Nori Tarui: Studying Abroad and Human Connections

2021/06/10

As part of my duties at the university, I have been in charge of international collaboration and the acceptance and promotion of study abroad and training programs for the past few years. Recently, through academic affairs, I have often reaffirmed the importance of human connections (sometimes across borders), which has been encouraging.

Travel for students and researchers has been significantly restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since last spring, exchange programs and visiting study programs have unfortunately been cancelled or postponed across the board. A sense of apprehension that resuming international educational exchange would be difficult also spread among my colleagues.

Amidst such a pessimistic situation, I happened to be asked by several partner universities in Japan to provide a "virtual training program." Programs to learn about Hawaii's history, culture, environment, and sustainability issues through university education, student exchange, and visits to related facilities in the state had previously been offered as one- to three-week on-site training. Now, such programs were to be conducted online. While it seemed effective for sustaining difficult international exchanges, the program was designed and implemented amidst concerns about whether such a virtual program would actually be attractive to Japanese students. Concerns were raised from both inside and outside the university, such as, "Everyone probably likes Hawaii, but won't they think it's meaningless if they don't actually go there?"

I participated in the program's online classroom as a facilitator and lecturer, and I received surprisingly positive and enthusiastic feedback from the participating students. Learning about topics that Japan also faces, such as the background and challenges of the large-scale introduction of renewable energy in Hawaii and the economic effects of sea-level rise due to global warming, seems to be of great interest.

Many participants emphasized two other points in their post-program evaluations. One was the joy of communicating their thoughts in English to students and faculty from other universities. The fact that we were able to ensure opportunities for even usually reserved students to speak online may be the reason for this positive evaluation. The other was that the opportunity for dialogue with University of Hawaiʻi students via Zoom was very good. Interacting with students from different cultural backgrounds seemed to be stimulating.

Although I offered the online training with some skepticism, the Japanese students who participated made me reaffirm the importance of international exchange in maintaining and expanding human connections.