Visit from Japanese Ambassador and Fukui High School Students Highlights Distinctive Collections

Rutgers University Libraries recently hosted Ambassador Mikio Mori from the Consulate General of Japan in New York and a group of students from Koshi High School in Fukui, Japan. Ambassador Mori and the Koshi High School students spent time in Alexander Library during their visit to Rutgers on Wednesday, October 23.

Rutgers’ Vice President for University Libraries and University Librarian Consuella Askew gave welcoming remarks, and Archivist Fernanda Perrone prepared a special exhibition and gave a lecture on the William Elliot Griffis Collection, of which she is curator.

The Griffis Collection, which is part of the Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives, contains more than 250,000 items that document the experience of Westerners in Japan, the roots of Japanese-American relations, and the special friendship between Japan and Rutgers that began in 1866, when the first students from Japan began studying at Rutgers College Grammar School.

Later in the day, Ambassador Mori returned to the library’s Teleconference Lecture Hall, where he gave a lecture for the Rutgers community titled “Japan-US Relationship and Its Role in the World.” The ambassador also visited the East Asian Library and the exhibit Akiko’s Dolls: The Story of a Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivor with Librarian Tao Yang.

Ambassador Mori’s visit also included a meeting with Rutgers Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Antonio Calcado, who accompanied Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey during his visit to Japan last year.

The visit was coordinated by Haruko Wakabayashi, associate teaching professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the School of Arts and Sciences.  Also in attendance were Michael Tublin, director of international programs for the City of New Brunswick; Terrence Wang and Noah Hartwick, Rutgers alumni and former Fukui Cultural Ambassadors and Eben Kilson and Pauline Kung, Rutgers’ Japanese Student Association president and fundraising chair.

Rutgers Global and the School of Arts and Sciences Global Asias Initiative were cosponsors, along with the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and Rutgers University Libraries. Librarian Kayo Denda facilitated Rutgers University Libraries’ role in the visit.