Keisen University is a private women’s university with its roots in the Keisen School for Young Women, founded in 1929. The university itself was established in 1988. It is one of five universities with a campus in Tama New Town, in the western part of Greater Tokyo, around 40 minutes by train from downtown Tokyo.
It attained university status, with the philosophy of "raise a self-sustaining woman" in 1988 and has maintained a consistent focus on lifelong learning. It remains a small institution with a little over 1,000 students divided between two departments – humanities with 642 undergraduates in 2016 and human and social studies with 598. The Graduate School, founded in 2001, had 17 students.
Within humanities, the Japanese literature and culture degree, which aims to enrol 60 students each year aims to "develop student abilities through traditional liberal arts to lead them to become global citizens". Human and social studies’ psychology and human welfare aims to enrol 70 and seeks to "explore the complicated relationship between human beings from psychological, gender and life ethics perspectives".
There are common elements across the first year of courses, with every student taking courses on Christianity, peace studies and horticulture. The horticulture element is taught on the educational farm adjoining the campus.
Keisen’s accreditation from the Association of Japanese Universities commended it for the quality of its field studies, student support and programmes like the Keisen Onoji Satayama Project, which aims to regenerate and manage paddy fields and woodlands. Prominent academics include historian Aiko Utsumi, a leading critical analyst of Japan’s Second World War policies.
