 I'm Steve Zorker and I'll be the host for Looking to the East, this session that we do every two weeks here on Think Tech. I want to welcome you to the show and I think we have a very interesting topic to cover on this show. It has to do with international education. Those of you that have tuned into our segment before know that I'm a professor and a dean here at Kansai Gaida University. This is a topic that's a very personal one for me. I'm living through the COVID experience from the educational perspective right now. And I have a very special guest for this show. I want to introduce to you Mike Matsuno. So Mike and I have known each other. Mike, how long did I meet you? Ten years ago? It's been quite a while. Yeah, a little over that. Yeah. Often on our paths have crossed and his career is somewhat similar, even deeper actually than mine in terms of international education. So as you can see from his background, even though that's virtual, he does live in Japan like I do. And he's been involved in international education in various aspects. He's involved with NAFSA and the Japan Special Interest Group that focuses on how to encourage international exchange between Japan and the United States. So Mike, this is a partial introduction. Why don't you give a little bit more background about yourself if you don't mind. Well, thanks for having me, Steve. I was at Osaka Gakuen University as their director of the International Center for 10 years as the faculty director. And I was in charge of all areas of inbound and outbound. And after that, I worked for California State University Monterey Bay in the Asia region as their international consultant and their, you know, their person to take care of agreements and things. And finally, I am presently ending my contract at the Japan Study Abroad Foundation, and I just started working at Kinki University in their English intensive program. Right. I guess for our listeners who are not familiar with Japanese universities, Kinki University is not the first thing that comes to mind when you hear that. Kinki is a region in Japan. Right. This is actually kind of an interesting marketing story that I talk about in my class. It'd be like, you know, California State University. So Kinki would be an equivalent to that. But of course our English interpretation of that word is a little different. It's like, oh, what kind of school is this? So the school, I think they've changed officially their name in English. Their name is now, yeah. Now they're Kintai. So they go by Kintai, which is great because for the longest time when they're at NAFSA or international conferences, whenever they had to introduce themselves, you know, well, I'm from Kinki. I'm from Kinki University. Of course, the response was always like, well, are you, you know? So, you know, and then you got to, they must have had a billion jokes, you know, told about them. And so finally they decided to change the name. And I like the new name, Kintai. It has some kind of, you know, power like Kintai, Kintai. But yeah, that's right. Yeah, regardless of the name, it's a very, very highly regarded school. I think a few years ago, it was the most selective school in the country. It had more applications per opening than even Todai or other. It was remarkable. I don't know if that's still the case today, but a few years ago. I'm not sure if they're top anymore, but they're, it's huge. You know, they have a 30,000 student enrollment, very, very popular. It's like a second tier school. And it's, you know, they're famous for the maguro, the tuna, their science department. They invented what do you call farmed tuna, maguro. And they actually have a restaurant down in Osaka where every day it's sold out. I mean, you could go wait in line and then there's somebody at the end with the sign that says sold out, sold out. Every day in a matter of, you know, a few, you know, a few minutes, people wait and it's sold out. They have a restaurant down there and that actually has made them quite famous, the Kintai maguro. Okay, so that's a little bit about Mike's background. And the topic I wanted to cover for this show is what's happening with international education. So in a word, it's a disaster. So many industries have been dramatically impacted by COVID. You think of the airline industry and think of the tourism industry, hospitality in general. Some have benefited certainly zoom that we're using right now. It's done extremely well so there are niches that have done well, but unfortunately education is one of those industries that's been terribly impacted by COVID. And the major reason why is that these were for Japan because Japan's been very strict about allowing foreigners to come into the country over the last four or five months basically, it's almost impossible for foreigners to come here as tourists or in any other fashion. And that means that the number of students that we have from the United States in Japan and other countries has basically gone down to zero. So Mike, what's your perspective on all of this and maybe just give your description of what's going on. I know you have, you're involved with various committees and so forth that are looking at this and trying to remedy it. What do you think is going to happen. Right now, because it's basically at zero. I don't see it getting or improving in the next, maybe year or so. And so, you know, the situation is quite dire. And until a vaccine and there's more stability. I don't see students, you know, going out or coming in. And that's put a lot of pressure on a lot of like Japanese university schools who have programs that require study abroad, and Kinky University is one of them. They have a program don't they were 400 freshmen go abroad. That's what I'm teaching on now. That's what that's what I'm teaching right now. I kind of guess that that's what you were involved in. So what it