Fulbright award expands assistant professor's horizons and skill

Story by Karen Auge

Emily Stones has a year to learn Japanese. Not an easy task for anyone, but add the fact that Stones is a fulltime Regis assistant professor of communication, a researcher, wife and mother of three pre-teens, and just undertaking the attempt becomes impressive. But the endeavor is significant for Stones, who has won a Fulbright scholarship that will allow her to teach in Japan for five months beginning March 2023. After all, how would it look if a professor chosen to bring her communication expertise to Japanese classrooms couldn’t communicate?

Stones’ students at Tokai University outside Tokyo and at Nihon University in Mishima in central Japan will speak English, the language she’ll conduct classes in. Still, she said she is “practicing diligently,” hoping to communicate with Japanese people in their language.

Though exact courses haven’t been determined, Stones said she’s been asked to teach on the history of disability rights in the United States and on the interaction and influence between media and politics here.

Trying to understand the latter is tough enough within the United States, Stones acknowledged. “It will be a wonderful challenge to teach in a non-U.S. context,” she said.

Here, Stones said, “My goal is how can I teach students to be better consumers of political media, and less prone to accepting misinformation,” she said. “But really my goal is how to keep students engaged. Young people are more checked out of politics. They care about issues, but they almost see those issues as separate from politics.”

In her other focus area, neurodiversity, Stones examines how people with conditions like autism and ADHD interact with others – and vice versa. Her interest, she said, is, “How do we make communication more inclusive? Traditionally, if you have an autism diagnosis, you go to a specialist to learn how to ‘communicate’ better. The burden is on them to learn how to communicate so they can fit into broader society. How do we expand that?”

The prestigious Fulbright Program, created in 1946 in the aftermath of World War II, aims to increase understanding between the United States and other countries. Of the thousands who apply each year to teach or research around the world, only about 800 win Scholars Program awards.

Teaching abroad has long been an ambition for Stones. “In her ‘20s, my mother taught in South Korea, and I grew up hearing that story. So, I always thought that was something I’d want to do.”

The dream got deferred. About the time Stones applied to graduate school in Australia, she met the man who would become her husband. Then came three children, and her overseas aspirations got further sidelined. Like so many others jolted into introspection and action by the pandemic, Stones said 2020 convinced her that “it was time to make a move.”

Exactly where that move will take her and her family is still to be decided. “I do know that I’ll be near Mt. Fuji. And I’ll be commuting by bullet train to Tokyo.”

Her mother — her inspiration — is proud, she said. “Both my parents plan to visit us in Japan.”

Stones said she’s heard Japanese college students may be accustomed to absorbing information through lectures. But she hopes her classroom style will translate. “I do small group discussions, partner exercises, things like that.” She hopes her students won’t be shy about sharing their opinions.

Learning the answer is something Stones is excited about. She has, after all, made human communication her life’s work. “Human behavior, the way people interact, that’s fascinating to me.”