Anna Nagamine

Internationalization in Okinawan Universities

Since I attended an international elementary school and had teachers and classmates from various countries, the importance of internationalization had never occurred to me. However, after transferring to Japanese junior high and high school, and going on to a Japanese university, I have come to question the meaning of the internationalization that Japanese society emphasizes repeatedly. In the Faculty of Policy Studies at Chuo University, various courses with “international” and “cross-cultural” in their titles are offered. We have various language classes as well as lectures on ASEAN countries, China, European countries, Korea, India, Iran, Russia, the United States, and so forth. In addition, many foreign students from around the world attend Chuo University. Yet only six foreign professors are employed full-time in this faculty. What is internationalization? To what does internationalization in higher education refer? By focusing on these questions as they relate to universities in Okinawa, I would like to come to a stronger understanding of the way internationalization is proceeding in Japanese higher education.

First of all, what does the term “internationalization” mean? As Fred Halliday writes, “[t]he term international covers . . . a variety of issues and meanings. It is at once a spur and a sales gimmick, an appeal that issues as easily from the mouth of the financial manager as from the lips of the cosmopolitan scholar” (99). Especially in Japan, I believe, this term is abused. Unfortunately, universities are not an exception in intentionally overusing the term. For the purposes of this paper, my definition of “internationalization” comes from David Ewick:

Internationalization is an ongoing process that leads to increased awareness and understanding of the international community, increasing opportunity for the interaction between the local community and the international community, and a fostering and embracing of national and cultural diversity within the local community itself.

Even if we are clear about what internationalization signifies, however, another question remains. How may internationalization be measured? According to the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (2002a), the number of foreign students in Japan has reached approximately ninety-five thousand in May 2002, a remarkable increase of twenty-one percent in comparison to last year (10).

Figure 1. The number of foreign students in Japan

Source: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (2002a).

If the rate of increase remains steady the number of foreign students will reach a hundred thousand in 2003. However, as the Ministry points out in Wagakuni no ryugakusei seido no gaiyo (Outline of the Japanese foreign student system, 2002b), in comparison with some other countries the percentage of foreign students in Japanese higher education remains limited (4).

Source: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (2002b).

Additionally, the relation between the foreign students and other students in Japanese universities, what Ewick calls the “interaction between the local community and the international community” (1), is relatively weak, since in many cases the curriculum for foreign students and Japanese students differs completely, with separate departments and courses provided for foreign students in most universities. Though according to the Ministry data (2002b) over five hundred foreign students attended Chuo University last year (11), for example, I did not have a foreign classmate in my first three years at the college. Although I do not believe that foreign students are entirely isolated from other students in Japanese universities, the interaction between the groups is limited. In promoting internationalization, international exchanges always play a vital role, and providing students in Japanese universities the opportunity to hold exchanges with others from different cultural backgrounds is an important step toward internationalization. I believe it difficult to assure the process of internationalization, however, only by counting and increasing the number of foreign students.

To be internationalized, according to Onuma, “we start by accepting the other from a different cultural background . . . for his / her differences and accepting the other as a member of society with a guarantee of all rights” (qtd. Kitagawa 21). Thus, according to Kazuyuki Kitagawa, “the employment rate of foreign faculty members secured with equal rights as Japanese faculty members can be used as a tool in measuring internationalization” (21-22). Even though “it is not illegal to employ a foreign faculty member without a contract,” Kitagawa notes (5), foreign lecturers in many cases work under a one- to three-year contract, without possibility of renewal, in Japanese universities. The Japanese Immigration Office (Nyukoku kanri kyoku) say this is because the validity of residence for the purpose of teaching is one or three years. This unconditionally limits foreign faculty members’ residence in Japan, and allows the universities to take advantage of foreign faculty, especially foreign lecturers. According to Alan Brender, “[o]ver the past decade numerous foreign lecturers have had contracts terminated,” and “some universities . . . suddenly include a non renewal clause in their contracts” (A45). Brender notes in this regard the Sapporo High Court ruling about Gwendolyn Gallagher, an American instructor who formerly taught at Asahikawa University:

In February 2002, the court rejected Ms. Gallagher’s petition [to continue her employment]. Among the reasons cited were that because Ms. Gallagher had been in Japan for a long time and was married to a Japanese man, she is unable to teach foreign culture as found in foreign countries (A46).