was is the students on their first semester will go. They will do like American style ESL under the ELS company on campus in in kind. And then the second semester, which is this semester they were supposed to all go to the United States and because they, of course they couldn't go. Then the university created another block of ESL so they'll get a year total and that's why I took this position because after study abroad it wasn't going I thought I better start going back into the classroom which I do enjoy. And so that's why I'm teaching there. So, but yeah, the promise to send these students abroad is quite heavy on all universities with a requirement that that to send students abroad. So I'm not sure how they're going to handle that. Yeah, what our story at Consigheida is similar. So in February, the Prime Minister Abe made a declaration that no more classes could be conducted face to face I mean he just announced it. This has to stop. So, fortunately for most universities that's during the winter break, but for our university since we teach on the Western schedule. We were already a month into our semester with the foreign students we had about 310 foreign students that were studying with us for that semester. So we flipped from face to face instruction to online instruction, even though the students were still physically located here with us in Osaka. Then regarding the Japanese students. We send I think around 12 or 1300 a year to study abroad, and within about four to six weeks all of them had come back. The school policy was you have to return because they couldn't predict how this was going to roll out, you know, back in March, April, it was, it's still scary today but he back then it was even scarier. So those students are with us we have the same problem the kind I does. What do we do with those students who were under normal circumstances be studying in the United States right now are studying in other locations so it's a struggle. And they're not talking about, you know, maybe doing like a virtual study abroad and if they would exchange credits for that but there's a lot of resistance at different universities like I was just talking to all the sense about Hitotsubashi. And Hitotsubashi will not accept any kind of virtual virtual study abroad credits. It has to be physical mobility. So if you define study abroad as physical mobility, then it's really really difficult. And then there are one more point on that is that if you do study in a virtual study abroad, how much are the students really getting, you know, and then, you know, you could say well it's better than not having any experience which is also true and there's also coil COIL I think you teach. Yeah, I've been teaching coil I wanted to talk with you about that as well and there is a an initiative sponsored by the Ministry of Education here in Japan and also ace the American Council on Education. I'm sure you're familiar with that Mike to try and encourage greater coil collaboration between Japan the United States. Yeah, what do you think though it may be I don't know what you think it may be a year or even two before we can regain mobility I just for the viewers. You have two academics talking to each other here this is our own, our professions are livelihood but I want you to know that the economic impact of this is huge. And it's dependent on the amount of revenue that international students bring to the United States and this would include Hawaii is $45 billion and that number is rapidly going down to zero. So this has of course a direct impact on people like us that are working within the education industry but it does affect the overall economy. And the other thing to Mike that I think about with this is that I was an exchange student when I was a sophomore. I had that experience as a sophomore I spent a year at Kansai Gaidae. And these students now that we're intending to do this cannot. And if this lasts for two years there's going to be a two year break for people to have this this international in depth experience where they're living in a foreign culture which has such profound impact on people and affects their career certainly that's true for me. My career unfolded because of my experience at Kansai Gaidae. So I think about that in terms of the long term prospects. If there's two years where we don't have Japanese students going to America. And we don't have American students coming to Japan. There's a to where we lose all of those students who perhaps after that experience would develop careers as diplomats or businessmen and women right or working like we do in the education industry so. So it is and we'll never know you know what potential was there and you know you know. I would say as you said I would be looking at somewhere between two and three years you know one year would be pushing and I think and nobody wants to hear that because of course you know companies are based on study abroad as well as these students and these programs but. So I'm not sure how they're going to handle it or they might just start shortening the program instead of. And you know for Japan most of the time it was a semester or a year and even that I thought was never really long enough but you know they might make it bring it down to maybe like a month or maybe you know a couple of weeks which won't be the same and as you said without. That life changing study abroad experience you know the path will be totally different and I really believe I am really really passionate about how life changing study abroad experiences in every aspect of emotional mental physical in every way and that's why I feel really really sad for a lot of these students who can't go in the next couple of years. Yeah. So. I think we're forcing the situation where we have to teach virtually so I was mentioning to you before we started. The live session here in the case of consign