New study abroad program brings Willamette students to Kobe, Japan

Ground view of some of Konan's campus on Sept. 4, 2025. Photo courtesy of Rand Carswell ('27).

In the fall semester of 2025, four Willamette students arrived at Konan University in Kobe, Japan, the first from Willamette to take part in a new study abroad program. 

Unlike the Tokyo International University (TIU) study abroad program, the Konan University program is in a city situated between the ocean and mountains in Southern Japan, and is only available for the fall semester. It’s also not an exchange program and offers more rigorous Japanese language courses. Willamette seeks to experiment with this new program to see how it appeals to students. This semester, the first participants from Willamette returned to Salem. 

According to Joe Bowersox, director of the Office of International Education (OIE) and professor of environmental science, OIE worked with Japanese studies professor Miho Fujiwara to “find an option for students, particularly those in advanced Japanese studies, that wanted to have a little bit of an intensive language experience.” 

Willamette’s relationship with Konan is unique in that it is not direct. Instead, Willamette works through a consortium with the University of Hawai‘i. Bowersox explained that this means that “Willamette students kind of become University of Hawai‘i students for the semester that they are in Konan.” 

The overall student response has been positive, according to Bowersox. 

Roan Sticka-Jones (’27) is one of the students who participated in the program. He decided to go to Konan because he liked how it is a smaller school and Japanese language focused. Sticka-Jones took the Level 4 Japanese language class, which ran for three-hours every morning. He also took a Japanese linguistics class and an anthropological class about Japanese culture, which were taught in English. 

Rand Carswell (’27) also went to Konan, and they found that the elective classes, taught in English, were similar to a 200-level course at Willamette. The Japanese language course’s “rigor and pacing” made it “Probably the most difficult class [they’d] ever taken.”

Amid the intensive Japanese class, Carswell appreciated that the professors were very knowledgeable in their fields and felt they “learned a lot in that environment. The professors will do anything to help you learn the language; they were really awesome,” they said.

Some aspects that Sticka-Jones and Carswell enjoyed about studying in Konan stemmed from the campus environment. 

Sticka-Jones reflected how the most fun part was meeting other people from the study abroad program: “There were around 35 program participants, and the people were from all across the U.S. and from other countries. They all had different levels of Japanese knowledge.” For him, the cool part about interacting with the students in Konan was that the “students speak a lot of Kansai dialect, and it was fun to learn that dialect,” he said.

Meanwhile, Carswell, a big nature person, appreciated being in a city “right in between the ocean and mountains.” They took the nearby Nunobiki Railway into the mountains where they explored shrines and hiking trails. “The view there is breathtaking,” they said. 

From overall student feedback, Bowersox highlighted how students were appreciating the faculty members from the consortium schools that helped to facilitate transition issues. Carswell also emphasized how they appreciated the study abroad staff. 

For the foreseeable future, according to Bowersox, Willamette’s Konan University program will take place during every fall semester. While study abroad applications for the 2026-27 year are closed, the deadline for applying tends to be at the end of the fall semester of the previous academic year. 

Being in an experimental stage with the program, OIE will continue to collect feedback from students and see how it goes. Bowersox felt that, for students interested in studying in Japan, “It’s nice that we were able to provide another option for students that maybe want to explore outside of Tokyo.”