Column

Greetings and Best Wishes in the New Year

Terry MacDougall
Director of the Educational Programs at the Stanford Japan Center

Permit me to update you on the educational programs (Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies/ KCJS and Stanford Center for Technology and Innovation/SCTI) at the Stanford Japan Center/SJC. These programs are now in their sixteenth year of operations and collectively will have trained close to 1,200 students by this spring. KCJS is a consortium of thirteen American universities which offers a Japanese language and area studies curriculum at the SJC, while SCTI registers only Stanford University students, mainly in engineering, sciences, economics and international relations. I will focus on the latter program in this brief report.

Among the program developments during the current academic year and plans for the near future are the following: SCTI will be offering a significantly revised curriculum from April, including two new upper division courses in electrical engineering, an expanded course on the Political Economy of Japan, a new course on Immigration, Citizenship and Identity in Japan, and two courses to be taught by visiting SCTI Professor Hans (Sepp) Gumbrecht. Professor Gumbrecht's courses are Philosophies of Technology and Space in Japanese Culture. The new EE offerings, on Circuits and Digital Systems, reflects a revision of the curriculum at the home campus and facilitates the participation of engineering students in study abroad. The Political Economy of Japan course will be taught from this year by Professor Toshihiko Hayashi, Chair of the Stanford Japan Center Board and Director of Stanford Japan Center-Research. Professor Hayashi will supplement the usual class sessions with a series of lectures by additional distinguished specialists to elucidate Japan's transition toward an information-based economy. The course also reflects a deepening of cooperation between the Research and Education divisions of the SJC. That cooperation includes research guidance for a number of KCJS students by SJC-R Executive Director Ichiya Nakamura, talks by both the Director and Executive to the KCJS students, and participation of the Education division in monthly roundtables organized by Research.

Stanford University currently runs overseas studies programs in Japan, Australia, Chile, the UK, France, Germany, and Russia and will be opening one in China later this year. Others are contemplated for Spain, Mexico, India and Africa. The SCTI course on Immigration, Citizenship and Identity us part of an effort to promote intellectual interaction among students across a number of these Centers. This is done by offering at each one or more courses around a similar theme, encouraging distant communications among the students taking these courses, and finally bringing a number of students and instructors together with leading home campus specialists at a conference, which this year will be in Berlin. The courses to be taught by Sepp Gumbrecht from the Comparative Literature Department of Stanford illustrate the inter-disciplinary nature of the curriculum, as he brings a humanistic perspective to the study of technology. The Visiting SCTI Professor for the spring 2005 SCTI quarter as well bridges disciplines. Professor Dwight Nishumura, with a foot in both electrical engineering and bioscience, will offer a course on Medical Imaging.



	English

Greetings and Best Wishes in the New Year
Terry MacDougall Director of the Educational Programs at the Stanford Japan Center

Permit me to update you on the educational programs (Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies/ KCJS and Stanford Center for Technology and Innovation/SCTI) at the Stanford Japan Center/SJC. These programs are now in their sixteenth year of operations and collectively will have trained close to 1,200 students by this spring. KCJS is a consortium of thirteen American universities which offers a Japanese language and area studies curriculum at the SJC, while SCTI registers only Stanford University students, mainly in engineering, sciences, economics and international relations. I will focus on the latter program in this brief report. Among the program developments during the current academic year and plans for the near future are the following: SCTI will be offering a significantly revised curriculum from April, including two new upper division courses in electrical engineering, an expanded course on the Political Economy of Japan, a new course on Immigration, Citizenship and Identity in Japan, and two courses to be taught by visiting SCTI Professor Hans (Sepp) Gumbrecht. Professor Gumbrecht's courses are Philosophies of Technology and Space in Japanese Culture. The new EE offerings, on Circuits and Digital Systems, reflects a revision of the curriculum at the home campus and facilitates the participation of engineering students in study abroad. The Political Economy of Japan course will be taught from this year by Professor Toshihiko Hayashi, Chair of the Stanford Japan Center Board and Director of Stanford Japan Center-Research. Professor Hayashi will supplement the usual class sessions with a series of lectures by additional distinguished specialists to elucidate Japan's transition toward an information-based economy. The course also reflects a deepening of cooperation between the Research and Education divisions of the SJC. That cooperation includes research guidance for a number of KCJS students by SJC-R Executive Director Ichiya Nakamura, talks by both the Director and Executive to the KCJS students, and participation of the Education division in monthly roundtables organized by Research. Stanford University currently runs overseas studies programs in Japan, Australia, Chile, the UK, France, Germany, and Russia and will be opening one in China later this year. Others are contemplated for Spain, Mexico, India and Africa. The SCTI course on Immigration, Citizenship and Identity us part of an effort to promote intellectual interaction among students across a number of these Centers. This is done by offering at each one or more courses around a similar theme, encouraging distant communications among the students taking these courses, and finally bringing a number of students and instructors together with leading home campus specialists at a conference, which this year will be in Berlin. The courses to be taught by Sepp Gumbrecht from the Comparative Literature Department of Stanford illustrate the inter-disciplinary nature of the curriculum, as he brings a humanistic perspective to the study of technology. The Visiting SCTI Professor for the spring 2005 SCTI quarter as well bridges disciplines. Professor Dwight Nishumura, with a foot in both electrical engineering and bioscience, will offer a course on Medical Imaging.