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[concerned8]

Some corrections to and comments on previous posts criticisng AIU seem needed.

1.  AIU'S high ranking among public universities in Japan has nothing to do with the difficulty or otherwise of its entrance exams (in fact its entrance exams are much the same as other universities in Japan). Relative status is decided by ratio of applicants to numbers accepted.  At a time when many universities, prefectural universities especially, fail to fill quotas,  AIU is still heavily over-subscribed, by about five to one.

True the figures are slightly biassed in AIU favor because of its low annual intake. On the other hand applications fall off when people realise the odds are against their being accepted. In any case, the result of the continuing high applications to acceptance ratio is a quality of student at AIU well above that of most non-elite universities in Japan, something even the critics admit.

2. A major reason for this applications excess, rightly or wrongly, is the way the President has been able to attract media attention since even before the establishment of the university.  Those who denigrate his AIU role and activities do not seem to realise this very important point. If in the classroom they had to face the kind of student found in most prefectural universities they might be a lot less vocal.

3. Since the earlier attempt by this contributor to explain AIU's handling of teachers inherited from the previous Minnesota predecessor did not get very far, let me try again.

When the Minnesota operation closed the intention on the Minnesota side was to dismiss all teachers. However Akita Prefecture authorities were especially concerned about the fate of the English language teachers employed there,  because of the problems they would have getting jobs back in the USA.  A strong request was made to have AIU to give these people a three year contract - during which time they could work out their futures. AIU accepted that request, though not without some reservations since it had its own plans for English language teaching and feared they might not match the Minnesota approach.   

There was no obligation to continue those three year contracts. Termination after three years may or may not have involved some seeming injustice. It also meant the loss of some competent teachers.  But one of the reasons why the AIU people in charge may have done what they did was realisation that their original fears were not without basis.
Some of the Minnesota people foolishly went out of their way to fan those fears.

4.  Criticism of people from the Minnesota operation for failing to learn Japanese,  either properly or at all, during their many years in Japan was not intended to imply this means they were quite unqualified to teach English. As noted above some were quite competent at what they were doing. However English teachers who try to learn at least one difficult language usually end up with much greater understanding of and sympathy for the problems of their students. They have more humility.  They come to realise better the techniques needed for language acquisition.  And they show they have pride in their profession which, after all, is the art and practice of language acquisition and not just being able to stand up in front of people and teach them to speak like you do.  This is something you do not learn from a textbook.

4. If you want to criticise someone's academic credentials you need to show some of your own. The VP has his theory to explain Japan how Japan's society has developed. it is unconventional.  If you disagree say why. Simply to say it is absurd because it goes against the conventional wisdom on how societies develop shows a considerable inability to understand the academic process -  which could well be why these people find themselves with little better to do than stand on the sidelines throwing mud at those who are involved in the process.

To make the criticisms in a snide, sn*****ing manner also shows very considerable immaturity.

The proof of a theory is its ability to predict the future.  The sn*****ers should go check the VP's theory - it is set out in full on his website - before they make fools of themselves again.     

[freshair]

Concerned8:  You wrote:  "If you want to criticise someone's academic credentials you need to show some of your own. The VP has his theory... ."  The VP in question also has very few credentials of his own.  He has earned a bachelors degree but that is it; his dad bought him his M.A. at a time when that was common practice at that particular school.  That also is on the VP's web site (included in his life story).  The rest of your apologist rant is not even worth replying to.

[heiwa]

So desu ne....More news of AIU, its president Nakajima and its new campus buildings have been broadcast throughout the prefecture. Lovely buildings. A high price tag as well.

What has not been broadcast enough is this:

Many AIU students continue to underperform on the TOEFL test. They are unprepared by an academic preparatory language program, gutted of many of its best liked and most experienced teachers in the last three years, for the sake of "finding malleable replacements."

Concerned8 is not wrong when he says that the new AIU admin wanted to change course from the previous Minnesota program's style: in fact, a dictatorial method, common in much of Japan, was the "innovation" brought by Nakajima. Open, rational and professional discussion and group-based decision-making, common in the US system of education (though not in the last 8 years in US national government policy, many would say) was replaced with Nakajima's top-down,  "Our way or the  highway" approach. But it has not been only action by force. Many people's silence and compliance has been bought as well.

