Alumni Stories No. 12 – Ms. Christine Nalubowa
Ms. Christine Nalubowa obtained her B.A. and M.A. from ICU in the 2010s, and is now based in Uganda. This month, we asked her to share her “ICU story.”
Ms. Christine Nalubowa obtained her B.A. and M.A. from ICU in the 2010s, and is now based in Uganda. This month, we asked her to share her “ICU story.”
The 2019 spring application period for the JICUF Student Funds will begin on January 21st.
Since this program was established in 2016, JICUF has supported numerous projects by both undergraduate and graduate students at ICU. At the same time, many students are not familiar with the idea of “grants,” and some confuse it with scholarships. We asked JICUF Program Manager Fernando Rojas to answer some frequently asked questions.
We are happy to announce that ICU student Mone Ikeda has been awarded the 2019 JICUF Study Abroad Scholarship earlier this month. Mone will study at the University of California from fall 2019. We recently interviewed Mone by e-mail.
Earlier this year, fourth year language education major Mikiko Saigo was awarded ¥188,000 via the JICUF Student Travel Fund to conduct her research project “Teaching Japanese as a Foreign/Heritage Language in Canada: Ethnography and Interviews to Reconsider the Approaches.” Mikiko traveled to Canada from June to September, and the JICUF grant covered her airfare.
In early November, the JICUF Grants Committee reviewed proposals submitted by ICU faculty and students and approved fourteen projects: five from faculty, nine from ICU students. JICUF provided a total of ¥4,450,820 in funding for these projects.
Anastazy Maletz is the first recipient of JICUF’s United States Scholars Initiative (USSI) scholarship. This merit-based scholarship provides full-tuition support for four years of undergraduate study at ICU. Anastazy matriculated at ICU in September, and we asked him about his experiences at ICU so far.
Mana Yamagata, a fourth-year Literature major, received a ¥474,500 grant this spring to plan a Modern Dance Society (MDS) performance. This fall, they invited New York-based choreographer and ICU alum Kensaku Shinohara and Taiwan-based dance group Seed Dance Company to ICU to put on a collaborative performance. The ICU × Taiwan × New York Dance Project: “Woohi Chung” (meaning “five minutes” in Chinese) was performed four times in the West Wing of the Diffendorfer Memorial Hall (known as the “Shin-D”) from September 18th to 20th. We interviewed MDS members to learn about their project.
Fourth-year ICU student Michinori Suzuki received a JICUF student travel fund of ¥651,800 last fall to conduct two research trips to Hokkaido. Michinori majors in linguistics, and we asked him about his research on voiced plosives in two Japanese dialects.
A team of ICU students participated in the 29th International Law Moot Court Competition Japan Cup held on July 7th and 8th, and received the Fighting Spirit Award. The students took the International Moot Court course taught by Assistant Professor Hiromichi Matsuda. JICUF has been supporting Professor Matsuda’s initiative to send ICU students to moot court competitions through the faculty grants program.
In 2017, JICUF awarded Study Abroad Scholarships to five students with excellent academic standing. These students studied at ICU’s partner institutions in the United States and have recently returned to Japan. Three of the five students shared comments about their time in the U.S.