guide I we felt terrible for the we had 400 students that applied to come to our university this semester fall semester that started at the end of August and we had to tell them. Back in April May I believe it was that we can't get visas for you so for the for those of you that are listening to this the reason we cannot bring American students into the country is because the government will not issue visas. For them to come here in the. The thought is to protect Japan against covert infection and so forth so we had our hands were tied. So now we put together an extension of our classes but doing it online so we have over 300 students. About 60% of them were the ones who were intending to come here face to face that are now taking online courses including Japanese from us and we have the time shift issue to deal with and. Whether we do this synchronously or asynchronously there's all kinds of challenges. So I don't know yet about how if we look at the full immersion experience is 100% what are we going to achieve with this virtual process is it like only 20% or is it 30% or I don't know I that I can't answer that question but Mike what do you think. My guess would be, especially for like language classes like I'm you know I was doing for the first couple of weeks at kind I, I would say it's 50% at best. And maybe if you're doing more like present station lecture style, maybe that would go up 6070%. Now, if you look at the graduate level or you look at an MBA like a lot of online programs I think for that level where it's basically just, you know, information, you know you don't have to have the socialization process or anything online probably is fine it probably never reaches 100%, but it's fine but I think for most undergraduates you know you know basic I think Scott Galloway had said there were three things that students go to the university for one was the reputation of the diploma to graduate the other was the knowledge and education that you get. And the third which is probably one of the most important is the whole socialization making friends networking, and that part is totally taken out with online learning. Yeah, we did some surveys of the students in the last some semester in spring, based on the online efforts that we were doing. Now again these students were in Japan so they were at least living here. And actually, Mike some of them were quite happy because all of a sudden they didn't have to go to class on a regular basis so some of my students were zooming in from Okinawa. And you could see the palm trees in the background and going oh yeah you're not a you're not in Hirakasa anymore. I would have hit it better if I were them. Yeah and some some actually prioritized traveling over classes we had some missing student problems as well. But the feedback that we got the positive things was it the flexibility of the classes and the students were happy with how the professors managed given the circumstances. But there were two things that they mentioned as problems, and one that you've just addressed the lack of community in the classroom, even if you use zoom and you do breakouts. Yeah, it kind of simulates interaction but it's not the same as when you're sitting in the room, especially for the cross cultural engagement between the Japanese students and the the foreign students in the classroom setting. And the other thing too, and I'd be interested to see if you're seeing this as well, is the lack of discipline and the feeling that it's much harder for the students to stay on track when it's solely an online class. If you have to be in the classroom twice a week and you're in front of the professor, there's kind of a self-imposed discipline because the professor will scold you or I don't know how you teach Mike but you know I'm a little bit tough. So if you don't do what you're supposed to do, I'll call you out. But online it's, I didn't really do that that much, and I think don't think other professors did maybe it kind of felt sorry for the students so it wasn't quite. But as a result they were saying that it was hard for them to stay on track. I think it's about relationship, you know, like if you're in the class and you see the students, you kind of have a kind of a mutual relationship, you know, you know their name, you know, they know you and they will show up. But as you said online, although we have the little names in our little zoom, right, like, you know, my name is Mike, it's still, you know, very different and we, at Kindi, we went to two weeks online in September and now we just started in person class and I can tell you the difference is like night and day, you know, just you did hybrid. Yes. So we started thinking behind that why did you start it was part partly to do and this is I think Japanese University thing where for the first semester they had said it would be all online. So even if this program was designated to go on the American calendar from September until December which is actually a fall semester class, because it was two weeks in September, they had to still go online to abide by the university wide rule, which I didn't think was the best decision, but right. So it's not what's best for students, it was following the rules, right. But then last week we started going online, I mean, in person on in the class. And I could see the total change and then so I'm asking the students all the time about what they think and what they're doing of course, you know, you got those few who say, I rather have zoom because I don't have to wake up as early. Sure they get up at 845 and nine o'clock class they're there right now they they're not up they're traveling two hours. So it's it's totally different but I can see in their, their eyes and the whole emotion is totally different so Japanese students especially I think any student would really need to have that in class experience as much as