and Technology to the already existing Faculties

The next expansion of Sophia University was going to need a great deal of financial investment. This was the plan to add a Faculty of Science and Technology. First, some additional land was acquired, where part of the current Building 3 and Hoffman Hall are located. Further land was acquired, where Building 11 and the Kioizaka building now stand. Both these structures were completed in 1992. In 1962, building 3 was completed; in January of that year, governmental permission to begin a faculty of science and technology was received. The funds came partly from gifts from the archdiocese of Cologne and partly from gifts collected inside Japan, starting with the generous sacrifices of our alumni and alumnae and the parents of Sophia students. In 1969, Building 6 and Building 7 were completed. Before that in 1962, eighty thousand tsubo of land in the city of Hadano in Kanagawa Prefecture had been purchased. A collection of sports facilities and playing fields were created there. In 1973, Sophia Junior College was opened there, under the sponsorship of the educational legal person Jochi Gakuin. In 1975, the buildings at the so-called Ichigaya campus had been renovated and two departments of the Faculty of Foreign Language and Studies were established there. These would become the Faculty of Comparative Culture in 1987. To sum up, since 1971, the Yotsuya campus construction had been completed with the opening of the gymnasium, buildings 8, 9, and 10, two cafeterias, and Hoffmann Hall (for student club activities). Finally, in 1984, the long awaited building that would house the Sophia University Library and the many Research Centers was finally completed.

In order for Sophia University to live up to its functions as a real university, it must make real the words of John Henry Cardinal Newman, who wrote as follows in his long essay The Idea of a University. A university must be a place that has facilities to carry out well-planned projects of academic research, and it must be a place that is based on a variety of academic areas. In order to educate young people with a broad vision, Sophia University has constructed a general university with a variety of faculties. Thus, it has lived up to the far-sighted dreams of its founders.

We at the university must always acknowledge with gratitude the teachers and staff who have worked here during our eighty-four-year (translator's note: now longer) long history. We must thank our benefactors, all those people with many different relationships to us who have provided spiritual and material assistance to the university. During this long history, quite a few of these persons have died. To thank these departed co-founders, every year on November 2nd, Founders' Day, the university community offers prayers in the church for their repose. This Sophia University that was built on the bases of Christian principles keeps as one central principle that all persons should be loved and treasured.
The Japanese original was written by Professor Emeritus Father Klaus Luhmer, SJ.