20th Anniversary Banquet

The banquet was held at the Hotel Springs in Makuhari. The room was beautifully decorated with flowers.  (I'm sorry I didn't have any time to take photos of the main table, but believe me, the arrangements were amazing.)

Professor Hidashi from the Budapest Business School.

A wonderful performance by Jiro Plutschow and composer  Tanigawa.

Receiving gifts from Rector Solti of Hungary.

Greetings by President of Hankuk University (Korea). President Obama gave a talk at his University during his last visit to Korea. He also received an Honorary Doctorate Degree that day.

Concert

At 3 PM there was a concert by Hungarian musicians and also the presentation of a movie project made by students at Tozai University in Korea and JIU students in the Faculty of Media Studies. 

Sumo Wrestler Kotoshu on campus

We had the honor of having Sumo Wrestler Kotoshu participate in our celebrations.  He has a fan club at JIU. It was the first time I talked to him--of course he had to sit down first.  Children and adults lined up to take photos with him.

The Commemorative Ceremony

Unfortunately I was not able to take many photos of the ceremony, but here are a few for you to have a sense of how it was.

Opening words by Chancellor Mizuta.

Greetings by President Yanagisawa.

Video Message by Chancellor White of UC Riverside.

Chancellor Mizuta receiving a Certificate of Appreciation.

Enjoying tea with JIU's Tea Ceremony Club

Our guests received a warm welcome by Yoshiko Plutschow-sensei.

Dinner with guests on Friday

Most of our guests had arrived by Friday evening and we had dinner together at the Hotel Springs. 

 Guests from Korea, Canada and Hungary.

Guests from Uganda and the United States.

Wakui-kun at the Mandarin

We went to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel for tea Friday afternoon after having lunch at Daikan En on Friday. It was great seeing Wakui-kun there. He's been working there for not that long but I could see why he chose to change hotels and work for them. I went there for the first time on Friday and then for the second time already today--Sunday. 

JIU 20th Anniversary Celebrations: Camosun College

President Laurin of Camosun College also arrived on Thursday and Friday morning made a brief visit to our Kioicho Campus in Tokyo. After that we had the honor of meeting Your Imperial Highness Princess Hisako Takamado.

Beautiful cherry blossoms on the tree and ground.

At the entrance hall of our Kioicho Campus. 

JIU 20th Anniversary Celebrations: Arrivals

Thursday afternoon some of our guests from sister universities arrived at Narita Airport including Dean Duffy from UC Riverside. Some of us had dinner with her at her hotel in Kaihin Makuhari that evening. 

Final Preparations for the Celebrations

I have been going to Tokyo on a daily basis to attend meetings and really wish I had taken photos of what remains of the cherry blossoms to share with you. Tokyo is still pretty with the green leaves growing bigger and the pink slowly fading. Twelve of our guests from sister universities abroad are arriving tomorrow. 

Before going to Tokyo today, I met with the 120 students from the Faculty of Nursing in order to talk about their homestay experience in California next month. I hope they are as excited as I am about this great experience they are having in their very first semester at JIU. We'll be flying together on May 12. 

JIU's 20th Anniversary Celebrations

We have been extremely busy with preparations for JIU's 20th anniversary celebrations this Saturday. If you are reading this, please do plan to come celebrate with us. Besides the official ceremony that starts at 11, there will be a large number of events for people of all ages. There is going to be a concert at 3, "Mochi age," a stamp rally for children, a show by Chiba TV, and sumo wrestler Kotoshu will be joining us as well. On Sunday, April 29, JIU will be holding a World University Presidents Forum on our Kioicho campus in Tokyo. I will be posting photos as soon as I can.

University of Bergen

Vice-Rector Andresen and Professor Irgens from the University of Bergen visited the Togane campus in the morning and after lunch we went to the Kioicho campus where they met with Chancellor Mizuta. We are looking forward to developing a good sister university relationship with their institution.

Great dinner with Karen and Teramoto-sensei Wednesday night. He was our resident director in Riverside for two years and just returned to Japan a few weeks ago.

UCR/Disney Internship Interviews

UC Riverside and Disney College were here on Tuesday and Wednesday to interview the applicants for the Certificate Program in Hospitality Management. If our students are offered roles at Disney World, they'll be leaving Japan in July. Results should come out next week. We'll keep our fingers crossed!

Poland's First Lady

First Lady of Poland

Poland's First Lady gave us the honor of a visit on April 12. She came to our Kioicho campus for a talk on children's rights.

New Hungarian Students

My new advisees from the College of Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, arrived in Japan and will be studying here with us for one year.

Freshman Seminar in Kamogawa (April 6 & 7)

Kamogawa: April 2012

Honorary Degrees: Dr. Kaplan and Dr. Lemkow

Dr. Ann Kaplan from the United States and Dr. Louis Lemkow from Spain received honorary degrees from JIU on Tuesday during the Opening Ceremony.

The day after the ceremony we had a traditional Japanese meal in Togane.

The evening of the ceremony we had a banquet and three of our foreign students were there as well. We took a photo after the party in front of the beautiful flowers.

Wow! What a huge box?

What a big gift? Guess what's in the box?


Yes, lots of great Norwegian chocolate. A gift from Patrik and his parents who were recently in Japan. Needless to say how lucky I felt!

April 2: "Jirei"

We usually receive our "Jirei" on April 1st, but as it was a Sunday, we received our appointments officially today. I was reappointed chair of the Department of International Exchange Studies and will continue as chair of the Center for Language Education and Associate Director of the Center for International Education. This is going to be another busy year.

Satoko's wedding

Satoko had a great wedding party here in Chiba today. She looked really happy and was so beautiful in her traditional kimono, white dress and then the last ocean blue dress. Congratulations, Satoko. I wish you all the very best!

With her JIU seminar classmates--a great reunion.

Her colleagues from ANA.

Welcome, Argel & Jaron

We invited Argel and Jaron to a small welcome dinner at Yutaka Friday evening. They just arrived in Japan from Hawaii and are transferring to JIU as third-year students.