Niigata No More: cutting international ties

Kristina Herrndobler
Daily Egyptian

Nakajo, Japan - The University's recent announcement that it would end its long-term relationship with its partner campus here came as no surprise to faculty and students, who have watched enrollment decline over the years. SIUC will end all academic ties with the campus, which has an enrollment of about 50, in May 2006. SIUC-N served as a bridge for Japanese students who needed to improve their English skills before attending a university in the United States.

But Japan's economy has stagnated in recent years. And as the school-aged population has declined, competition among Japanese and foreign universities has increased, said Steven Carelli, the director of SIUC-N. "Now, there are so many other avenues for students to go directly to other schools instead of going through a bridge program like this one, so over the last few years, the enrollment has been in decline," said Carelli, who has been teaching at the campus for seven years and has been director for four.

"So we knew that there were those problems and in that sense, I wouldn't say it came as that big of a surprise to us. But it is a disappointment." SIUC-N, which sits about a two-hour ride on Japan's famous bullet train from Tokyo, in the state of Niigata, began in 1988 through a program between the American and Japanese governments. In its first years, there were 500 students enrolled - more than expected and more than the staff could handle. More professors were hired as the town of Nakajo prepared by building classrooms, residence halls and housing facilities for the faculty and staff.

Nakajo, Japan - Many of the buildings at SIUC's partner campus here sit vacant. Enrollment has dropped from its peak of 630 to a relative handful of 50 students. And although the campus looks somewhat like a ghost town, faculty and students who have called it home say they mourn the end of the relationship with SIUC.

"I think the whole town of Nakajo is sad SIU is going to be leaving because they take the campus kind of personal there," said Otto Miller, a Carbondale student who studied at SIUC-N last year.

Since the program began in 1988 about 2,200 students have enrolled at the Carbondale campus after studying at Nakajo, which rests on a snow-capped mountain and is just a short drive from the beach. Although these students added tuition revenue to the campus, they also brought a bit of their culture to Carbondale.

But now students who would otherwise have gone from Nakajo to Carbondale, will look to study elsewhere, Miller said.

"If the school isn't there, then who the hell is Carbondale anymore," said Miller, a senior from Marengo studying photography.

Mayo Saito said she enrolled at SIUC-N intending to transfer to Carbondale. Her mother once studied in the United States, and Saito wanted to do the same.

Since its beginning, the program has recruited 900 students who have finished their baccalaureate degrees and 20 who then went on to get master's degrees. Two students even received their doctorates in Carbondale.

Mayumi Muto, a sophomore from Japan studying design at SIUC, said she found out about Carbondale because of the publicity the university received in her country. She studied at SIUC-N for two years and said she fears Japanese enrollment at SIUC will drop significantly once the connection between the two campuses is broken.

"If SIUC-N is gone and the tuition rates [at SIUC] continue to increase, the number of Japanese students is going to decrease."

The 141 Japanese students enrolled at SIUC make up more than 10 percent of the campus' international population. In total, 1,318 international students representing 109 foreign countries study at the campus. And only China and India surpass Japan in the number of students enrolled at SIUC, according to University numbers from fall 2004.

SIUC's international enrollment is already in steep decline. In 1995, 1,079 foreign students were enrolled in undergraduate programs. By 2004, that figure had dropped to 415.

International enrollment in graduate programs increased from 630 to 903 during the same time period, but was down by 52 students in 2004, according to the University.

SIUC Chancellor Walter Wendler said Wednesday that the closure of SIUC-N would not make a recognizable difference in international enrollment.

Many international students, who pay the out-of-state tuition rate, say the declining enrollment is directly tied to the rising price. University administrators have said that SIUC remains a good value and international enrollment is down at universities across the country as the federal government has responded to terrorism by making visas more difficult to obtain.

Saito didn't mention terrorism or war on the list of what she worries about when it comes to studying in the United States. The 20-year-old who currently takes American history, philosophy, speech communication and contemporary Japan at SIUC-N, said she is more worried about moving to a country where she will know only a few people with whom she has studied in Nakajo - and, she pointed out, those transferring with her are all boys.

"I am nervous because I don't know any students there and I've never been to America," Saito said. "I heard it is sort of difficult there for us because of the language."

While Saito is worried about her English skills, Junichi Kamiyam, a second-year student at SIUC-N, is anxious about relocating to the United States for other reasons.

Kamiyam wants to play basketball at an American university, and even though he said he would like to play for SIUC, he isn't planning to study in Carbondale. He has done research on the Internet and is convinced he wouldn't make it as a Saluki, so he is looking at other schools, he said.

