On April 27th and 28th (Friday and Saturday), JICUF held its semiannual trustees meeting on the ICU campus. The JICUF Board of Trustees customarily holds its meetings in the United States, but this April, President Junko Hibiya graciously invited the Board and staff to ICU. Nine out of twelve JICUF trustees and four staff gathered on campus for an eventful two days.

On Friday, seven faculty members and five students who received grants from JICUF in the past two years gave short presentations to the Board to introduce their projects. Oral presentations were followed by a poster presentation session in which JICUF trustees were able to ask questions and interact directly with the grant recipients.

After lunch, recently retired Professor Emeritus William Steele (Japanese history) led a campus tour for the trustees, starting with a lecture on the history of ICU in Seabury Chapel. Even for some of the trustees who are alumni, it was the first time to visit the Chapel and the roof of the honkan! The tour took the group to Taizanso, the Yuasa Museum, and the library.

On Friday evening, JICUF hosted a reception in the Dining Hall which was attended by approximately 140 guests. It was a wonderful opportunity for JICUF trustees and staff to mingle with ICU faculty, staff, trustees and students. A quartet comprised of President Hibiya (piano), Professors Seunghun Lee (violin), Etsuko Kato (flute) and Yoichiro Murakami (cello), performed music by Johann Strauss, and student a capella group “Unbrand” performed two pop songs.

On Saturday, the Board continued to meet and discuss JICUF’s Global Scholarship and future direction of ICU-JICUF cooperation.

The trustees meeting concluded with a dinner hosted by the senior administrators of ICU at a restaurant on To-hachi Road. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the ICU community for their warm hospitality.