Today, it is true AIU attracts many well-trained students from throughout Japan. It is true that, compared to the abysmally prepared students going to other area universities, the AIU enrollees, generally, have had international experience, have excelled in English in their secondary school, and have higher motivation for working rather than sleeping through the university experience. Credit them.

It is also true that the novelty of the AIU program, with the ruling that every student must spend a year abroad, is highly attractive to students, and great form of educational packaging.

Finally, it is also true that AIU has attracted its share of maverick educators.

But what is unstated in the advertising brochures yet well known by word of mouth, throughout Japan, is that faculty at AIU are mere cogs in Nakajima's mechanistic wet dream, and thanks to that, inevitably, once at AIU, they capitulate, and the result is, the program is watered down to that wonderfully Japanese NORM of mediocrity, and ultimately, many students languish, due to a program that is suspect.

Even those young scholars who make it into the basic education courses after EFL have difficulty with real-world academic tasks because, again, that preparatory program has largely been a sham, a top-down patchwork of ill-begotten curricular decisions, half-baked teaching practices, and foggy management.

So let's cut the talk of Minnesota this and that. What has happened at AIU is classic Japanese politicking: Take an outside, foreign concept (quality university education) and bend it to suit Japanese tastes, Japanese style. In this case, it's been "emperor" worship, the cult of the personality, right from the start.

When will they hang a huge portrait of Nakajima at the front of that new auditorium?

 

[tokyo2009]

2. A major reason for this applications excess, rightly or wrongly, is the way the President has been able to attract media attention since even before the establishment of the university.  Those who denigrate his AIU role and activities do not seem to realise this very important point. If in the classroom they had to face the kind of student found in most prefectural universities they might be a lot less vocal.

This seems pretty weak. We denigrate his role because of lies, corruption, and belligerance towards China, among other reasons. He's a good PR man. Okay. I'll hand him that. However, an educator's concern should be about education, not PR.

3. When the Minnesota operation closed the intention on the Minnesota side was to dismiss all teachers. However Akita Prefecture authorities were especially concerned about the fate of the English language teachers employed there,  because of the problems they would have getting jobs back in the USA.  A strong request was made to have AIU to give these people a three year contract - during which time they could work out their futures. AIU accepted that request, though not without some reservations since it had its own plans for English language teaching and feared they might not match the Minnesota approach.   

There was no obligation to continue those three year contracts. Termination after three years may or may not have involved some seeming injustice. It also meant the loss of some competent teachers.  But one of the reasons why the AIU people in charge may have done what they did was realisation that their original fears were not without basis.
Some of the Minnesota people foolishly went out of their way to fan those fears.

That may or may not be true, but the AIU administration practiced deception towards all faculty, and that's the main problem.

[crypto]

Even those young scholars who make it into the basic education courses after EFL have difficulty with real-world academic tasks because, again, that preparatory program has largely been a sham, a top-down patchwork of ill-begotten curricular decisions, half-baked teaching practices, and foggy management (Oh yeah---we must always figure in the plain stupidity and gigantic egotism of the boobs in charge).

I know several faculty members at colleges and universities in North America who had exchange students from AIU in their classes.  Their consensus is that the students were are grossly underprepared in comparison to other international students, including those from Japan. 

One had an AIU student in an upper-level humanities course who had no clue how to write a research paper, including the concept of plagiarism.  It was basically copy and paste from Wikipedia and other sources intermingled with random ranting.  No citations or bibliography.  The student, luckily, was not reported, but the instructor was very unhappy that s/he had to spend a great deal of time on this one student who should not have passed a freshman English course.  When there are two or more AIU students in a class, unauthorized "sharing" of student work has also been problematic.

Others also complained that AIU students have difficulty contributing to class discussion and group work; language and cultural barriers do exist for them, but the main reason was unfamiliarity with course topics, which should have been touched upon in intro-level courses at AIU.

