Montana's sister school Tohoku University
Montana Journalism Abroad made Tohoku University’s library our work site during our last week in Japan.
The campus couldn’t be any more different than where we started our journey in Tokyo. Tohoku, really all of Sendai, has lush greenery reminiscent of the University of Montana. A stark difference from Tokyo’s neon-lit streets.
The heavily forested campus isn’t the only thing the two schools have in common. Yuka Tachibana taught as at the University of Montana from 1992 to 2008. She has been working at Tohoku University since 2008.
Tachibana has served as a bridge between the two schools.
The Montana Journalism Abroad group was the first student group from the University of Montana to visit Tohoku U in the city of Sendai. The two schools became sister schools in September 2016.
Tohoku University was established in 1907, the third Imperial University of Japan. Think U.S. Ivy League schools, that’s the caliber of this institution.
Montana Journalism Abroad had a particular interest in Tohoku’s advanced research in disaster science. Here, researchers in the hard sciences and humanities are coming together to work on issues ranging from the geology of earthquakes to the psychological toll on disaster survivors.
Ebina Yuichi, one of the 60 researchers in the department, showed the group letters and official documents that were used to patch a paper sliding door around 200 years ago. He said researchers are looking through them and other old writings to see if there are any descriptions of past tsunamis and how communities recovered. They’ll compare those descriptions with physical evidence to try to recreate and study past disasters.
The president of Tohoku University, Susumu Satomi, was a responder to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Satomi, a physician, took over the direction of medical crews working in Miyagi Prefecture and looked at the logistics of getting teams to the towns needing support.
On the tour around the campus, we were guided by a few of the founding members of The Sentinel. The Sentinel aspires to be the newspaper for international students on campus. It was created in May 2016.
Rohan Raj, a mechanical and aerospace engineering major, co-founded the newspaper and is the current managing editor. Raj said he felt it was important to voice his own opinion and that took the form of the newspaper. He said that the Sentinel isn’t funded by the university, so they are able to be freer with their criticism than the official student paper.
“We wanted to be the middle ground between students and the administration,” Raj said.
Our group of 14 students, two professors and one staff member couldn’t be more thrilled to be the first ambassadors here from the University of Montana. It’s been a privilege getting familiar with the complex, extremely intelligent and attractive students who make up Tohoku University.