Ms. Sumiko Ito becomes Treasurer and Director of FUTI
On December 5th, the Board of FUTI elected Ms. Sumiko Ito-Allison as Director and Treasurer, effective January 1, 2012. In addition to her general duties as a director, Ms. Ito will assume responsibilities for financial matters of FUTI. Ms. Ito is President of Arcadia Capital, Inc., a strategic consulting firm focused on cross border U.S.-Japanese business opportunities, which she founded in 1991. Prior to founding Arcadia, she worked as Head for Japanese Business Development for Alex Brown & Sons in Baltimore, Maryland. Ms. Ito began her career as an official for the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Japan. She subsequently moved to Strategic Planning Associates in Washington, D.C. and then to Nomura Securities International in New York. Ms. Ito has a keen interest in contemporary arts as well as Japanese traditional culture. She is a tea master of Enshu School of Tea and serves as the New York representative for Enshu School. She serves as Executive Director of Hara Museum Fund and is a Board member of Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association. Ms. Ito resides in Karuizawa during the summer months, where she has joined with local residents in helping children and mothers in the region of Fukushima, Japan who have been impacted by the nuclear plant disaster following the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake in March 2011. She received her B.A. degree in Economics from the University of Tokyo in 1974 and an M. Phil degree in Economics from the University of Oxford in 1980. “It is a great honor to serve FUTI as a Board member,“ said Ms. Ito. “I will try my best to promote international collaboration between UTokyo and American universities. Also I would like to contribute to the development of a ‘UTokyo community in the U.S.’ including alumni, non- Japanese students and teachers. “ Professor Kobayashi, President of FUTI, said, “We are very pleased to have Ms Ito as a new Board member. Her financial and business expertise and experience at non-profit organizations will be a great asset for further development of FUTI.” Articles in this newsletter:
Prof. Akihiko Tanaka to head JICA
Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba announced on Tuesday January 17th after a Cabinet meeting that Professor Akihiko Tanaka of International Politics, who has been Vice President of International Affairs of UTokyo and Director of FUTI since January of 2009, will become President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) from April 1, 2012, succeeding Dr. Sadako Ogata, who has served the position since 2003. Prof. Tanaka earned his B.A. degree in International Relations at the University of Tokyo’s College of Arts and Sciences in 1977 and his Ph.D. degree in Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. He was a Japanese member of the East Asia Vision Group, an advisory panel for the ASEAN+3 summit. He has also been a member of various government advisory panels including the Council on Security and Defense Capability and the Advisory Group on International Cooperation for Peace. He has written numerous books and articles in Japanese and English including The New Middle Ages: The World System in the 21st Century (The International House of Japan, 2002). His most recent edited volume was An East Asian Community and the United States (Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., 2007, co-edited with Ralph A. Cossa). In the International Master’s and Doctoral Program of ITASIA (Information, Technology and Society in Asia), Professor Tanaka has been responsible for “Introduction to Asian Studies” as well as “International Politics in East Asia.” Concerning Prof. Tanaka’s new appointment, FUTI President Hisashi Kobayashi says, “I would like to express my heartfelt congratulations to Prof. Tanaka on this very significant and internationally highly visible appointment. I also take this opportunity to thank him for his distinguished services for FUTI. He helped FUTI get closely linked with the International Division of UTokyo who oversees GSP and other international exchange programs. He has also been chairing the UTokyo-Yale Initiative program since its inception. His new appointment with JICA will be demanding of his time and may not allow him to continue serving FUTI as regularly as he has done in the past three years. But I would like to have his continued involvement in the FUTI matters in some manner.” Prof. Tanaka is expected to attend the FUTI Board meeting scheduled on March 8th. Articles in this newsletter:
A Message from Dr. Hiroshi Komiyama, an Honorary Director of FUTI
We humans cannot live without having relationships with others. In our life today, however, such relationships are becoming too weak and thin. As civilization has developed, spontaneous formation of communities has become rare, where people poke their noses into other people’s affairs, the poked parties respond and act in earnest, and such interactions eventually yield good results to society. In my opinion our society today needs more of such relationships. Historically speaking, support of education, scholarship or art has provided an environment for such relationships to flourish. In the rising tide of globalization, internationalization of the university is a top priority issue for us. How attractive an environment we can provide for our students and researchers should be the essence of our competition against other top-ranked institutions in the world. In order to succeed in such global competition, it is essential for our university—any university in Japan for that matter– to build up its financial base. Thus, I strived to strengthen our financial footing, when I served as the president of the University of Tokyo. As part of this effort, I asked our alumni in New York to establish FUTI and provide financial support of our education and research in the U.S. Four years have passed since then, and I find that FUTI has been making satisfactory progress and its future is promising. I sincerely hope to receive your greater cooperation to expand the activities of FUTI for years to come. Articles in this newsletter: