The IIGE Professional Development Series 2022 "Building Global Resilience with I.D.E.A. (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access)" held its fifth session, "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University and Kansai University" on November 18th (JST). The session focused on DE&I initatives in higher education in Japan. DE&I are now finally on the agenda of many universities in Japan, reflecting a shift in demography, law, and societal attitude.

The first speaker was Dr. Hirokuni Tateyama, Dean of Student Affairs and Professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University.  He talked about initiatives taken to foster DE&I at his university in Japan where students from 95 countries study together and faculty members from 24 countries work together. His discussion higlighted new systems that have been developed to address the needs of students with disabilities and sexual minority students, and future challenges that need to be overcome in order to further improve DE&I on campus.

 

The second speaker was Dr. Keiko Ikeda, Vice-Director of IIGE and professor at Kansai University. She talked about Diversity and Inclusion in the J-MCP program. J-MCP as one of IIGE's frontier programs launched in 2021 offers a COIL/VE module on diversity and inclusion. In J-MCP, there are over 15 countries and regions represented in the virtual class and they are given opportunities to various inputs carefully designed by internationally diverse facilitators. In the talk, Keiko Ikeda provided the background and motivation behind developing this particular module using COIL as its methodology. She also discussed student feedback on the program. 

 

This webinar was in collaboration with the Japan Network for International Education (JAFSA) and was facilitated by Rob Kuipers (IIGE Coordinator). 
 

To view the on-demand recording of this open webinar event, fill out the form below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdSBLPUuZKpBRUYmAvlEfQnlOe__4bRmxD4x3VAPnhKfVnwGg/viewform 

 

For more information on this and other upcoming events in the professional development series, visit the website below.

https://kuiige.wixsite.com/iigeseminars22