Mukogawa beginnings
It was 20 years ago that a private women’s school from Japan opened a branch campus at Fort Wright
Twenty years ago, more than a hundred nervous Japanese women college students arrived for a new – and admittedly risky – educational experiment in Spokane.
It was the Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute, a branch campus of Mukogawa Women’s University, a private women’s school in Japan.
Many Japanese universities were trying the same thing at other campuses; many never made it to their 20th anniversary.
“This is one of the few left,” said Douglas Griffith, Mukogawa Fort Wright’s director of academic programs.
Mukogawa Fort Wright has not only survived, it has thrived.
The school is celebrating its 20th anniversary this summer with a by-invitation open house Wednesday, and with a celebratory banquet on Aug. 4 (also by invitation). More than 300 people will be there.
Top university officials and dozens of former students will fly in from Japan. Dozens of Spokane city officials and community members will be there for the celebration.
Meanwhile, more than 9,000 students have called Spokane home for a semester, with hundreds more already enrolled for the next academic year.
Why did Mukogawa Fort Wright bloom when the other branch-campus experiments wilted?
“The ones that didn’t make it, they didn’t go to the community the right way,” said Griffith. “They didn’t set up the relationships.”
Spokane embraced Mukogawa from the beginning, partly through the efforts of Spokane supporters such as the late Ed Tsutakawa. After two decades, Mukogawa is woven deeply into the community, and has given Spokane a distinct Japanese flavor.
About 450 Japanese students – 19- and 20-year-old women – come to Spokane every year from their university in Spokane’s sister city of Nishinomiya. The plan: To hone their English skills (many are English majors) and immerse themselves in American culture.
Homesickness and culture shock often ensue. During that first class in 1990, one of the students fretfully asked her dorm adviser, “My teacher sometimes says, ‘Oh boy.’ What does he mean when he says, ‘Oh boy’ to me?”
Most students go home a semester later with vastly improved English and, in many cases, a blossoming interest in American and international culture.
“It’s their first step toward becoming an international citizen,” said Griffith.
Frankly, some Mukogawa students are a bit dismayed when they arrive in Spokane and discover it’s not exactly Los Angeles or New York. But Spokane’s size has actually been one of the reasons for Mukogawa’s success.
“Mukogawa is a conservative place, and the girls are from very conservative families,” said Griffith. “When they come here, they are often quite shy. Coming to Spokane gives them a kind of protection.”
Spokane, he said, “is in some ways ideal” because the students can venture out into the community and experience culture – a play, a symphony, a hockey game, a basketball game – without a lot of big-city transportation hassles.
One student, blogging to her friends at home this year on the Mukogawa website, wrote that she didn’t expect much from a visit to the Spokane Symphony. But on walking into the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox and hearing the music, she wrote “my expectations soared!”
And they’re not exactly stuck in Spokane. Every semester includes trips to Boston, Washington, D.C., and Seattle.
And what does Spokane get from Mukogawa?
The students are visible at many community events – you’ll always seen them running Bloomsday. They spend weekends with Spokane families.
They share their dance, music, literature and food at community festivals and through the Japanese Cultural Center on campus.
The students are also ubiquitous in Spokane’s classrooms. They go to elementary schools to read their favorite children’s book to Spokane kids; they go to middle schools to practice their pronouns; they go to college classes to help Americans learn Japanese.
Griffith guesses that few Spokane students get through school without meeting a Japanese student.
Mukogawa also has an undeniable economic impact on Spokane, as well. The institute has an annual budget of between $5 million and $6 million, and most of the students arrive with money to spend locally.
The school has more than 20 faculty members – all American – and about 100 other employees.
And the school’s impact isn’t all economic. It can also be personal.
“I went to a wedding in Spokane this weekend,” said Griffith. “It was a former student who came back and married someone here.”