Annual Board and Advisory Committee Joint Meeting Held

FUTI Annual Board and Advisory Committee Joint Meeting, October 1 (Sat), 12 pm-5pm
Board members present: Masaaki Yamada (chair), Ken Furuya, Yuichiro Kuwama, Shigenori Matsushita, Nobuko Sakurai, Fumiko Tamura
Advisory Committee (AC) member present: Iwao Ojima
Other present: Masako Osako
FUTI’s Annual Board and Advisory Committee joint meeting was held at the UTokyo New York office in New York, commencing at 12pm on October 1, 2016.
After President Masaaki Yamada’s welcome greeting, Ms. Masako Osako, acting Secretary, presented the minutes of the Annual Board meetings held on September 19, 2015 and May 9, 2016. The minutes were unanimously approved by the Board.
▪        UTokyo Today
Mr. K. Furuya provided updates on various topics related to UTokyo, including: The UTokyo Vision 2020 (recently announced by President Makoto Gonokami, president of UTokyo), its various activities toward the future (such as the UTokyo Sports Science Initiative), and its globalization efforts such as academic exchange programs and construction of a global campus model.  (See slides “UTokyo Today”)
▪        Financial Statements for FY 15/16 and Related Items
Mr. Kuwama and Ms. Tamura reported the financial results for FY 15/16 based on the materials presented to the board members. The analysis is summarized as follows:

  •        Revenues increased significantly from $117K (FYE 6/30/2015) to $318K (FYE 6/30/2016) due to:

¨      the contribution from Ito Foundation USA ($200K)
¨      Shintech trust distribution ($35K )
¨      $80K from general public, including a major donor who contributed $20K

  •        FUTI passed the public support test (33%) and remains to be a public charity.
  •        FUTI’s operating reserves are adequate. Operating reserve of  (=Cash $432K – Grant authorized but not paid $161K) amounts to $271K. Current “Operating reserve” to ”annual budget” ratio of 90% is within the generally recommended ratio range of 50% to 100%.

Mr. Kuwama added:

  •        In FY15/16, donations from UTokyo alumni (excluding one-time large grant of $20k as mentioned above)  increased only slightly from the FY14/15 level, but they did not reach the FY13/14 level. In short, UTokyo alumni donation amount has been essentially flat over the past several years.

Board members approved the financial analysis and thanked Dr. Kuwama and Ms. Tamura for it.
▪        Scholarship and Research Grant Programs
Mr. S. Matsushita, chair of the Scholarship Committee, provided updates of the FUTI’s 2016 Global Leadership Program and the Ito USA-FUTI Scholarship program. He also commented:

  •        The decline in the number of UTokyo applicants and award recipients appears to be related to the introduction of the new four-term system at UTokyo. We intend to make effort in asserting  the importance of summer study abroad programs.
  •        The trend of U.S. students’ participation in the UTokyo’s  summer programs remain robust/順調—Amy can you think of a better term?
  •        The Ito USA Foundation-FUTI scholarship program was launched successfully. We will continue to be vigilant in implementing it.
  •        The award section of the webpages were revised in order to  provide accurate information to applicants and to allow for better communication of their information to the reviewers.

Mr. Yamada provided updates on FUTI’s grant programs which included an overview of the 2016 recipients, namely, the IPMU (UC Berkeley -UTokyo) program and the Columbia-UTokyo program. He also reported that FUTI provided a travel grant ($7K) this year for the first time to support Yale-UTokyo exchange of scholars under the Yamakawa Kenjiro Memorial Lecture series.
Note: for further details on FUTI scholarship programs, please visit here and here.
▪        Report by the AC Committee
In the absence of Mr. H. Kobayashi (chair of AC), Mr. M. Yamada reported on the activities of the AC in the FY 2015-16 and changes of the AC members. Ms. Sakurai and Ms.Tamura, formerly AC members, became Board members and Mr. Ojima joined the Committee as a new member.
▪        Report on FUTI’s Relationship with Alumni Groups
Ms. M. Osako gave a presentation titled “FUTI and UTokyo Alumni Group: Establishing a Mutually Beneficial Relationship” and recommended that we explore opportunities for closer relationships with alumni groups.
▪        General Discussion

  •        FUTI organization chart was amended and approved.
  •        The Board agreed that we need to increase the number of  AC members. Several persons were suggested as candidates for  the position. But no action was taken.

▪        Appointment of Directors and Officers, Advisory Committee Members and Award Committee Members, etc.
The Board unanimously approved the following appointments:
President/Director of University Relations
Masaaki Yamada
Vice-President/Treasurer
Yuichiro Kuwama
Secretary (Acting)
Masako Osako
Directors
Ken Furuya, Koichi Hamada, Sumiko Ito, Shigenori Matsushita, Nobuko Sakurai, Fumiko Tamura
President Emeritus
Hisashi Kobayashi
Advisory Committee Chair
Hisashi Kobayashi
Advisory Committee Members
Shunichiro Kishioka, Takeshi Komoto, Geeta Mehta, Iwao Ojima, Yasuo Okamoto, Ko-Yung Tung
Scholarship Committee Chair
Shigenori Matsushita
Scholarship Committee Members
Hisashi Kobayashi, Iwao Ojima, Masako Osako, Nobuko Sakurai, Masaaki Yamada
Jimukyoku cho (Managing Director of Operations)
Masako Osako

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