Last semester, Government Professor Peter Rutland began his role as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching at Kyoritsu Women’s University and the Jesuit-run Sophia University in Tokyo.
Rutland departed the U.S. last fall to spend almost a full year abroad. He is teaching two courses a semester at the two universities, one on the Cold War and the other on U.S. foreign policy since the Cold War.
Rutland said that teaching classes in a foreign country has provided its share of challenges.
“I am teaching in English, so I have to take the language barrier into account,” said Rutland. “That means I give the students one short article to read each week, like a newspaper article or a Foreign Affairs article that I edit down.”
Rutland is teaching within the English department at Sophia University due to the absence of a political science department, which means that few of the students have a strong background in history, forcing him to adjust teaching strategies.
“I found myself having to explain U.S. policy more fully, aspects that I tended to take for granted when I was teaching American students,” he said.
At Kyoritsu, Rutland teaches as part of a strong American studies program alongside a group of diverse colleagues who range from a specialist on African American studies to the author of two books on the Vietnam War. Rutland also recognizes a difference between his students in Japan and those at Wesleyan.
“Japanese students are very reserved in class –they don’t ask questions and are reluctant to answer questions,” Rutland said.
The lack of personal interaction is a change from the relationship Rutland had with many students at Wesleyan, including Thang Le Ngoc ’05.
“He’s a devoted professor who knows a great deal of things to talk about, who takes great interest in getting to know his students, and who makes students want to come back and take a class with him,” Le Ngoc said.
“Even when he is in Japan this semester, I asked him questions for my history class, and he was willing to answer them. I would say the academic relationship I had with him was beyond the classroom.”
Rutland said he will integrate his experiences from Japan into his classes when he returns to campus. He has been learning about his students’ sentiments regarding current political events.
“I enjoyed finding out how the students here regard America in general and the war in Iraq in particular,” Rutland said.
With Japan’s recent deployment of Self Defense Forces to Iraq, as well as an accompanying wave of opposition, Rutland said that discussion in his history and politics classes has been especially relevant.
Rutland has taught a similar Cold War course at Wesleyan, and hopes to bring his recently developed foreign policy class back to campus upon his return. He is also researching contemporary Russian politics independently, working with specialists in Japan.
The Fulbright Scholarship is headed by the U.S. State Department, in honor of J. William Fulbright, a former Senator of Arkansas who founded the program in 1946. The program offers both teaching fellowships as well as research fellowships to individuals who have shown incredible “academic merit and leadership potential.” According to the State Department’s website, the Fulbright Program is designed to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries…” Assistant English Professor Allan P. Isaac was also named a Fulbright Scholar last year and is currently conducting research at De La Salle University-Manila in the Philippines.
Rutland is planning on returning to Wesleyan next semester after the yearlong fellowship.
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