possible. So you would recommend if going forward that at a minimum university should do a hybrid model, maybe where it's online and then in person some American universities are doing that. Why don't you address the safety consideration I mean Mike are you worried yourself. Now, for our viewers in America. I, you know, used to be that Hawaii was what was the exception in the infection rates for low, I don't know still like relative you compare to California or New York or other states it's still quite low but Japan, the infection rates here for reasons that we don't clearly understand we have actually we talked about this before in previous shows Mike. But anyway the infection rate here is quite low I don't know about you Mike but I nobody in my circle, professional or personal. Here in Japan have become sick from COVID but when I think about my friends in Silicon Valley, or I have a colleague that worked at a company before I became a professor. He just wrote to me and said his daughter got sick. She was at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill which was one of the ones that was a kind of a mess they had to reverse themselves. So many of my friends and colleagues actually close friends have gotten sick in America but in Japan. Nobody so the risk I think maybe the perceived risk is lower here so are you as a university asking you to take precautions or is it just teaching like normal right now. Well actually we do have those precautions we you know we have. And the first day we give out a bottle of sanitizer to each of the students we spread them out of course mask are required and in the class and that's one of the reasons that kind of split system where only freshmen are on campus Monday through Thursday. And then Friday we go back online and Friday, the second third fourth year sophomore junior and seniors come to campus because they didn't want they wanted to make sure they had some connection back to campus but they could do one day a week. Yes for those second third fourth year because they needed the space so that they could spread out the students. Oh I see. So that's all they did. That's clever. Yeah and they wanted to give it to the freshmen because last this year sophomores did have their freshman year on campus they wanted to give it to them you know and and I see that but I also feel bad for the sophomores and juniors really because they really won't have much of a campus life at all. And what is but you know this group this year this freshman I really feel bad because I had them do writing you know like they wrote essays about and one of the topics I wrote was about how has the coronavirus affected you. And there's a lot of of course disappointment frustration anger because they get hit the worst their high school graduation which everyone looks forward to whether it's in Hawaii or in Japan. Is only them or maybe a few students that their parents come but it's no friends it's no big party it's just them right then they have the big entrance ceremony which is big in Japan. That's all like you know cancel basically except for a few students who attend as as representatives so basically this group got the worst end of the deal and I feel bad for them and I think that's why the university is trying really hard to figure out a plan. How are they going to get this group abroad and it's still the six million dollar question. Yeah but if you're right and I think you maybe if it's another two or three years before that can be done safely. I, I would imagine, even if kind I or my university said students can go back to America, the parents would probably not allow it. Yeah, I agree. And that's what it comes down to because the parents. Yeah, it's a little bit different in Japan as opposed to the United States. I didn't care what my parents thought I picked school that I wanted to. When I went to Japan my grandmother was kind of a racist actually some respects told me don't go to Japan I did anyway I didn't listen to them. But in Japan, the parents are paying for this school. And they have a very strong influence, especially the mother on where the students will go and you know the news in the United States is just so bad right now in terms of the virus infection. It might not even students may choose not to go anyway. Yeah, I agree. I think that even if it becomes more or less safe and the vaccine is out. I would sense that there will not be a big movement to go and study abroad out. And I think it's because the parents one in Japan, they're not risk takers. So they're more you know about safety and security so a lot of parents will hedge on that as well as some of the parents have either lost some of the hours of work. Students who are saving money to pay certain portions of their study abroad at out of bite the part time jobs they lost those jobs or. So all of that it's been affected. I think what will happen is, although most Japanese want to go to English speaking Western countries, you're going to have a switch a different style of study abroad and even travel for tourism. I think they're going to stay within the region. I think a lot more people are going toward Asia. And even if it's like the Philippines, for example, which is Philippines, some of my students have gone there on on two month right intensive English programs. And I think even though there's another pocket there too that I'm going to Asia where sometimes Japanese have a little bit of a complex when they're dealing with you know western speakers. And you know they feel like they're never good enough and all but in Asia where both are you know it's a second language for both sides, whether it's in Korea or in China or, you know, like, let's say, yeah, Malaysia or Malaysia's in the speak English but. So what happens is that they feel more comfortable more at ease, then it's closer in case anything happens they can come home