In 2023, Chubu University and Ohio University are celebrating 50 years of collaboration and friendship. Students, faculty and staff have had opportunities to visit each other’s campuses and interact with individuals from both institutions.
To capture the flavor and importance of these intercultural experiences, we invited our community to share reflection essays through the lens of these dynamic engagements.
Read Essays and check out personal photos from individuals who have engaged with Chubu over the years!
It has been a great honor to share in the joyful celebrations of the 50th anniversary of partnership between Ohio University and Chubu University. I have been at Ohio University for close to 24 years and, over that time, my understanding and appreciation of this special partnership has grown each year as I learn more about the deep connection between Ohio and Chubu.
A chance meeting about anthropology and ethnography with Dr. Thompson ignited my journey into the exploration of Japanese Language and culture at Ohio University. A pivotal chapter in my academic growth and personal growth unfolded during a transformative six-month study-abroad stint at Chubu University in 2007. This period helped shape my perspectives, helped with my resilience, and fostered cultural empathy.
It's been 40 years since I graduated from Ohio University's mechanical engineering master's program in 1984, and I retired from working for a company, and now I'm starting my own small company, earning a pension, and playing my favorite sports.
Throughout the decade of my presidency at OHIO we enjoyed many close friendships with leaders at Chubu. Suffice it to say that I was well informed about the warm and friendly relationship between Ohio University and the Chubu Institute of Technology from the earliest days of my tenure as president of Ohio University, and that was probably at least partly because of the close friendship between my predecessor at OHIO, President Charles Ping, and the then-president of the Chubu Institute, Kazuo Yamada.
I remember very fondly my trip to Chubu University in November 2014 during my tenure as President of Ohio University. It was truly one of the most memorable trips that I had the pleasure of taking.
I had known about the relationship between Ohio and Chubu Universities since I arrived in Athens in 1986. I cherished the cherry trees and heard great things about Chubu.
There are special relationships between universities and then there are very special relationships. The partnership and legacy of 50 years of community, scholarly possibilities, cultural exchange, and enduring friendships that Chubu and OHIO have created together is unique, deep, and far reaching. It reminds one of just how important investing in such relationships is as we strive to be global in forging diversity, inclusion, understanding and cooperation as individuals and as institutions.
One of the highlights during my time at Ohio University (OHIO) is the partnership with Chubu University (CHUBU). When I think of Chubu University, I think of “transformational partnerships,” the term Dr. Susan Buck Sutton, Emerita Associate Vice President of International Affairs and Emerita Chancellor’s Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University, introduced in 2010.
My life has always been surrounded by world cultures. My parents always wanted me to know about my Swedish and German family heritage and this led me to wanting to know about other world cultures.
When I moved from Boston to Athens, OH, with my family at 13, I didn’t expect such a small, rural town to be the place that jumpstarted my international experiences.