Not only are foreign lecturers forced to abide by the limited contract, lecturers who have taught in Japan for long years are being discriminated against for their “un-foreignness.”

In present Japan, no foreign faculty member in a national or municipal university is guaranteed rights equal to a Japanese faculty member. This is due to the Kokuritsu daigaku mataha kouritsu no daigaku ni okeru gaikokujin kyouin no ninyoutou ni kansuru tokubetsu sochiho, the Exemption Law Regarding the Employment of Foreign Faculty Members in National and Municipal Universities. Some private universities seem to follow this law as well. Although the law was intended to open our doors to foreign faculty members when established in 1982, it again demonstrates the indifference of the Japanese government to real internationalization. Kitagawa notes that when universities were first established in Japan, the former Ministry of Education and university authorities paid high salaries to foreign faculty members in order to exclude them from the governance of universities (35). Kitagawa adds that

this custom was carried on for a hundred years in the national university system of [employing] foreign faculty members, and surprisingly the custom is inherited even in the Exemption Law Regarding the Employment of Foreign Faculty Members . . . that was enacted for the purpose of abolishing these discriminations [against foreign faculty members] (35).

These are articles 2.1 to 2.3 of the Exemption Law:

Article 2.1: National and municipal universities are permitted to employ foreigners (people without Japanese citizenship) as a professor, assistant professor, or lecturer (referred to as “faculty member” below.

Article 2.2: A faculty member employed according to article 2.1 may not be excluded from becoming a member of an administrative council, such as a professorate, and participating with a vote.

Article 2.3: The term of a faculty member employed according to Article 2.1 is decided by the university president according to the deliberation of the council prescribed by Article 2.4 of the Exemption Law of Educational Government Employees.

Since the contract of a foreign faculty member is determined by the president of the university, as Brender points out, “foreign faculty members [are] more subject to administrative whims” (A45) than Japanese faculty members. Given that foreign faculty at national, municipal, and many private universities are not treated equally, measuring internationalization is in effect nonsense. Observing the employment of foreign faculty members at Okinawan universities will assist in understanding the degree to which Okinawa is bounded.

The reason I shall focus on Okinawan universities is that both the Japanese government and the Okinawan prefectural government have repeatedly emphasized the importance of internationalization in Okinawan universities. According to the Okinawa shiko keikaku, the Okinawan Promotion Plan, set forth in July 2002 by the Cabinet Office (2002), by “building a district [Okinawa] which can contribute in the development of the Asia-Pacific region,” the government will “proceed in securing strongholds of world-level academic studies and arts . . . as well as taking measures to enhance internationalization in the region and to construct a network with the world.”

The “basic course” proposed in the Plan, however, is not clearly defined. Both the Okinawan prefectural government and the Japanese government emphasize the importance of development in academic fields in Okinawa, but fail to make the plan concrete. What specifically do the governments mean by internationalization? What are the plans to further advance academic studies in Okinawa?

Okinawa has six four-year universities, the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa Prefectural College of Nursing, Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, Okinawa International University, Okinawa University, and Meio university. I shall mainly focus on the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa International University, Okinawa University, and Meio University, since the Okinawa Prefectural College of Nursing is a single-department college without an office of international exchange and the Okinawa Prefectural university of Arts, judging from Internet pages, places no emphasis on internationalization.

The Internet sites of the four universities under discussion stress the importance of internationalization. According to Moshin Morita, President of the University of the Ryukyus, “the main image of the University of the Ryukyus is that it is a ‘university with . . . international characteristics.’” The Department of British and American Language and Culture and the Department of Society and Culture of Okinawa International University also claim that their distinctive feature lies in the “training of students capable of adapting to internationalization” and “broadening international perspectives from Okinawa to Asia.” As for the Department of International Communication at Okinawa University, their objective lies in “training prosperous students capable of taking part in international exchange.” Meio University emphasizes “international understanding” as among its characteristics. The percentage of foreign faculty members at these universities raises questions about these claims, however:

Source: University web sites

With the exception of Meio, one wonders about the self-confident proclamations that these universities are capable of internationalizing their students.

