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Bureau
of Educational and Cultural Affairs
Dr. William R. Brody, President, The Johns Hopkins University
Tokyo, Japan President Shirai, Secretary Spellings, Assistant Secretary Powell, Dr. Nussbaum, faculty and students of Waseda University, I know I speak for all of my university president colleagues here with me today to say how delighted we are to be in Japan and especially to be at Waseda University, one of the top universities in the world. Our delegation represents a slice through the spectrum of American higher education institutions ranging from community colleges to the comprehensive research universities of which my university is one. The Johns Hopkins University was started 130 years ago as the first research university in the U.S. and today it has 8000 students, evenly divided between undergraduates and graduate students, including a large number of Asian students, especially at the graduate level. Only seven years after the university was founded, famous Japanese economist, statesman, and diplomat Inazo Nitobe traveled to the U.S. to get his undergraduate degree in Economics and Political Science from Johns Hopkins. While we are small in terms of the numbers of students, Johns Hopkins is the largest university recipient of U.S. government research grants amounting to about $1.5 Billion/year in many fields ranging from medicine and public health to astrophysics and space exploration. Research universities in America focus on learning by doing. We believe that learning takes place through the discovery of the unknown as much as it does through studying what has already been written. For us, the most important role of a university education is learning how to learn to equip our graduates with the tools to solve problems that have never been posed before, and to enter careers that we cannot even imagine today. Professors in the U.S. are more interested in how students approach the solution to problems than the actual answer to the problem itself. We are here to encourage more from Japan to study in the U.S. as well as to develop collaborative relationships with Japanese universities for education and research programs. My university has joint programs with several Japanese universities in medicine and in international relations. Over 15 years in my former role as a professor of radiology and electrical engineering, I hosted a dozen Japanese post-graduate physicians. I can tell you how valuable the training was for these people and at the same time how rewarding it was for me and my colleagues to be stimulated by inquisitive young minds eager to advance in their field. To study abroad may be more challenging than staying within your home country, but I would emphasize that over the long term you will gain so much more by doing so - not only in terms of learning new things, but also in developing an international network of colleagues and friends with whom you will have a lifelong relationship, serving you well in your career. Each university has specialized support facilities to assist international students in their transition to American higher education in order to maximize their learning experience. The world is becoming increasingly global, not only for business, but also for scientific research, clinical medicine, law and other professions, so that an in-depth learning experience through study abroad equips students with the tools to succeed in this new era.
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