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!
I can’t count the number of times I recount my time at Chubu University, and how it shaped me and my life. I recount all of these memories fondly, and to encourage people I meet who have children or relatives who are considering studying abroad as reasons that they should.
I first visited Japan in April of 1994 right before I became the Associate Director of Special Projects at OPIE.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists one of the definitions of passion as “an intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction.” Passions are what guide us through life and influence the decisions we make.
So many of my most valuable memories from studying at Ohio University are related to the friends I made through the Chubu-Ohio program.
One fine day, on Chubu University campus, a group of American students (and one Thai student) were just fooling around; doing an American line dancing to kill time before our next class. Who would have known that that act would have a lasting impact on a Japanese student there.
From the time that I traveled to Awaji Shima through a sister city exchange program in high school, I fell in love with Japan - the beauty of the country and the warmth of the Japanese people left a deep impression that I would carry into college and beyond.
I studied abroad at Chubu University for just a few months in 2019, luckily right before the Coronavirus pandemic hit, but my time there is something I still frequently think back on.
We celebrate this year an amazing and productive 50-year Anniversary relationship with our special partner, Chubu University. This relationship has been one of the more productive international partnerships in our university’s history.
Since I was the visiting professor 40 years ago I must admit the my memory (I am now 89 years old) of that time is poor but in searching through documents to help I found this small banner which I have pictured here.
I started working with Chubu through the visiting professor program. Part of my role at the Center for International Studies was to support the incoming professor from Chubu.