Leadership Changes in FOTI
Prof. Hisashi Kobayashi has been appointed as the new President of Friends of UTokyo, Inc. (FOTI), effective April 1 2011. Mr. Junji Masuda, a partner of Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu NY LLP, who had served as the founding President of FOTI since September 2007, will remain on the Board as President Emeritus. Prof. Kobayashi, a former Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Sherman Fairchild University Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Princeton University, joined FOTI’s Board as a Director in September 2007, and had chaired the FOTI Advisory Committee since June 2009. Mr. Motoatsu Sakurai, President of Japan Society of New York and a former Ambassador and Consul General of Japan in New York, is the new chair of the Advisory Committee, which added five new members. They are: Mr. Shunichiro Kishioka, Chairman of ITA, Inc. and Honorary President of Chicago Akamon-kai; Dr. Yuichiro Kuwama, Medical Director of the Japanese Medical Practice at Beth Israel Medical Center; Dr. Geeta Mehta, Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University; Mr. Yasuo Okamoto, partner, Hughes, Hubard & Reed LLP, and President of New York Icho-kai; and Mr. Seiei Ono, President and CEO of Mitsubishi International Corp. Mr. Yasuo Fuskushima, who had served on the Board as Secretary & Treasurer since September 2007, resigned on May 1, 2011, and the Board is seeking nominations of candidates for a new Secretary and a new Treasurer (see the article below “Call for Nominations”). Articles in this newsletter:
Call for Nominations for new Secretary and Treasurer
FOTI seeks nominations of candidates to serve as Secretary or Treasurer on the Board of Directors. Until March 2011 these two positions were held by Mr. Yasuo Fukushima, CPA. At present, Mr. Yasuhide Watanabe, NO&T NY, is serving as an interim Secretary, and Prof. Kobayashi, the President, as an interim Treasurer. Job Description: Secretary and Director Work closely with the President and Treasurer as an executive director of FOTI. He/she needs to be a good communicator. Take minutes of Board meetings and obtain signatures of other Board members, if resolutions are made in the meetings. Keep and maintain all the essential documents. Job Description: Treasurer and Director Work closely with the President and Secretary as an executive director of FOTI. He/she is expected to serve as the Chief Financial Officer of FOTI. Prepare quarterly financial statements to be presented to the Board, and prepare and file Federal and State tax returns. Work with the FOTI’s accounting firm when review or auditing of FOTI’s financial statements is required. Regarding the search of candidates for the two important positions, President Kobayashi states, “FOTI is still a small foundation in its infancy, so the volume and complexity of tasks expected of Secretary or Treasurer are not so much. But we are looking for individuals who are enthusiastic about the worthwhile cause of FOTI and are willing to help FOTI enhance its visibility and expand its activities.” With regard to the qualifications, “Candidates do not have to be UTokyo alumni, nor need to be Japanese, since we can conduct business in English, and I believe that FOTI and its Board will greatly benefit by having Directors with diverse cultural and educational backgrounds. Although the FOTI Board conducts much of its communications and discussion by email and teleconferencing, we meet a few times a year in New York City. So individuals who reside in the vicinity of New York City are preferred,” says Kobayashi. Please submit names and relevant information to nomination@friendsoftodai.org or complete the on-line nomination form by July 31st, 2011. To download a nomination form to attach to an email, download and fill out the PDF form and send to nomination@friendsoftodai.org. Self-nominations are also welcome. If you have any questions, please email president@friendsoftodai.org Thank you for your nomination. Articles in this newsletter:
Dr. Hiroshi Komiyama, President Emeritus of UTokyo joins the FOTI Board
The FOTI Board voted on May 11th to appoint Dr. Hiroshi Komiyama, Chairman of the Institute of Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. and the past President of the University of Tokyo, to join the FOTI Board as Honorary Director. They also appointed Mr. Junji Masuda to continue to serve the Board as President Emeritus. Dr. Komiyama served as the 28th President of UTokyo from April 2005 through March 2009, and conceived an idea of creating a not-for-profit organization in the U.S. to promote his globalization effort for UTokyo. Mr. Masuda, the then President of New York Icho-kai, was asked to implement President Komiyama’s idea and served as the founding president of FOTI from September 2007 till March 2011. “We are just delighted that Dr. Komiyama and Mr. Masuda have graciously accepted our request to serve on the FOTI Board. They are, so to speak, the father and mother of FOTI, and their wisdom and stature will immensely help boost FOTI’s visibility and recognition here in the States and in Japan, ” said President Kobayashi. Articles in this newsletter:
