Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Keio Academy of New York

Ever since Keio Academy of New York was established in October 23, 1990, the school has promoted international exchange with the underlying principle of providing a bilingual and bicultural education. On the occasion of the Academy’s 25th anniversary, we launched the 25th Anniversary Projects and a fundraising campaign for these initiatives in order to further enhance our role as a center for developing international education and research.
On the educational front, since the start of the new academic year, we have been implementing a number of concrete reform proposals put forth by the Project 25 taskforce, which we set up in January 2014 with the objective to improve English education and develop global leaders. Additionally, in view of the situation where classrooms that should be used primarily for classes and studying are being used for extracurricular activities, we have decided to construct the Student Center (tentative name), which will include an auditorium and space for extracurricular activities. Following the common practice in the US, we held a public hearing and are currently at the final stages of the application process for obtaining a construction permit. Furthermore, as part of our efforts to expand the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and to maintain and improve the digital media system, since September we began offering wireless internet access inside the school and equipping the classrooms with interactive digital whiteboards (bottom image) that are already being used in class.

Regarding the publication of the 25th Anniversary booklet, we traced the history of the school from its establishment to the present day, incorporating as many photos as possible. We will also hold the 25th Anniversary Ceremony on November 21 this year at the Keio Academy of New York campus.
In order to move these projects forward, we established the 25th Anniversary Projects Committee and the 25th Anniversary Fundraising Committee . Once a month the committee members hold a meeting with each project leader to discuss the progress of the projects as well as to develop strategies and confirm the status of the fundraising campaign.
The total budget for the 25th Anniversary Projects is USD 9 million and our fundraising goal is USD 3 million. The fundraising campaign started in April, 2014 and will end in December 2015. We are coordinating with the Office of Funding and related departments at Keio University in order to achieve our target within this relatively short period of time. As the Academy’s 25th Anniversary Projects was designated as one of the Keio University’s projects for developing international bases for education and research, donations to the 25th Anniversary Projects made by residents of Japan will be subject to an income tax deduction, and this aspect is markedly different compared with previous anniversary projects at the Academy.