A few other instructors had AIU students in freshman-level non-majors science courses.  Contrary to the popular myth that East Asian students excel at math and science, their performance was on par with the least prepared local students.  One even failed the course regardless of consistent attendance while, in normal circumstances, only students with minimal attendance get C's and D's in these "blow-off" classes.  I told them that the students probably did not have science in the last few years of high school and that they could be product of the relaxed, Yutori curricula. 

I wonder how AIU students are coping at European universities - their upper level courses are often equivalent to master's coursework in the US.  Or are they placed in "special" courses for visiting students only?

[disappointed]

Concerned8, in his late November 2008 post, has some serious trouble with the facts of the matter being discussed here. For starters, having worked for the Minnesota program (MSUA) that predated AIU, I can tell you there was not the slightest indication from anyone either in Akita or in Minnesota that those of us who were hired from MSUA in April 2003 to act as consultants for the creation of AIU were temporary hires. In fact, as daily members of the team in the prefectural office who dealt with all things AIU, we played an integral part in setting up the EAP program in specific and the university at large. I was involved in discussion of the overall curriculum, in campus facility design, and in the writing of advertising literature, just to name a few areas.

Once the university opened, I had a 3-year contract in hand, I was given the impression from Day 1 that I would be FAIRLY judged by the admin for renewal, using a complex matrix, but one based on student evaluations, peer reviews, contributions to the university in the way of committee work, and presentations and publications.No one ever indicated that the AIU admin was just biding its time with me, or with anyone else. On this point the current university VP, is blatantly lying.

In fact, I was so positively evaluated by students and peers, and I contributed to the university in so many ways (by securing 2 UNESCO-based grants for student projects, but presenting at numerous conferences, by initiating and advising several high profile student clubs) that I was given by Dr. Nakajima a 500,000 yen raise for the last year of my 3-year contract. Then, after the farce of having to reapply for my job,  I was summarily executed, along with nearly every other EAP program person, including the three or four who HAD NEVER WORKED FOR MSUA. Two of those gaijin teachers are speakers of fluent Japanese. So that argument is also mere subterfuge.

No, the truth of the matter is that this was a case of the Nakajima Cosa Nostra moving in to Akita and throwing out anyone who dared raise a voice. ... In fact, however, getting the discriminatory, wrongful boot was a blessing in disguise for many of us. I for one am now teaching at one of the best schools in the world (according to recent rankings). My students are talented to the extreme, creative, tech-savvy, highly motivated and a constant pleasure to work with. My colleagues are first-rate, with broad experience, integrity and a sense of openness. I also work in program where logic dictates, where a clear, honest evaluation system is in operation, and where innovation, hard work, and talent are valued and rewarded rather than feared and scorned.

AIU is far behind me. Thank God!

But the wrongs committed against so many fine people, and still justified by the likes of Concerned8, speak monumentally about what that university continues to be under the highly-paid leadership of Dr. Nakajima.

 

[kamoshika]

Is AIU the university famous for having a right-wing leader who required students to read a a tract on "bushido" - the spirit that helped propel Japan on its path to militarism - and gave every guest at the university's opening ceremony a copy of one of his books?

Also, could someone confirm or deny that the President has his own books prominently on display in the university's library? Would Akita citizens tolerate this kind of monumental egotism using the taxpayers' money?

[yoshidashoin]

Bush and his cronies have fallen, and the Bush Era, thankfully, is history.

Will Mineo Nakajima and his nepotistic, totalitarian approach to university governance also fall? Or will our Japanese society prove once again that as most of the world changes, we stay stuck in the feudalistic traditions of the past?

[zatroof]

Some corrections to and comments on previous posts criticisng AIU seem needed.

1.  AIU'S high ranking among public universities in Japan ...[text, words, more words, more text]  ... sn*****ers should go check the VP's theory - it is set out in full on his website - before they make fools of themselves again.    

Whoa?!?? What's the purpose of anything in concerned8's Nov 30, 2008 post? The rehashed rationalizations, the excuses, the High Praise for President Nakajima, the childish name-cal*ing, etc... any of it? It's really pathetic. Is that intentional? Did something happen? Is something going to happen? Pathetic and bizarre.

Getting ready for another round of firings?

