Japan’s International Christian University and Washington State University will hold a reception on Oct. 19 at the Tokyo American Club in Japan to inaugurate a joint exchange program in peace and security studies.
The ICU was established on June 15, 1949, in the aftermath of World War II, by Japanese and North American educators.
Through the upcoming exchange, ICU will promote common projects in peace studies with universities and research institutes in Japan, East Asia, Europe and the United States.
WSU, the only U.S. university in that consortium, already has signed a president’s agreement for research and educational collaboration in peace studies. The project will focus on the United Nations, service learning projects, gender studies and related initiatives.
Other participating universities include The Free University of Brussels, University of Cologne (Germany), University of Munster (Germany), Seoul National University (South Korea), Ewha Women’s University (Seoul, South Korea), Yonsei University (Seoul, South Korea), and Taipei National University (Taiwan).
“The WSU-ICU student exchange program has made study abroad in Japan more attractive, and there is no doubt that the increasing interest in Japan among students and faculty will strengthen the Asia Program,” said Noriko Kawamura, director of WSU’s Asia Program and associate professor of history.
“The ICU–WSU partnership is significant because of the momentum it will provide to stimulate WSU’s Japan, East Asia and Trans-Pacific regional study programs at the College of Liberal Arts,” Kawamura said.
Many to attend
Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Foley, who received an honorary doctoral degree from ICU, and WSU President V. Lane Rawlins, will attend the Oct. 19 reception.
Other WSU representatives attending the inaugural include William Marler, president of the Board of Regents; Rick Frisch, WSU Foundation president; Doug Baker, vice provost for Academic Affairs; Robert Harder, director of International Programs; Barbara Couture and Marina Tolmacheva, dean and associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts (respectively) and Kawamura.
Professor Edward Weber, director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, also will attend.
$10 million boost
Historically, WSU alumni connections across the Pacific have bridged both universities. Norihiko Suzuki, ICU vice president, was a WSU faculty member in the College of Business and Economics in the early 1980s when Rawlins and Baker taught here.
WSU Foundation Trustee Koichiro Iwasaki, president of MRL Co. Ltd., is a 1983 economics graduate and a student of Suzuki. Koichiro has played a major role in the inception and private fund raising for the program.
Rawlins, Couture and Harder visited Tokyo two years ago to launch official communication with ICU representatives about an exchange program.
Negotiations for the partnership got a boost when ICU received a $10 million, five-year Center of Excellence grant from the Ministry of Education in Japan. The project calls for joint development of “Peace, Security and Conviviality” studies, Kawamura said.
Both institutions have begun exploring various ideas for collaborative research and teaching, including establishment of a residential learning center.
Beginnings
The precursor for the joint program began in December 2002 when Vice President Suzuki and 10 ICU students visited the Pullman campus to have debates with WSU students in the College of Business and Economics.
William Steele, who teaches Japanese history at ICU, and Noriko Kawamura, his counterpart at WSU, successfully completed the first Trans-Pacific videoconference between their students in February 2003. The two universities subsequently signed a reciprocal student exchange agreement that spring.
The exchange project gathered momentum when an ICU delegation visited WSU in August 2003 to discuss how both universities would collaborate on peace and security studies. It was ICU’s desire from the beginning to ask the Foley Institute to act as coordinator between the two, Weber said.
Leading the charge
WSU appointed Weber to direct the WSU-ICU Peace and Security Partnership, and Kawamura as associate director to coordinate planning between both universities.
Weber and Kawamura are part of a WSU planning group, which includes Howard Grimes, dean of WSU’s Graduate School, Baker, Couture, Tolmacheva, Harder and Frisch. The group is exploring other aspects of peace and security studies at WSU.
ICU’s Center of Excellence project currently focuses on faculty research and graduate programs.
Uniqueness
Kawamura believes the groundbreaking peace studies that ICU is pursuing in research and teaching will give WSU an opportunity to make it its own unique program.
“The exchange is one more reason for the College of Liberal Arts to hire a Japanese language instructor,” she said. WSU reinstated Japanese 101 last spring, with Japanese 101 and 102 offered this fall, and 102 and 203 planned next spring.
Meanwhile, ICU and WSU representatives will hold a series of meetings to discuss details regarding the partnership. Both schools have already identified 15-20 faculty members from each side to participate in the project.
“As a researcher in the history of US-Japanese relations and Trans-Pacific relations, I believe this will be an exciting field for our students, who will definitely benefit from this endeavor,” Kawamura said.
