Chapel Hill | Motohiro Tsuchiya, Vice-President / Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance

I would be happy if I could visit a new city every year. Even though I am in charge of international affairs, I feel like I visit the same places every year. I want to go to a new city somewhere.

This year, I was able to visit Chapel Hill in North Carolina, in the southern United States. It was probably my first time in North Carolina itself. As the name suggests, Chapel Hill is famous for the hill where a chapel was built in the 18th century, but above all, it is a college town where the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) stands prominently.

My fellow Vice-President, Akiyo Okuda, earned her Ph.D. at this university. I had heard stories about her time studying at UNC and was interested in the school when Heather Ward, the Associate Provost, visited Keio Mita Campus. Thanks to that connection, I was able to visit UNC in August.

It takes just under 13 hours from Haneda Airport to Washington, D.C. After a 2-hour and 45-minute layover, I caught the next flight and arrived at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in about 1 hour and 15 minutes. From there, it is about a 30-minute drive to Chapel Hill.

The "Raleigh" in Raleigh-Durham Airport refers to the capital of North Carolina. Raleigh is home to North Carolina State University. However, while it is a state university in the same system as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, it is a separately managed institution. "Durham" refers to the city of Durham, where Duke University is located. Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill each host prominent universities and are reportedly known as the Research Triangle.

Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill seem to have a rivalry similar to that of Keio and Waseda, and their regular basketball games are said to be very exciting. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the alma mater of basketball superstar Michael Jordan. It is a dream university for students who play basketball, and Keio students who go there on exchange programs happily report back about it.

I had assumed it was still summer vacation, but the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was overflowing with students. Classes had just begun, and students were walking busily across the campus to check out various lectures. Above all, the campus is vast. I was given a special campus tour, and after walking for an hour, I was drenched in sweat. It was just as hot and humid as Tokyo.

What surprised me was a plaque hanging on the wall of the FedEx Global Education Center, which was built with a donation from FedEx. After the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reportedly sent books to help rebuild the Hiroshima University library. The plaque features a piece of a roof tile sent from Hiroshima University to commemorate the 60th anniversary of that support, which was scorched by heat reaching 5,000 degrees. They have placed it where many people can see it.

I greeted Chancellor Lee Roberts, had meetings with Vice Provost Barbara Stephenson and others, and also met with members of the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, who cooperate closely with the Keio University Faculty of Pharmacy. Furthermore, since we have student exchanges with Keio University's undergraduate faculties, I was able to get updates from the staff in charge of those programs.

Starting this fall, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is expected to join the U7+ Alliance. U7+ is an alliance of 47 universities created in response to the G7, and President Kohei Itoh serves as the overall chair (Notes from the President's Office No. 26: From Paris to Paris: Our Role in a Global University Alliance). It is very gratifying to have a perspective from the American South included there.    

In recent years, American universities have been washed by various waves of transformation. However, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, founded in 1795 as the oldest public university in the United States, shows no signs of being shaken. Walking through the town of Chapel Hill, it feels calm and safe. It has a sense of composure that urban universities lack. I could ask for nothing more than for Keio students dispatched through the International Center's exchange program to study diligently on this university's campus. America still has great depth.