[zatroof]

I found something. It doesn't explain what's going on inside Akita International University's Vice-President Gregory Clark's head, but it is another example of whatever it is.

The Japan Times
Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009
Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people
By GREGORY CLARK

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090115gc.html

(btw, he's back to proudly claiming he's AIU's VP)

Follow-up letters from readers here:


http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&ned=us&q=antiforeigner%20discrimination&tab=wn

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20090125a8.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20090125a6.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20090125a5.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20090122a1.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20090129a3.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20090122a4.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20090122a3.html

[relieved]

Hey all, I'm a student at an AIU "sister school," and AIU sounded great to me until reading the posts here. I'll definitely be going back to my school's study abroad office and talking with them about my new concerns. Thanks for all the info here.

[yoshidashoin]

Please read a reader response to AIU's VP's unfortunate article:

Discomfort with logic flaws

By DAVID-ANTOINE MALINAS
Tokyo

I'm shocked by the title of Gregory Clark's article. Am I the only one to think that the vice president of Akita International University should be advocating mutual understanding, and promoting cultural exchanges, instead of a "right to discriminate"? I cannot but share my sympathy in the Otaru bathhouse case that Clark raises, but I feel more than uncomfortable with his rhetorical arguments.

For instance, the few activists he is not very fond of become the undefined group of "Japan girai" foreigners in their "gaijin ghettoes." Sorry, but who are these people? And how do you jump from one group to the other?

I also feel uncomfortable with some logic flaws. Whatever one may think about fingerprinting, there is no relation between this new procedure and the protection of Japanese from foreign "criminals" because the Japanese are already protected: Somebody who has been accused and judged as a foreign "criminal" is already blacklisted so he or she will not come back.

Japan is not a perfect country — no country is — but it is a state of law. To claim a right to discriminate against "some foreigners" is weak and very dangerous. If a person — foreigner or not — has broken the law, there is a legal procedure, via the police or the courts, against his actions. There is no need to argue about a right to discriminate.

If it is the right, or power, of the state, shop owner or anybody to punish people not for their actions but for their "alleged" intention or thoughts as members of a group, this is not just discrimination; it is anarchy.

[cunghm]

That the VP of an "international" university should spout such nonsense is amazing. That he should keep his job is even more amazing. Imagine an Australian university administrator of Japanese nationality who prides himself on his mastery of English and assimilation into Australian culture stating in the foreign-language press that Australians have every right to keep Japanese out of their restaurants because they slurp their noodles, get red-faced after a few beers, and are otherwise obnoxious and menacing - and keep out the respectable clients. The scandal would be enough to make Rupert Murdoch blush. The ridicule alone would damage the school. Is there a lack of oversight here that partner schools might want to wake up and notice? Is there a cozy rubber-stamp board that pretends to direct the school? (Perhaps in Japan they are only rocked by sex scandals.)  One has to wonder when e a scholar of the stature of Donald Keene continues to allow his name to be associated with such an institution.

[typewriter]

Yes indeed, the great eminent Professor Clark, who, despite all his pretensions to academic high standards does not have a PhD, is at it again. 

This old windbag has been recycling his ancient, shopworn, "nihonjinron" (Japanese uniqueness theory) argument for decades now, and does not deserve the dignity of a response. 

Academic indeed!  Here is a man who has never written a book or article that has been taken seriously by any Japanologist, anthropologist, historian, or any other scholar of repute running a university and trying to fool others with his erudition and insight.  His only claim to competency is that he has some (how much?) ability to speak Japanese--perhaps a big deal for someone of his generation, but hardly surprising anymore--and that he has managed to engage successfully in the usual political games and money-making schemes available here to those with connections.

Let's allow this lame-brained phony to disappear in the well-deserved muck of obscurity that will no doubt soon swallow him without a trace.

[treblekickeresq]

I love a good pile up on Mr. Clark as much as the next qualified academic.

However, I'm wondering if anyone has any news on 2 points. 1) is AIU still refusing to pay the money the labo(u)r commission ordered paid to the dismissed instructors? and 2) were the instructors hired to replace those dismissed given permanent or limited-term contract positions?