Lectures given by President Nakayama of Reitaku University at the Australian Catholic University (ACU) on the results of a joint project with Boston University

President Nakayama spoke about a volume entitled Happiness and Virtue Beyond East and West toward a New Global Responsibility published by Tuttle in 2012, which is the product of academic collaboration between Reitaku University and Boston University.

Presentations in Australia
At the invitation of the Australian Catholic University (ACU), a Reitaku partner university in Australia, lectures were given at ACU’s North Sydney Campus on March 19, 2012, and again at its Brisbane Campus on March 22.

The theme of the lectures arose from Happiness and Virtue Beyond East and West: Toward a New Global Responsibility, published by Tuttle in 2012 and the product of academic collaboration between Reitaku University and Boston University. The idea for the lectures had been conceived the previous year when Dr. Tomas Martin, the then Deputy Vice President of the ACU Sydney Campus, paid a visit to Reitaku University and became deeply interested in its joint project with Boston University and the publication of this book.

The speakers were President Nakayama and Professor Kazunobu Horiuchi, Director of the International Exchange Center, both of whom were editors of the book. Each lecture was followed by a question-and-answer session that testified to the lively interest of the audience in the matters under discussion.

Further details may be found in the following report by Professor Horiuchi’s report.

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Report on a Visit to the Australian Catholic University
Kazunobu Horiuchi, Director of the International Exchange Center

Purpose of the visit
1. To offer lectures on Happiness and Virtue Beyond East and Wes:t Toward a New Global Responsibility, the product of academic collaboration between Reitaku University and Boston University
2. To engage in discussions about renewing the Memorandum of Understanding

The Visit

1. North Sydney Campus
March 19
A meeting took place from 9:30 to 11:50 with:
Mr. Chris Riley, Executive Director International
Professor Gail Crossley, Executive Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Professor Peter Steane, Associate Dean, International Faculty of Business
Professor Duncan MacLaren, Lecturer, International Development Studies
Professor Greg Craven, Vice Chancellor, ACU Sydney Campus
Lectures were offered from 12:00 to 13:30:
President Nakayama (50 minutes)
Professor Horiuchi (20 minutes)

2. Brisbane Campus

March 22
A meeting was held with:
Ms. Sue Woods,
International Office Manager, International Education
Ms. Donna Cook, Academic Manager, English Language Centre
Professor Andrew Buck, Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts
Professor Jim Nyland,

Associate Vice-Chancellor,

Brisbane Campus
Lectures were offered between 12:00 and 13:30:
President Nakayama (35 minutes)
Professor Horiuchi (20 minutes)

【Highlights of the Visit and the Lectures】

Sydney and Brisbane, located on the west coast of Australia, are customarily viewed as areas with little precipitation as a rule. But, as news report in Japan noted, they had suffered extensive damage from flooding caused by rainfall that had become increasingly heavy since last year. Unfortunately, therefore, most days during the visit were either cloudy or rainy except for the last day in Sydney. Despite this, however, the visit was a great success for three reasons.
Firstly, thanks to Dr. Thomas Martin’s kind invitation, the visit to the ACU Sydney campus provided an opportunity to give these successful lectures. When he visited Reitaku University last year and learned about Happiness and the Virtue from President Nakayama, Professor Martin showed great interest and readily agreed to the President’s suggestion that he consider writing a commendatory notice for the book. This visit opened the path to the giving of these lectures.
In both lectures, President Nakayama began by explaining the origins of the joint project and the contents of the book; he then described his own chapter on “Courage,” giving concrete examples pertaining to the subject, before concluding that “a sense of gratitude and duty does not know national borders” and citing “Operation Tomodachi” by Japan-based U.S. troops after the Eastern Japan Great Earthquake as evidence of this. Many questions were put to him once the lecture was over. Professor Horiuchi then spoke for twenty minutes on “Wisdom: Japanese Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism,” drawing on material from his chapter of the book.
The second reason for the visit’s success was the opportunity it provided to strengthen and expand ties between Reitaku University and ACU. Vice Chancellor Greg Craven of the ACU Sydney Campus had spent three years on the strategic reform of the university, successfully increasing the number of students by 130%. One of the pillars of his reform initiative was the internationalization of the university; and Professor. Martin’s visit to Reitaku was a part of this revamping process. Though Reitaku had sent students to enroll on ACU’s ELICOS program and other programs for the previous ten years, a decision for it to accept students from ACU, thus making this a two-way student exchange program, was still pending. Representatives of both universities agreed to plan to initiate academic cooperation, exchange of faculty, and tuition-waiver student exchanges from 2014. The following are the main aspects of this expanded cooperation:
1. To conclude an umbrella agreement with ACU involving Reitaku’s School of Foreign Studies as well as its School of Economics and Business Administration;
2. To broaden student exchanges by
A. Establishing a tuition-waiver student exchange,
B. Reitaku sending and accepting students with tuition payment,
C. Strengthening English-medium content courses at Reitaku University.
3. To further academic and research cooperation by encouraging collaboration in the areas
of moral education and business ethics.

The final reason for the visit’s success was that it provided an opportunity in Brisbane to meet with and offer a token of appreciation to Ms. Noriko Matsuura, the coordinator of the Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education at the University of Queensland (ICTE-UQ). Reitaku has been sending students to study English at ICTE-UQ for more than ten years, and it is Ms. Matsuura who has always taken great care of them during their study abroad period. Her concern for them has been shown not just in matters connected with her official duties, such as solving any problems that may arise with host families or in the classroom, etc.; it is also in evidence in her unofficial activities, as when, on her own initiative, she invites all students from Reitaku to her home once during their stay in Brisbane for a BBQ party or a curry and rice dinner (the favorite dish of young Japanese people). She functions as the students’ mother in Brisbane, and so during his visit to Brisbane President Nakayama invited her to dinner, in company with two students, and later invited her and her husband, Mr. Michael Miller (who works as a coordinator of the ELICOS program at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane), to dinner at the German Club, located in the suburbs of Brisbane.
It is greatly to be hoped that this visit will result in the further strengthening of educational and academic cooperation between Reitaku University and the Australian Catholic University.

PAGETOP

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