JICUF Program Director Mark Flanigan traveled to Seoul, South Korea, from 17-20 March to attend and speak at the Asia-Pacific Association for International Education (APAIE) Conference and Exhibition. This annual conference is held in a different Asia-Pacific city each year and brings together international educators active in Asian higher education to promote communication, networking and professional development. The theme of this year’s conference, hosted at the aT Center by 14 Korean Universities, was “Enhancing Cross-Border Education Cooperation with Universities in Asia-Pacific.” Mark had the honor of co-presenting with two professors based in Japan, Chris Haswell (Fukuoka) and Annette Bradford (Meiji). He spoke about his own experiences as a graduate student at Rotary Peace Fellow at ICU, which was a great opportunity indeed!

As a first-time APAIE participant, Mark was very happy to have been selected to speak at this great international conference, in order to build his professional network while spreading the good word about ICU. Participants came from all over the world, including Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America, as well as numerous countries across Asia. Attending many different presentations and workshops, Mark was able to hear a diverse range of ideas and perspectives about international education in the Asia-Pacific region. He was also able to visit two esteemed Korean schools, Ehwa Womens University and Korea University, as part of his week in Seoul. Ehwa, in particular, has been a great exchange partner with ICU.

An additional bonus was seeing and teaming up with his ICU colleagues who attended as official representatives of the school. Mr. Ivan Kwongyung Ng of the International Educational Exchange (IEE) office and Ms. Sayaka Shibata of Student Affairs Group came to APAIE as part of a delegation of Japanese schools and organizations promoting a “Study in Japan” message to APAIE participants. As an ICU alumnus and JICUF staffer, Mark was happy to lend a hand to his colleagues and help promote ICU to many of the interested people who stopped by to learn more about studying abroad in Japan.

Beyond his presentation and partnering with his ICU colleagues, Mark was quite fortunate to have such an opportunity for professional development. Over the course of the conference, he spoke directly to senior representatives from organizations like The University of California (ICU’s largest exchange program partner in the U.S.), College Board, The Asahi Shimbun, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The International English Language Testing System (IELTS), Waseda University and NAFSA: Association of International Educators.  It was a great chance to network with colleagues from both Asia and the U.S. in particular, which will pay real dividends in terms of future JICUF programmatic outreach.

In all, it was a wonderful experience for Mark to present on ICU and share his own experiences of being a graduate student and Rotary Peace Fellow on campus for two years. While many APAIE participants knew about and had a high degree of respect for ICU, few of them had known about the Japan ICU Foundation. It was also great to meet up with and work alongside a genki group of young ICU staffers in promoting all of the great academic and language programs offered at ICU. Lastly, it was an interesting opportunity to join an international educational conference focusing on East Asia, based outside of but still very much relevant to Japan. Next year’s APAIE Conference & Exhibition will be held from 23-26 March in Beijing, China, which is sure to be another exciting and informative chance to promote ICU!