MURFREESBORO — MTSU
alumni and their families will travel to Japan this month to celebrate the 25th
anniversary of an internship program that enriched their lives.
The Fukushima-Prefecture Commercial and Industrial Credit
Cooperative, or KENSHIN Bank, will host the weeklong reunion in Koriyama,
Japan, starting May 29.
KENSHIN’s internship program with MTSU began in 1988 with
invited students taking turns working for the bank for one year. It was the
brainchild of Dr. Kiyoshi Kawahito, economics professor emeritus, who says it
all began with his friendship with bank managing director Yoshio Susa.
“He came to Nashville in 1979 as a young heir apparent of
the financial institution in Japan and did an internship at the First American
Bank while studying English at the International English Institute,” said
Kawahito. He also noted that Sosa became the first international member of the
MTSU Foundation Board of Trustees in 2001.
The Susa family lived in Nashville for several years. In the
mid-1980s, after he had returned to Japan, Susa expressed a desire to
reciprocate the hospitality he and his family had received in Middle Tennessee.
Kawahito and Susa worked for two years on the details, and the result was the
KENSHIN internship.
Jim Chapman, the third intern selected, was a part-time
graduate student majoring in economics and working at MidSouth Bank when he was
chosen. He worked at KENSHIN from August 1989 to August 1990.
“What I learned was that I broadened my perspective on life
and the world,” Chapman said.
He also learned that Japanese banks take their customer
service very, very seriously.
“Japanese employees visit clients and pick up deposits at
their houses,” Chapman recalled.
At the conclusion of the internship, Chapman found another
job in Tokyo and stayed there for another five years.
“Most of them developed into successful professionals upon their
return to the U.S., including lawyers, financial analysts and researchers,”
Kawahito said of the interns.
In addition to Chapman, who works in the licensing
department of Broadcast Music Inc., at least four other former interns are
slated to make the trip — Robert Callahan, Leigh Butler, David Shipley and
Elizabeth Blankenship, all working professionals living in the Nashville area.
The seven-day program will include receptions, a party
aboard a Tokyo Bay cruise ship, visits to KENSHIN branch offices and attendance
at a conference titled “Japan and the United States: Yesterday, Today and
Tomorrow.”
Also, the alumni will make trips to various areas in
Fukushima, including the region victimized by the 2011Tohuku earthquake and
tsunami disasters, and they will make donations to disaster relief.
Several dignitaries are expected to attend the reunion,
including the governor of Fukushima, the mayor of Koriyama and the president of
Fukushima University.
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