Inter-University Exchange Project (COIL) Kick-Off Symposium Held at TUFS

March 8, 2019

The "Trans-Pacific COIL Kick-off Symposium: Cultivating Civic Publicity" was held at TUFS on Friday, March 1, 2019.
The symposium was organized to publicize the "Trans-Pacific Collaborative Online International Learning for the Multiculturalism and Conflict-Resilience" program, implemented by TUFS in cooperation with International Christian University (ICU) and Aoyama Gakuin University (AGU), and selected as part of the Inter-University Exchange Project by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Following an opening address by Mark WILLIAMS, Vice President of ICU, TUFS Director IWASAKI Minoru gave an overview of the program.

Keynote lectures were held by Professor Fabio RAMBELLI (Department of Religious Studies and East Asian Languages) from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a partner institution in this project, and Professor HIRANO Katsuya (Department of History) from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Prof. Rambelli, who specializes in religious studies, spoke about his own experience of being opposed by his family because of the lack of job opportunities in religious studies. "We don't know what society will be like in five to ten years time”, he said, while encouraging the students to pursue their passion.
Prof. Hirano emphasized the importance of being aware of the hidden social aspects of daily life in this globalized society, citing how many countries and regions are involved in the process of making bread available on store shelves, for example.
Both professors spoke on the basis of their expertise and experience, bringing excitement to the audience.

After the keynote speeches, Professor HARUNA Nobuo and Professor Raj Lakhi SEN from TUFS reported on the COIL class held in January, which attracted a lot of attention from the attendants of the symposium.

Finally, Professor TONOOKA Naomi, Vice-President of Aoyama Gakuin University, gave a closing speech. The symposium served to highlight the cooperation among the three universities and the future development of the COIL program.