Message from the President
Dear Friends of UTokyo: It is my great honor and privilege to serve Friends of UTokyo, Inc. (FOTI) as its new President, succeeding my predecessor and founding President, Mr. Junji Masuda. Under his leadership we launched our first fundraising effort in November 2009, and it is indeed gratifying that we already have begun to witness some impacts of our activities. Last year, we provided small research grants to the UTokyo-Yale Initiative (TYI) on “Japan Study,” and to the University of California at Berkeley for their joint research program with UTokyo, called IPMU (the Institute for Physics and Mathematics of the Universe). This summer, we are supporting (see the article below) seven outstanding students from U.C. Berkeley, Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who are studying or conducting research at UTokyo, and six UTokyo students who attend summer courses at Berkeley or Yale. The purposes of Friends of UTokyo Inc. are twofold. One is to initiate or help various activities to globalize UTokyo by encouraging its students and faculty members to study or conduct research at leading U.S. universities. The second purpose is to encourage U.S. students and scholars to become interested in Japanese science & technology, its culture, history, society, etc. Such international experiences are indispensable for the younger generations of both countries to become global leaders of the future. Our ultimate objective is not just to globalize UTokyo alone. All leading universities in Japan and U.S. must strive to nurture their students to become well educated with international experiences and to make them well prepared to become future leaders in this increasingly complex and globalized world. FOTI is not designed for social activities or information exchange among UTokyo alumni. Rather, it has the noble mission and worthwhile cause to achieve further internationalization of UTokyo and other institutions of higher learning in Japan and the U.S. To the best of our knowledge, FOTI is the only public charity organization with tax exempt status recognized by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) among numerous organizations in the U.S. associated with Japanese universities. Given the enormous debt Japan carries today and the daunting tasks of reconstructing the country from the tragic aftermath of the recent quake and tsunami of unprecedented scale, and the subsequent nuclear power plants’ disaster, we fear that the Government will not be able to allocate adequate resources to educate and nurture future leaders for the nation, and it will be our responsibility of individuals and members of the private sector to fill this gap. Thus, the role that FOTI intends to play for human capital development will be more critical than ever. Although we are constrained to select our activities within the framework defined in our original application to the IRS, we want FOTI to act as a powerful catalyst for collaborative research and exchanges of students and scholars across the Pacific, and we need strong support from individuals, companies and foundations both in Japan and the U.S. I believe that we should be able to find creative ways, within our given constraints, for worthwhile programs that we want to support, as long as our financial resources allow us to do so. We seek and value innovative ideas and suggestions you might have concerning activities of FOTI and our fundraising efforts. Please send your thoughts to president@friendsoftodai.org. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members of the Board, its Advisory Committee and those who have made monetary or nonmonetary contributions to FOTI. Their valuable support has allowed FOTI to implement the aforementioned grants and award programs. We are especially grateful to the generosity of Shintech Inc, a U.S. subsidiary of Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. At present, the dividends from Shintech’s Trust Fund represent more than 60% of the total revenue of FOTI. One of our priorities is to broaden the base of our support by reaching out to as many friends of UTokyo as we can possibly identify. So we request your assistance in introducing FOTI to your friends, your employers, other companies and organizations who might find our activities worthwhile to support. We also need volunteers who can help FOTI by serving as officers (see the call for nominations of candidates for directors), by reviewing grants and award applications, or by organizing useful discussion meetings (see the news article below on a UTokyo Ryuugakusei group). Please visit our website www.friendsoftodai.org for further information. We look forward to working with all of you to nurture leaders of the future. Sincerely yours, Hisashi Kobayashi President, Friends of UTokyo, Inc. Articles in this newsletter:
Seven U.S. Students and Six UTokyo Students receive FOTI Awards