Compared with other universities in Okinawa and other national universities in Japan, the University of the Ryukyus has a distinctive background. According to Toshiaki Arashiro and the University of the Ryukyus, at the time the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (USCAR) replaced the U.S. military government in 1950, the university was established according to a project planned by the former Ministry of Education, Ryukyu Bureau of GHQ (268). Though the history of its establishment may differ from other Okinawan universities, however, this certainly has not heightened consciousness of internationalization in the university. The Department of Languages and Cultures of the Faculty of Law and Letters does not employ a single full-time foreign professor or assistant professor. With a student population of more than eight thousand, this is the largest university and the only national university in Okinawa, but in spite of proclamations to the contrary in its self promotion it is certainly backward in the process of internationalization.

As for the Okinawa International University, the description of the “English Instructors” course offered in the Department of British and American Language and Culture, claims that the course will “train English instructors with teaching ability supported by advanced knowledge of English and Western cultures and who can contribute to internationalization.” This raises a question, however: How can one contribute to internationalization by being educated only in “Western cultures”? Edward Said’s definition of “Orientalism” is pertinent here: it is “a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident’” (2). The department reference to “Western” culture demonstrates the degree to which the university remains constrained in a world where “Orient” and “Occident” are essentially different. The department assumes that to be an English speaker with a knowledge of the “Western” world automatically internationalizes the students, and that for internationalization understanding cultures other than the “Western” is unnecessary. In addition, the claim of the Department of Society and Culture that it has the capability to broaden Asia’s perspective is odd. Under what circumstances is the department eligible to promote international perspectives to Asia? Where are the international voices in such a discourse? Three foreign faculty members at the second largest university in Okinawa, fostering over four thousand students, is by any standard insufficient.

The Department of International Communication at Okinawa University is in some ways different from the departments and universities discussed above. The introduction to the department states that “by studying the histories and cultures of Okinawa, Japan, Asia, and the United States” it hopes to educate students who can take part in cultural exchanges. Learning the histories of numerous countries and cultures may be difficult, but to increase cultural exchange by applying communicative skills achieved through the study of particular countries and regions is effective. Additionally, this department employs four full-time foreign faculty members, eighteen percent of the total faculty of the department. The Department of Law and Economics and the Department of Welfare and Culture have no full-time foreign faculty, however, and so the overall percentage of foreign faculty at Okinawa University is limited to five.

With foreign faculty accounting for eleven percent of total faculty members, Meio University stands out when compared with the others. Foreign faculty members are employed in each of the three departments, of International Cultural Studies, Management and Information, and Tourism. The Department of International Cultural Studies provides courses in the cultures of Southeast Asia and Central and South America. In Okinawa these subjects are available only at Meio. Even though the department has five foreign faculty members, most are English-language teachers. Some Southeast Asian and Central and South American countries are represented, however.

Meio also stands apart in another way. In the seminar for which I am writing this thesis, our professor has emphasized that much of our knowledge comes from representation, and that from a certain perspective knowledge may be acquired only in two ways, through representation and through experience. I believe that acquiring knowledge only through representation demarcates what we can know. Though drawing a definite line between representation and experience is impossible, since one is dependent on the other, through direct experience we can nonetheless come to a better, or at least a more complete, knowledge of others. In the case of the Department of International Cultural Studies at meio, students may go abroad to North, Central, and South America and to Southeast Asia, and this is praiseworthy. Still, though foreign faculty employment at Meio is high compared with the other universities in Okinawa, it seems insufficient to adequately promote internationalization, and in any case though Meio is clearly more internationalized than other Okinawan universities, its enrollment is little over fifteen hundred, and its influence in Okinawa is limited compared with, especially, the University of the Ryukyus.

Though the practices of some universities are in some ways in keeping with their words about internationalization, those of others are not. It seems to me shameful to say that the two largest universities in Okinawa, including the only national university, are the ones most careless of the importance of internationalization. This situation is especially troubling since a new graduate university, specializing in the field of natural science, is to be established in Okinawa in 2007. With the efforts of the former Minister of State for Okinawa, Kouji Omi, this university aims to be, according to an interview with the minister published in Okinawa Times, “the best in the world” (2002b). According to the Okinawa Times, “the president of the university will be a world authority, a Nobel laureate. Of the faculty members of two hundred and student of five hundred, half are to be foreign. All the lectures are to be in English” (2002b). The Times reports further that “the faculty members are to become ‘non-government employees,’ and will have a contract with the university,” leading to “a model case in the process of privatizing national universities” (2002c). Even though my expectation is high for this new graduate university and its aim to create “a world level intellectual cluster” (Okinawa Promotion Plan), in Okinawa this will be impossible without dramatic improvement in the exclusive attitudes of the universities toward internationalizing.

