A private engineering university also known as SIT, Shonan Institute of Technology is located in Fujisawa, a coastal town in Kanagawa Prefecture which is noted as the terminus of the Shonan Monorail, created in 1970, and serves in part as commuter territory for Tokyo and Yokohama.
Created in 1961 as Sagama Industrial High School, it attained university status two years later and took its current name in 1990. Its mission to "train engineers who contribute to society" and "to nurture technological professionals" has remained consistent through that time.
It remains a small institution, with just over 2,000 students in 2018, focussed on a single discipline and its allied trades – its six departments include mechanical, information and electrical and electronic engineering - but has grown steadily. Of just under 200 overseas students in 2018, more than 150 came from China and over 20 from Vietnam. Unusually its website is Japanese language-only.
Its 2015 accreditation by the Association of Japanese University saw it praised for the quality of autonomous, self-directed learning of its students and in particular for the student support provided by its Communication Circle system under which each member of faculty is responsible for the pastoral care of six to eight students each year and senior students assist those in earlier years.
In 2014 SIT researchers were responsible for elements of Toshiba’s talking android, and in 2018 offered "Making Stone Instruments" to the Kanagawa Science Summer. The university concluded a partnership agreement with Japan Display Inc in December 2018.