"I play basketball every day. I play very hard so I can play in the U.S." he said. "But SIUC's basketball team is too strong for me, so I decided to go to California State University."

Kamiyam said he is attending SIUC-N to learn English so he can play NCAA basketball. Students at the Nakajo campus first take a series of intensive courses in English, after which they begin taking core curriculum classes. Their credits are transferable to SIUC.

Hundreds of SIUC students have also studied Japanese language and culture in Nakajo as part of study abroad programs. Some of them decided to stay for an extra semester and take core curriculum classes with the Japanese students.

Saito said she has made friends with the American students here, which she says is particularly helpful when it comes to difficult schoolwork.

"Sometimes they help check our homework, to check for grammar," she said.

"Sometimes they ask for help with Japanese, too."

The classes, Saito said, are getting easier as the semester wears on because her English is improving.

"At first when I came here, it was very hard for me to take the classes in English. Now it's average, so it is getting easier."

Scott Lind, a visiting assistant professor of speech communication, said he has changed his teaching style to fit the needs of his students, some of whom are still struggling to master English. Lind, who got his doctoral degree at SIUC, since moving to the campus from Carbondale, said he has changed his teaching style to fit the students' needs. He said that while his class objectives are constant, the way in which he gets his students to meet those objectives may fluctuate.

"The end goal is the same, but how I reach the goal is probably different."

Lind, like many faculty at SIUC-N, can sympathize with the students' struggles. He has spent much of his time at the campus struggling with Japanese. Although none of the American professors speak the language to their Japanese students and many don't speak Japanese at all, Lind said knowing the language is helpful in getting around the country.

Although Lind has become more comfortable with the Japanese language, he said he knows he is not ready to teach in Japanese. He said he might study Japanese full-time for a couple of months and then try to get a job at a Japanese university. But that won't be an easy decision, he said, as he has a close-knit family in Texas who are hopeful he will return to the States.

"I came here for one semester and then the director asked me what I was teaching for the second, so I decided to stay," said Lind, who once taught in SIUC's Center for Basic Skills.

"You know the culture shock affects you the first semester, and after getting through that, I wanted to stay, so I did one more semester and it ended up one year contract after the next."

Some faculty members could end up staying in Nakajo.

Jared Dorn, SIUC's director of International Programs and Services, said he would like to see the University maintain some of the programs it has built in the community.

Dorn, who played a key role in developing SIUC-N in the 1980s and was its first director, compared the split to a broken romantic relationship.

"All that could have been done has been done, but when the partner says that's it, there is no partner and you have to work so that no one is hurt or there is as little hurt on all sides as possible, and that is what we are trying to do," Dorn said.

He said according to the 2005-06 contract, the Pacific School Entity, the Japanese organization that contracts with SIUC, will pay the University about $500,000 to provide instruction on the campus. This is about a $200,000 drop from the current contract, which reflects the reduction in enrollment that will occur as the current students start transferring, Dorn said. No new students will be accepted into the program.

The University said it received more than $41 million through the arrangement over the years. Neither Illinois tax money nor SIUC's students' tuition paid for the campus, which existed on tuition and government subsidies. Those subsidies dried up when the local government recently decided to end the practice and the Pacific School Entity decided to turn the campus over to a different company.

Dorn said he expects the campus to remain an English-language school, but one that will operate without giving U.S. college credit. He said SIUC would remain friendly with the town and continue to accept qualified candidates coming out of the campus.

He said that despite the drop in enrollment, the recent campus leadership has been excellent. He credited Carelli, the director, for keeping the relationship alive.

Carelli said he does not feel any responsibility for the closure of the campus and he doesn't blame SIUC either.

"All of the SIUC-N staff, myself included, were dedicated to this campus and these students and we did everything possible to ensure its continuation and its success," Carelli said in a follow-up e-mail. "Similarly, there was nothing SIUC itself could have done that would have had any significant impact on 'saving' the program. Indeed, it was the commitment of the home campus and the SIUC people here in Japan that extended the life of SIUC-N by several years."

Carelli is also now looking for work. Married to a Japanese woman, he said he wants to continue to work in international education. He said he is proud of the campus' success in Japan and in bringing Japanese students to SIUC. He said he is sad to see the campus close, but remembers the positive things that happened at SIUC-N.

"It is a disappointment in one way," Carelli said. "But in the other way, I want to think it has been a very successful program in the time it has been here.

"Maybe a thousand students have gone through the program and graduated from SIU and we've had all these hundreds of Carbondale students who have been here to study Japanese, and all the faculty members who have had wonderful international experiences here over the last 17 years. So in the time it has lasted, it has been a great success, too."