President Richard C. Levin visited Japan Nov. 28-30 with the largest delegation of the University's faculty ever to travel outside of the United States to reinforce the long-standing ties between Yale and Japan.
The delegation spent three days in nearly 60 separate activities in Tokyo to build upon Yale's existing relationships with Japanese universities and institutions and to explore new collaborations.
Among the University officers, fellows and faculty of the delegation were Linda Koch Lorimer, vice president and University secretary; Charles D. Ellis, successor fellow of the Yale Corporation; Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science and the Henry R. Luce Director of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies (YCIAS); Joel Podolny, dean of the School of Management and the William S. Beinecke Professor of Management; Mimi H. Yiengpruksawan, professor of the history of art and chair of the East Asian Studies Council; Gustav Ranis, the Frank Altschul Professor Emeritus of International Economics; Koichi Hamada, professor of economics; William Kelly, professor of anthropology and the Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies; Frances Rosenbluth, professor of political science; John Treat, professor and chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures; Michael Auslin, assistant professor of history; Thomas G. Masse, associate dean and lecturer at the School of Music; and Boris Berman, professor of music at the School of Music.
"Japan is key to Yale's internationalization strategy," said Levin. "Yale's connections to Japan are as old as the history of the relationship between Japan and the United States. We currently have over 50 projects or research activities that are either underway in Japan or involve Japan; we want to build upon those relationships in ambitious ways."
President Levin met with Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Japan's Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Kenji Kosaka, as well as leading figures from Japan's academic, business and government communities. In discussions with Koizumi and Kosaka, Levin explored ways to advance collaborations with Japanese educational institutions and to provide leadership training for senior government officials in Japan.
The delegation's visit gave an occasion for two major public receptions in Tokyo -- one hosted by Thomas Shieffer, U.S. ambassador to Japan, at the U.S. Embassy and the other an alumni reception hosted by the Yale Club of Japan. Today, more than 700 Yale alumni live and work in Japan, and Japan has the largest number of international Yale graduates after Canada and the United Kingdom.
Levin and members of the delegation also gave media interviews and participated in symposia and lectures organized at Tokyo-area universities. In the course of the trip, the delegation visited or engaged more than 25 of Japan's leading universities through campus visits or meetings, including a luncheon hosted by Levin for the leaders of 15 Japanese universities. During his visit to the University of Tokyo, Levin delivered an address on "Reform, Innovation and Economic Growth" in the Japanese university system. Earlier that day, he spoke to the Japan National Press Club.
It was announced during the trip that Yale College will organize an internship program in Tokyo beginning in summer 2006 involving 10-15 placements in an array of companies. The delegation also explored additional programs and projects for Yale students and scholars in Japan.
When Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived in Japan in July 1853, it was a Yale graduate and a future Yale faculty member who served as the expedition's interpreters and chaplain. George Jones, an 1823 graduate of Yale College, was an interpreter and the chaplain for Perry's expedition, while another interpreter, Samuel Wells Williams, was appointed to the Yale faculty in 1877 as a professor of East Asian languages and literatures. Both Jones and Wells participated in the negotiations that culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854 between Japan and the United States and which marked the opening of bilateral relations.
Yale's first Japanese undergraduate was Kenjiro Yamakawa who entered Yale College in the fall of 1872 and earned a Bachelor of Physics degree from the University's Sheffield Scientific School in 1875. Following his graduation from Yale, Yamakawa returned to Japan where he went on to an accomplished career as a renowned physicist, teacher and university administrator. Between 1870 and 1900, 60 students from Japan studied at Yale with 36 of the students earning Yale degrees. Among those alumni were Yale's first Japanese graduates in divinity (1887), law (1878), medicine (1891), and the first Japanese recipient of a Yale Ph.D. (1889).
Since the introduction of courses about Japanese language, history and literature in the 1870s, the academic attention on Japan has grown. Yale faculty engaged in projects in Japan are pursuing a broad array of research, educational and training activities. Among these are the many Japan specialists associated with the East Asian Studies Council in YCIAS, but many other faculty from the Schools of Law, Management, Medicine and Music, as well as Yale's other professional schools, are involved in collaborations there. Currently, there are more than 50 academic collaborations (including joint and individual research) under way in Japan. Twenty-eight Yale departments and schools and nearly 40 faculty members have established partnerships with universities, government agencies or independent research institutions in Japan.
For more information about Japan and Yale, visit www.yale.edu/opa/intl/japan.
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