Okinawa is in many ways distinct in Japan. Historically, we built strong relations with surrounding countries. During the Ryukyu Kingdom (1429-1879) Okinawa experienced frequent cultural exchanges and carried out commercial relations with many countries, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and others. Geographically, within a radius of fifteen hundred kilometers from Naha lie the capitals of many Asian countries, China, Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan among them. In spite of this background, however, at present Okinawan universities and society lacks substantial knowledge and understanding of countries and regions that once had stronger ties with Okinawa than with Japan. This remains true despite the fact that many foreign students who come to Okinawa are from these Asian countries. International understanding is crucial in building relationships with other countries, and this lack of understanding will inhibit Okinawa’s possibilities and opportunities.

To solve this problem and to create an environment with the potential of fostering a graduate university that will be internationalized, first a legal reform is necessary to assure that the rights of foreign faculty members, who have been long marginalized, are equal to those of japanese faculty. Secondly, the Okinawan and the Japanese governments must encourage Okinawan universities to employ many more foreign faculty members. Thirdly, the universities must examine themselves and take aggressive action to remedy their pathetic practices in regard to internationalization. In a recent public opinion survey carried out by the Public Relations Office for the Japanese Cabinet (Naikakufu daijin kanbo seifu shitsu) more than forty-four percent of respondents thought that acquiring an “international character” (kokusai-sei) is expected of university students, who are to play an important role in the international society. Public awareness of the Japanese words for “international” and “internationalization” has been elevated due to the frequency of their use, but what is more important is the meaning to which the words refer.

Icharibachode. In Okinawan dialect this common expression is used when meeting new people. It means, “once we meet, we are all brothers and sisters.” Now is the time that we need this spirit of Icharibachode, not only in internationalizing the universities, but in internationalizing the society itself. Okinawa has experienced marginalization in its own history, and Okinawans know what it is like to have no voice. Let our brothers and sisters represent themselves, and their voices be heard.

References

Arashiro, Toshiaki. 1995. Koutou gakou Ryukyu Okinawa shi [High school history of Ryukyu and Okinawa], 3rd ed. Naha: Okinawa ken rekishi kyouiku kenkyûkai.

Brender, Alan. 2001. Foreign lecturers bear the brunt of budget pain at Japanese universities. Chronicle of Higher Education 47(28), A45-A46.

Cabinet Office. 2002. Okinawa shinko keikaku* [Okinawa Promotion Plan]. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Ewick, David. 2002, July 22. E-mail to author.

Halliday, Fred. 1999. The Chimera of the “International University.” International Affairs 75(1), 99-120.

Houko. Kokuritsu daigaku mataha kouritsu no daigaku ni okeru gaikokujin kyouin no ninyoutou ni kansuru tokubetsu sochiho* [Exemption law regarding the employment of foreign faculty at national and municipal universities]. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Kitagawa, Kazuyuki. 1987. Daigaku kyouiku no kokusaika [Internationalization of university education]. Tokyo: Tamagawa University Press.

Meio University. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. (2002a) Ryugakusei ukeire no gaikyo [General situation of foreign student acceptance). Accessed 2002, November 27.

----------. Wagakuni no ryugakusei seido no gaiyou [Outline of Japanese foreign student system]. Tokyo: Monbukagakusho koto kyoiku kyoku ryugakuseika.

Naikakufu daijin kanbo seifu shitsu [Public relations office for the cabinet]. 2001. Kongo no daigaku kyoiku no arikata ni kansuru yoron chousa [Public opinion survey on the future of university education]. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Nyukoku kanri kyoku [Immigration office]. Zairyu shikaku ichiranhyou [Chart of resident status]. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Okinawa International University. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Okinawa Prefectural College of Nursing. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Okinawa Times. 2002a, July 14. Nichiyou no asa ni henshu kyokucho intabyu [Sunday morning interview with the editor]. Accessed 2002, November 27.

----------. 2002b, July 16. Shasetsu [Editorial]. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Okinawa University. Accessed 2002, November 27.

Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.

University of the Ryukyus. Accessed 2002, November 27.

*Not retrievable February 27, 2004.