Professor Hao Lu and Chris Thompson
The College of Business’s Global Consulting Program (GCP) is moving to Tokyo in May, thanks to leadership from Professor Chris Thompson of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor Hao Lu of the College of Business.
Lu, co-director of the Tokyo program with Thompson, said Tokyo is one of two new sites for the GCP this year. There is also a new location as well as returning sites in Tamarind, Costa Rica, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Italy.
Andrew Pushel, Director of CIBED, says, “I cannot think of a more dynamic duo than Dr. Thomson and Dr. Lu to lead this exciting addition to our lineup of experiential opportunities at the Center for International Business Education and Development was.” “The benefits of this interdisciplinary leadership collaboration will have lasting positive benefits for participating students and/or global partner relationships for years to come.”
Like many activities of Ohio University in Japan, it also traces OHIO’s 50-year relationship with Chbu University in Aichi Prefecture in central Japan. But OHIO’s relationships—both faculty ties and an extensive in-country alumni network—now extend far beyond Chubu.
Every year since 1973, OHIO and Chubu have exchanged faculty members through a Visiting Professor Program, giving students and professors the unique opportunity to gain a truly international learning experience. Faculty members who come to OHIO from Chubu University are called the Robert Glidden Visiting Professors. OHIO faculty members who visit Chubu University are Kohe Miura Visiting Professors—named in honor of the founder of Chubu University.
Thompson, a cultural anthropologist who teaches Japanese in the Department of Linguistics in the College of Arts and Sciences, was selected as a visiting professor in 2018. On his selection committee was Lu, who had been an exchange professor several years earlier. So it was only natural that the College of Business would approach Lou Thompson when it wanted to add the destination of Japan to its popular mentoring program that prepares students for the challenges of the global business environment.
“Hao actually looked for me as his destination in China was being phased out. We talked to Chubu about doing this in Nagoya, but he was humming it, so with Chubu’s blessing, we went to Musashi in Tokyo. Contacted the university where we send students as well. Dr. Brian Mashardt at Musashi decided to move us immediately because we were able to build our own placement site in Japan using our extensive OHIO alumni network, said Thompson. will be able to provide.
“Expanding the Global Consulting Program to Tokyo is such a great collaboration between the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Business. We are very excited that OHIO students will benefit from Dr. Thompson’s expertise and research into Japanese language and culture, which In conjunction with Dr. Lu’s expertise in global business. With the help of OHIO’s alumni network in Japan, our students will engage in a life-changing experience where they can learn and contribute from bilingual workplaces run by our alumni can,” said Sarah Poggio, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. ,
Placement at workplaces of alumni
“I have been engaging my OHIO alumni at their workplaces in Tokyo for years,” said Thompson, as I developed the Japan Global Engagement Project, once known as the Oyu-Iwate Prefectural University (IPU) Tsunami Volunteer Project goes.” In 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake struck the Pacific Ocean west of Japan, sending a wall of water more than 100 feet to some coastal communities. More than 20,000 people died. In addition to volunteer support, Thompson’s project continues to look at the cultural impact of the disaster and how communities are recovering, as a group of students and alumni recently gathered for 10th Year of activity on the weekend of September 24 in Iwate.
“As a cultural anthropologist and a faculty member in linguistics, I have always been interested in sites where our OHIO students can work in Japan using their OHIO degrees and the Japanese language skills we teach them. Plus we have OHIO alumni who are also Japanese, thanks to our exchange programs. So we’re going to put Tokyo Global Consulting Program students in workplaces run by OHIO alumni,” said Thompson , who noted that knowledge of the Japanese language is not a prerequisite. Global Consulting Program.
Among the sites where students can interning are two OHIO alumni, a French restaurant run by an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) between Japanese from different African countries and residents of Japan, run by an OHIO graduate. Facilitates negotiation, and is a sales representative at a Japanese event planning firm where a recent OHIO graduate.
“All of these sites were deliberately chosen because they are bilingual work environments where everyone works in English. Otherwise, it would be impossible to provide a meaningful experience for our students in such a short amount of time,” Thompson said. Another site is a sports management company affiliated with the College of Business in Tokyo.
“The alumni relationships I have developed are the foundation that makes it possible to share this experience with the College of Business and the OHIO campus. It is no secret that many students studying Japanese at OHIO are business majors. And Dr. Lu, who understands the value of these relationships and the way alumni relations work outside the US, gave me the opportunity to work with him, with his great experiences leading programs in many parts of the world. To develop something really unique,” Thompson said.
Growing presence in Tokyo
Thompson noted that the relationship with Musashi University doesn’t appear to be the same as the Chubu partnership, but it remains as vibrant.
“Many OHIO faculty and administrators don’t even know the broad relationship that OHIO—especially the Ohio Program of Intensive English (OPIE) and the Department of Linguistics—has had with Musashi over the years. I’ve worked with him extensively on a variety of projects. , student exchanges, and administrative visits over the years. The College of Business Tokyo GCP is just the latest Japan-related project I’m working on,” Thompson said.
Also, Dr. Charlie Morgan, Associate Professor of Sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, is on sabbatical in Japan this year. He directs the OU-MU Exchange Program.
Currently, eight OHIO students are in Japan this semester, four in Chubu and four in Musashi.
For more information about the Center for International Business Education and Development, or the Global Consulting Program at OHIO’s College of Business, contact Puesche at [email protected]
