The University of Fukui has signed a student exchange agreement with Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.This will enable exchange students to mutually recognize credits in all faculties, and one student from the University of Fukui to the Faculty of Regional Sciences will study abroad at Rutgers University from this fall.
According to Fukui University, the signing ceremony was at Rutgers University, signed by Mayumi Mitsuru, President of the University of Fukui, and Barbara Lee, Vice President of Rutgers University.At the ceremony, President Mayumi said, "The relationship between Fukui and Rutgers University has passed 150 years, and this agreement has taken a new step. We would like to further promote historic exchanges."
The exchange between Fukui and Rutgers University began in 1867 at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate when Taro Kusakabe, a feudal lord of Fukui, traveled to the United States to study abroad.Kusakabe, who became one of the first students to study abroad at an overseas university from Japan, is said to have been handed down at the university as a legendary foreign student who died suddenly of illness just before graduation while achieving excellent results enough to become the top of the class.William Griffith, a teacher who taught Latin to Kusakabe and had a close relationship with him, was invited by the Fukui domain to teach science at the Fukui domain school Meishinkan and the predecessor university south school of the University of Tokyo.
From this connection, Fukui University and Rutgers University signed an academic exchange agreement in 1981, Fukui City and New Brunswick City formed a sister city tie-up in 1982, and Fukui Prefecture and New Jersey formed a sister city relationship in 1990. There is.
After the ceremony, President Mayor of the University of Fukui paid a courtesy visit to Mayor James Kahill New Brunswick, visited Kusakabe's grave, and visited the historical materials left by Professor Griffith at the Rutgers University Central Library.