right away. I think the regional travel for not only study abroad but tourists is going to be more prevalent than people going far away so maybe they'll go toward Australia. I think it's about what eight hours nine hour flight and Hawaii has a possibility of being a player in this I think because it's only six and a half hours and nine coming back so Hawaii could be a big player I would kind of push that way you know in a close enough the one flight and then you know you can study English and still go back on one flight. Yeah, and I think many Japanese people have visited Hawaii and the parents. In some respects sometimes my Japanese students don't know that Hawaii is a part of America. Yeah, yeah. When I talk to them I treat it like that too because they do right, you know, there's America and then then Oh, have you been to Hawaii. I haven't been to America but I've been to Hawaii. And you know the repeaters are so there's such an affinity for Japanese to Hawaii you know I think it was I read somewhere it was like 60% are repeaters so that tells you the brand that Hawaii has as well as vice versa Hawaii people love Japan now the affinity is strong I think when Japan opens up the Hawaii people are going to be the first in line along with China and Korea and Hawaii but I don't see mainland Americans and maybe Europeans coming for a long time to China this is for you know tourism just because of the whole Asia stigma and traveling so far away people are going to travel closer to their home I believe. You mentioned Australia and my friend is a consul general for Australia in the consai region. And you know he just says out front that his job is to promote Australia he's kind of like a business person rather than a diplomat, although he is very diplomatic as well. And the number of Japanese students going to Australia over the last few years is just boomed. This is pre-COVID mostly because of the politics you know they kind of the unwelcome don't come here unwelcome sign that's been put out by the current administration in terms of foreign students so their enrollments were dramatically going up now they have also I haven't talked to them since COVID. They completely slammed the door shut Australia struggling as well so they're not bringing in international students. But once that door is opened up again yeah they're going to be very aggressively marketing themselves Japanese students but let's get back to Hawaii I agree but you know maybe you don't agree with me about this point. I've always been kind of underwhelmed by how little the Hawaiian universities are doing to recruit Japanese students so I'm a graduate of Manoa you are as well right. Yeah so I have an MBA from Shidler and I've talked to various people on the Manoa campus and it doesn't seem to be all that well organized. It's like like the Shidler they have their own relationships you know and they're tied to KO and then other departments have other relationships and I just don't see it as being well organized or really sufficiently high priority enough to actually generate a positive recruitment effort and this is true West Oahu as well where I've been teaching and they have an international programs department but it's still quite small and so forth. So there's a community college and there's KCC and others. Maybe KCC is the most successful one I'm not sure but it doesn't seem to be all that successful when you think like you were saying that if they did this properly the Japanese students would love coming to Hawaii. Oh yeah I completely agree 100% and what you're seeing is right on and I have experienced it through the last 20 years of working with UH and it's a silo effect. Everybody has a different silo effect especially UH people might not like this but you got study abroad office, you got exchange, you got Shidler, everybody has their own and nobody wants to consolidate. There is no one connecting the dots in Hawaii and that's the problem and so you do have a study abroad you know Joe, he's in charge and he's great. The problem is on the main campus, Manoa, nobody wants to give up their you know or work together and so it's like everybody doing, there's a lot of duplication and you know Hawaii lacks like infrastructure whether it's housing or you know better transportation. There's no dorms for the international students coming in and there's all you know so yes I would say the Hawaii situation is probably 10 years minimum behind what's going on at the more advanced mainland universities. And as you said I've always been for Hawaii like come on Hawaii you can do better than this. Me too. And it's like every time I go back it's like oh well everybody goes oh yeah you know they're all like well she got the gun I cannot be helped kind of thing and I'm going geez man 20 years I've been going back and I haven't seen very much change at all. And it's disappointing to me because Hawaii should be a bigger bigger player they could be right if they you know if they had construction support. I'm getting the flashing sign here Mike we believe it or not we've gone through the 30 minutes already. So let's just leave it this way. You should work with Kindai get them to open up a campus in Hawaii. That's my guide I had one as you know many years ago. I remember I remember. Maybe the building still vacant maybe I can convince the leaders of the concept. I know right. Yeah, let's work on that and solve this problem might it's been a pleasure talking to you as thanks for having a regular conversation when we get together at the various shows or. Really appreciate your insights this is a very important topic for I'm going to appreciate having me thank you very much Steve it's always great to talk to you it's you know we gotta have a beer again once. That'd be great. Yeah good luck with your classes at Kindai. You too same with online take care now. Okay. Bye bye. Thank you.