[053] MTSU WELCOMES GUESTS FROM JAPANESE EDUCATIONAL PARTNER

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 20, 2009
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

MTSU WELCOMES GUESTS FROM JAPANESE EDUCATIONAL PARTNER
Fukushima University Leaders, MTSU Administrators to Discuss Student Exchange

(MURFREESBORO) – Dignitaries from Fukushima University, led by Vice President Shuji Shimizu, will visit MTSU Aug. 29 through Sept. 3 to explore expanding the universities’ existing relationship through student exchange.
MTSU’s comprehensive academic partnership with the Japanese institution formally began with the signing of an agreement in 1996.
“Fukushima University is one of the oldest international partners of MTSU with much collaborative faculty research in the past, but there has been little student exchange,” says Dr. Kiyoshi Kawahito, Advisor to the President and the Provost on Asian Affairs and professor emeritus of economics and finance.
On June 3, MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee spoke at Fukushima about the possibility of starting a student exchange centered around Fukushima’s Faculty of Economics and Business and Administration (FEBA) and its MTSU counterpart, the Jennings A. Jones College of Business.
Topics to be considered include which courses Fukushima students can take at MTSU, whether Fukushima students can take regular MTSU courses and some ELS Language Center courses at the same time, and housing for the Fukushima students.
In addition, the educators will discuss ideas for the long-term planning of Fukushima’s FEBA as a follow-up to a presentation made by Kawahito and Dr. Dwight Bullard, associate dean of the College of Business, in spring 2009. Topics for this discussion will include strategic goal formulation, curriculum development, faculty evaluation, faculty education and training and student recruitment.
The Fukushima contingent, in addition to Shimizu, includes Mitsuo Iijima Nomura, FEBA dean; Hiroko Matsuura, FEBA professor and International Committee member; Toshiaki Sogo, FEBA associate professor and Faculty Development Committee member; and Kazuko Takahashi, staff, Campus Planning and International Affairs.