This March, Masako Hashigami completed her ten years of service as a trustee on the JICUF board. She is an ICU graduate (class of 1975) who went on to earn a master’s degree in business administration at Harvard Business School and a doctorate in design at the Bard Graduate School. She has worked at multiple financial institutions and served on the boards of organizations such as the Japan Society and the Freer and Sackler Galleries. We would like to thank Masako for her contribution to the JICUF board – it has been a delight to work with you! 

Please enjoy an essay that Masako wrote at our request.

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Memories of My Time at ICU

I arrived at the ICU campus in the spring of 1971 with a great sense of adventure. Having been raised in a traditional household and educated in a strict Catholic girls’ school, the idea of attending a coeducational university set within a park-like campus felt incredibly liberating and exciting.

In my first week of classes, I met another freshman, Megumi Kameyama (Meg), while waiting for a train at Meguro Station. We quickly became friends, and I came to look forward to our 90-minute commute together each day. Meg’s bubbly enthusiasm for life and learning was both infectious and eye-opening. Her influence stayed with me long after our student days. (She later earned a Ph.D. at Stanford and became an accomplished linguistics scholar.)

Despite Meg’s positive influence, I was not a particularly serious student at the time. I was captivated by the newfound freedom of campus life and the vibrant community around me. Much of my attention went toward an expanding social world, such as attending parties in D-kan with glamorous September students, spending long hours in friends’ dorm rooms and geshukus, and planning outings around Mitaka and Kichijoji.

I eventually chose to major in International Relations/International Law, and enrolled in courses including the Diplomatic History seminar taught by Ogata Sadako-sensei. Even then, I often arrived late to class, quietly slipping into the last remaining seat in the front row. Fortunately for me, I was in the same class as an upperclassman and a star student, Motohide Yoshikawa-kun, who kindly allowed me to borrow his meticulous notes regularly. (He later became Japan’s ambassador to the United Nations.) Years later, at a dinner with former ICU students in New York, Ogata-sensei still remembered my habitual late arrivals.

A few years after graduation, my life took an unexpected turn. Following a disastrous arranged marriage, I became a single mother. I returned to the ICU to complete my MA at the Graduate School of Public Administration (GSPA), but struggled to find employment afterward. It was then that Yokota Yozo sensei, who was my academic advisor, offered life-changing advice: he suggested that I might find greater opportunities, both professionally and personally, outside Japan.

With generous letters of recommendation from Yokota-sensei and others, I was accepted to Harvard Business School. Having never worked previously and with a limited command of English, my time at HBS was far from easy. Around that time, Takeuchi Hirotaka-sensei, now chair of the ICU board, had just joined HBS as a young marketing professor after completing his Ph.D. at Berkeley. I sought him out during office hours for advice (and some much-needed sympathy) as I struggled to keep up with the rigors of the academic environment.

After graduating, I entered the finance field and went on to work at several companies, building a challenging but rewarding career. In my early years in New York, however, balancing a demanding new job with raising a child was often overwhelming. During this time, my GSPA classmate Kiyoko Ikegami, then working at the United Nations in NY, and her mother were an invaluable source of support, stepping in whenever I needed help.

Looking back, I realize how many pivotal moments in my life were shaped by the kindness and support of ICU friends and mentors. Yet, as the years passed, I gradually lost touch with the ICU community.  

About ten years ago, however, Paul Hastings, then newly appointed Executive Director of JICUF, reached out to me about possibly joining its board. That invitation marked the beginning of my renewed relationship with ICU.

Serving on the JICUF board over the past decade has allowed me to reconnect with the university in meaningful ways. I returned to campus for the first time since graduation for a board meeting, reconnected with old friends through JICUF events, met current students, got to know ICU’s current leadership, including Iwakiri-sensei, and had the privilege of working alongside an inspiring group of fellow board members to enhance the ICU’s mission to educate global citizens.

These experiences have brought my journey with ICU full circle, reminding me of the enduring impact of the community that helped shape both my personal and professional life.