A Tale of Two Schools
The date is October 2, 1962. A diverse group of about 50 men and women, formally clad despite the lingering summer heat, gather beneath a red and white striped tent to celebrate a momentous occasion in the history of ASIJ: the groundbreaking of the brand-new Chofu campus, purchased from International Christian University in 1960 and set to open for the 1963–64 school year. But what started as a simple
member regularly served on the ASIJ Board for many years, further emphasizing the close relationship between ASIJ and ICU covering more than half of ASIJ’s history.
informal cooperation between two like-minded institutions. For the coming decades, many children of ICU’s non-Japanese faculty attended ASIJ—today, ASIJ’s alumni community includes over 100 ASIJ graduates whose parents were ICU faculty. The inverse relationship held true: hundreds of ASIJ alumni have attended ICU over the years. An ICU faculty
Professor Shoichiro Iwakiri and ASIJ Head of School Dr
And so 60 years later, on the morning of August 27, 2021, leaders from ASIJ and ICU came together in the ASIJ Multipurpose Room for a different ceremony. After more
“opportunities for exchange and cooperation” between ICU and ASIJ in the future in a ceremony live-streamed for the ICU and ASIJ communities. “ASIJ and ICU have a long, long history together,” remarked Hardin during the ceremony,
THE AMBASSADOR \\ FALL/WINTER 2021
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