Ernest Fenollosa
The modern university was founded in 1901 as Shinshū University in Tokyo's Sugamo neighborhood. Shinshū University was closely associated with Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903), a Shin Buddhist reformer from a low-ranking samurai background who studied at the University of Tokyo under the American philosopher Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908). Kiyozawa also served as the first dean of the university. In 1904 the university achieved the legal status of "senmon gakkō", or vocational school.