Firstly, my sincere congratulations to everyone connected to HSUH on the memorable event of this 50th Anniversary. It has been an interesting career journey for myself to be a part of HSUH and without doubt an amazing transformation for the university itself from the inception and its start in Ombetsu to the promising future of a new campus location and a rebirth.
I entered our university when it had another name, Higashi Nippon Gakuen University. It was a rather small and intimate private university in a location with nearby rice fields with just two faculties and a General Education Department of which I was a member. I had previously worked in a large national Japanese university and then just before entering HSUH a Japanese Prefectural College so this was a really different experience. It felt like a cozy homelike setting where everyone knew each other no matter if faculty, staff or students. It was a family style university.
There are so many things that could be shared in these nostalgic sentences but I would like to focus on two areas that I have very fond memories of. First, is that we were not only teachers and academic advisors in the General Education Department but also club advisors and so it was quite natural for me to be an advisor to the English Speaking Society club. The club was so active and motivated in those early years. It was quite unique that we not only had students attending club events but also teaching staff from both faculties. We held lunch sessions, after school sessions which I often led and the students held English speaking camps over holiday periods. ESS Speech Contests were even held for a few years when there was great energy and interest. The club functions were almost entirely produced by the members themselves and I was in awe of their energy, motivation and interest.
My other very fond memory was my small contribution to connect HSUH to some other universities abroad. Some foreign universities and HSUH had rather limited or short lived associations with HSUH like that of State University of New York at Buffalo or Melbourne University that I aided in bringing about but the University of Alberta was something special. I first visited the University of Alberta with just a delegation of 4. The President, the Deans of Pharmacy and Dentistry along with myself all wanted to see the university firsthand. It was love at first sight for all four of us. The campus itself was green and lush with such wonderful architectural academic buildings in an expanse at least two or three times that of the famous campus of Hokkaido University. The campus looked like the set of a fairy tale university in a Hollywood movie. The faculty of Pharmacy and other members from Dentistry were all so welcoming to our delegation that we felt a bond immediately. We then met with staff from the Faculty of Extension which would organize a three week summer program of English language study on weekday mornings with afternoons filled with really special activities where our different faculty students could experience their respective fields with weekly seminars, professional visits, special tours and other varied cultural events. After our first visit we returned back to our campus in Tobetsu excited by the prospect of sharing this dreamlike educational and cultural experience of University of Alberta with everyone at HSUH.
Prof. John Bachynsky and Prof. Leonard Wiebe were the pioneers for our university partnership. John had an amazing program designed for our Pharmacy students where they had faculty seminars led by U of A Pharmacy students, Edmonton city drugstore visitations and even arranged for many fun social activities so that students and participants from both universities could get to know each other better. With the profound support of Len and John we built all the other faculty programs. Prof. Mimi Hui was the other pioneer directing all facets of our stay from the Faculty of Extention of the U of A Summer Program with her excellent team of English teachers, class monitors and homestay arrangements. I worked with Mimi for over 30 years and now we are both retired but remain good friends. Sadly, John Bachynsky passed away at the end of 2023. He was the cornerstone to our two universities relationship and a great friend that will always be remembered. May his memory be a blessing. Len and I remain great buddies and still keep in contact. It was a joy to bring over 400 of our students with many HSUH instructors taking part and our chaperones who were my colleagues in HSUH English section for a period of more than two decades to experience this precious time.
Thank you HSUH for 50 years of special programs and a university that truly cares. I was happy to be a part of it.