FOTI has selected thirteen outstanding students as recipients of the 2011 FOTI International Leadership Award (FOTI-ILA). This award, which was introduced last year, is intended to nurture future global leaders of the U.S. and Japan by providing financial support to students with leadership quality who plan to take summer courses or to conduct their research as summer interns. Ms. Tiffany Pang of Yale University, and three students of the University of California at Berkeley (UCB)—Ms. Melissa Milder, Ms. Lisa Bohn and Ms. Kristin Low—will attend the 2011 Global Summer Program (GSP) held at UTokyo as recipients of the FOTI Awards. The GSP is the summer school organized by the IARU (International Alliance of Research Universities), whose ten member universities include UCB and Yale in the U.S. and UTokyo in Japan. Each member university offers several courses: Tiffany of Yale will attend 3 courses: “Introduction to Japanese Language,” “Nanoscience,” and “Japan in Today’s World.” Melissa, Lisa and Kristin of UCB will attend one course each: “Nanoscience,” “Japan in Today’s World,” and “Sustainable Urban Management,” respectively. Out of the six UTokyo students, Mr. Kawato Takeshi and Mr. Zoheir Mottaki will both attend UCB’s GSP course “Media and Society: The Middle East in the Global Context,” while Mr. Yutaro Mochida and Ms. Manae Uchibori will be enrolled in “Human Security and Peacebuilding,” also a GSP organized by UCB. Ms. Azusa Aoki and Mr. Yasuhiro Okazawa will attend Yale’s English Language Institute (ELI). FOTI will also support three MIT students who will do research as summer interns at UTokyo. Mr. Jose Lobez, a Ph.D. candidate in Chemistry, will be working with Prof. Takuzo Aida. Mr. Shion An, an undergraduate, will be working with Prof. Takeaki Ozawa of the Chemistry Department. Mr. Michael Kotson, also an undergraduate, will be working with Prof. Yasushi Suto of the Physics Department. Articles in this newsletter:
Over 2000 UTokyo Students attended the "Study Abroad Fair 2011" at the Komaba Campus
The University of Tokyo hosted “Study Abroad Fair: 2011” on May 19 and 20 at 6 p.m. through 8:30 pm, primarily for its freshmen and sophomores at the Komaba campus. The goal of the program was to encourage them to seek study opportunities outside Japan. Participated by more than 2,000 UTokyo students, the Fair provided both general as well as specific information about study abroad programs offered by various countries in North-America, Europe, Asia and other Pacific Rim countries. The range of presentations covered from exchange programs, summer schools, international volunteer activities, to internship programs. The Presenters were representatives of such organizations as the Fulbright Japan program, the British Council, the Canadian Embassy, the Australian Embassy, the Chinese Embassy, and DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst or the German Academic Exchange Service). Additionally, a wide range of organizations engaged in or supporting students’ study or volunteer activities abroad explained their programs. They included the Council on International Educational Exchange, the Japan International Exchange Agency, Abroad in Komaba (AIKOM) , and Friends of UTokyo, Inc. (FOTI). Mr. Yoichi Yoshida of the Development Division of the Hongo Campus represented FOTI and explained FOTI’s International Leadership Award (FOTI-ILA) at the Fair. He commented, “Students appeared quite interested in the FOTI Award’s selection criteria which emphasize not only the academic qualifications but also leadership potentials of applicants. There was keen interest in FOTI and as many as 100 FOTI flyers were taken by the students. Articles in this newsletter:
UTokyo Ryuugakusei Alumni Lunch Discussion: Moving Forward after the Tohoku Earthquake
On May 28th (Saturday) a UTokyo Ryuugakusei alumni group (i.e., a group of non-Japanese who studied at UTokyo) in the New York area organized a lunch discussion meeting, titled “Japan: Moving Forward after the Tohoku Earthquake.” The panelists, Dr. Dennis Loh and Dr. Paul Sheard discussed what happened in Japan before, during and after the earthquake, why it happened, and what it means for the future of Japan, Asia and the world. Mr. Krishen Mehta served as a discussant and Mr. James Rosenbluth as the moderator. Dr. Loh is in charge of the Medicine, Science and Foreign Policy programs at the Harvard Club of New York City, and Dr. Sheard is the Global Chief Economist and the Head of Economic Research, Nomura Securities International in New York. An active Q&A session followed the presentations, involving a wide spectrum of about 25 in the audience, ranging from UTokyo Rygakusei alumni, UTokyo alumni and other friends of UTokyo. This event was hosted by Prof. Geeta Mehta, who earned her Ph.D. in Architecture from UTokyo and is a new member of the Advisory Committee of FOTI, and her husband Mr. Krishen Mehta at their residence in Manhattan. All the proceeds from contributions by the attendees were donated to FOTI’s scholarship fund. Articles in this newsletter: