BY MASAKI MATSUMOTO

Sapporo University greeted its 31st year this year. Professor Keiichi Suganuma has worked at SU since its foundation. He worked as a director and Dean of the College of Foreign Languages and he is now teaching English at SU as a Professor emeritus.

He was born in Tokyo in 1937 and moved to Karahuto and graduated from Maoka middle school. Later he moved from Karahuto to Niigata and he graduated from Niigata high school (that was during the old education system, so that school later became Niigata University) and studied at Hokkaido University (HU). After he graduated from HU he taught at Bihue-higasi high school and Iwamizawa-higashi high school and later moved to Murorann Institute of Technology. He left that school when he became engaged in establishing SU, where he is still teaching.

He studied very hard when he was a student. His encounter with English was when he was a freshman in middle school but, he did not like his English teacher, so he used to hate English. However, in his second year, his English teacher changed and he became more and more interested in English. English became his speciality subject then.

After he entered high school, he became interested in not only English but also in literature. He read many kinds of novels and dramas. He said, (IR(JI would like you to read as many of Iwanami(IU(Js red obi books as you can.(IS(J Red obi means the books which were written in Europe and translated into Japanese.

While he was a student at HU, he began a part-time job as an English teacher at a high school. He also collected classical albums and learned Kendo and read Haiku as his hobbies. By the way, he holds the third rank of Kendo. When he was a HU student, he decided to live by using English somehow in the future. The idea for that came from his middle school English teacher.

He taught English literature, grammar, reading, and composition at SU. He repented of teaching English literature at SU. He was teaching typical literature along with history for teaching literature. However, now he thinks that it took lots of time and energy. (IR(JI wanted to study one author more deeply,(IS(J he said.

He said that many things have changed since he started to work at SU. (IR(JOf course buildings changed. And the students(IU(J temperaments changed. The old students studied very hard because there were so many required subjects. After all, the environment changed. So many kinds of departments were made and now many students attend SU.(IS(J He said, ^You should not only study abroad to learn spoken English but also you should economize on getting English basics in the classroom first. You should try to get by knowing English only at a low or intermediate level. It is the most important thing to understand English exactly because you are majoring in English. I want you to ask questions in the class and read lots of books other than textbooks. For example, read paperbacks and novels and make an effort to get culture.(IS(J

We should listen to the words of the great professor emeritus Keiichi Suganuma and learn not only English but also a lot of culture and play an active part in society in the future.