On November 11th 2022, the teams from the Ritsumeikan and American University JDP (Joint Degree Program) gathered for a panel discussion to address their collective response to the Covid19 pandemic.

Panel Members:

(RU) Ritsumeikan University

(AU) American University

1. INTRODUCTIONS (OUR TEAMS)
2. CHALLENGES (RUNNING THE JDP DURING PANDEMIC)
3. ADAPTING (LIVING WITH THE PANDEMIC)
4. COMMUNICATION (A SOLID FOUNDATION)
5. JDP MERITS (DEFINING THE PROGRAM)
6. RELATIONSHIPS (TRUST AND SUPPORT)
7. INTO THE FUTURE (NEXT STEPS)

1.INTRODUCTIONS (OUR TEAMS)

RU

AU

2.CHALLENGES (RUNNING THE JDP DURING PANDEMIC)

LAYERS, LIMITS AND CONTROL

“There’s layers to what we could do… and what we couldn't do…” - Thomas French

/ POLICY & BORDERS

Thomas French
“There’s layers to what we could do… and what we couldn't do, impacting what we could deal with. You had the virus itself changing with the different waves, different government policies about entry and other things, the overall university policies and our co-operation within those and then the delivery of classes inside the university itself. These all had different impacts and influences on how students experienced things or how we dealt with issues but I feel we did the best that we could, under the circumstances that we were in.

Scott Koga-Browes
…on top of all those layers, there's the personal layer, the individual student circumstances. I personally became more aware of those.

Jessica Meagher
We had Ritsumeikan students from Japan at American University in Spring 2020 and when that decision came to go remote, we had to get those students moved out of the dormitories. We had to get—not just the AU students and their belongings, back over here; but also the Ritsumeikan students back home to Japan as well.

Some students having dual nationality and others, because of special circumstances, could choose to enter Japan. The new cohorts would come in thinking, “well, they can go, why can't I go?” We had some of those hard conversations… moments of student growth.

Christine Gettings
We did take a lot of blame at first with students trying to make sense of the rules. But it wasn't the university preventing them from going to Japan. The Borders were closed.

3.ADAPTING (LIVING WITH THE PANDEMIC)

/ THE EXPERIENCE FOR STUDENTS

Matthew Kaulius
For a large swath of students, there was a tremendous amount of transition. Their lives were totally interrupted in ways they had not planned. These young folks went off to college with the idea—I’m going to be on a college campus for four years, yet for many of them, that wasn't the case.

Jessica Meager
This program was inaugurated in 2017, our first cohort started in 2018. So it was really the first groups of students through this program who were deeply impacted…

Christine Gettings
Thinking about where they are developmentally, as young people, they're in a different place. We all had our own personal reactions to the pandemic and many moments weren't easy. But for a young person… they missed some key developmental milestones when they were sent home to live with parents for a such a long time, without social interaction.

Matthew Kaulius
In general, students proved to be very resilient people. I think today's young populace gets a bad rap at times for not being very resilient.
I think a lot of them realized, this is not ideal, and this is not what I wanted to happen, but I can understand that life is a movable target.

/ THE EXPERIENCE FOR RU & AU TEAMS

“You never thought as a higher-ed administrator, you'd be in a student's residence hall room, sending home their beloved family photos and schoolbooks and these things…”

-Christine Gettings

Christine Gettings
Because it's a joint curriculum between two schools, it's really hard to make huge adjustments but we were as flexible as possible. With program re-sequencing (when and how students would take classes and which ones) we had a few hiccups where a student didn’t, fulfill a certain credit, at a certain time, and we had them take courses over the summer.

Thomas French
I wouldn't say the cohorts broke down but because of the different personal circumstances, we had to make adaptions and adjustments almost on an individual basis which, was a lot more work than would normally be the case.

It shows the lengths to which we go to look after the students. To make sure they get the best out of the program.

Christine Gettings
The tipping point for all of us, was when the Trump administration said, US borders are closing. That was the point at which we were thinking, oh my gosh, we gotta get these kids home… I don't think we slept

Matthew Kaulius
The experience of the pandemic, taught us to look at things a little differently and go—oh okay, maybe we can do that quickly. It taught us a lot about how to avoid putting up barriers and think outside the proverbial box a little bit more.

Thomas French
Some of the flexibility shown by the institutions was kind of amazing. Things that would be normally impossible were just done instantly or within days. That really helped a lot because of all the different requirements that exist in this program—You must do this here, you must do this here— You can't do this, you can't do that, so many of those requirements were made flexible for the first time to get people through to graduation.

Scott Koga-Browes
Flexibility was really prioritized, wasn’t it? We’re all deeply committed to this program. We knew the students were going to be committed and the institutional commitment as well—Do what needs to be done in order to make this work! There was plenty of leeway to improvise.

4.COMMUNICATION (A SOLID FOUNDATION)

Jessica Meagher
For large amounts of information, we sent out emails. We also set up several Zoom meetings to say: hey, let's all come together! This is the information we have, what questions do you have?
Again, transparency is the key word for everything. Keeping students informed.

Scott Koga-Browes
I think Jessica's right. We learned how important transparency was. And openness— there's a difference in the way we tend to share information amongst ourselves and what we share with students… but there were points where that wasn't working anymore. If there was an information gap or void, students would fill it with something.

We managed to deal with these issues by speeding up our communication… being more efficient. When we knew something, we let students know fairly quickly. We made sure they had all the information to avoid the anxiety that comes with an information gap.

If we didn't know things, we'd say, we don't know, we would like to know and as soon as we do know, we will tell you. That kind of opened things up. We got better at it and I think it helped students.

Thomas French
Every week we're back and forth holding regular meetings. However, this is actually the l first time that staff have come over from America, since the beginning of the pandemic. Now we’re looking to restart and regularize face to face meetings both ways.

5.JDP MERITS (DEFINING THE PROGRAM)

/ ONE OF A KIND

Thomas French
Japan has never had a joint degree before, so the JDP is based off a lot of exploration and pioneering and sometimes finding out how things worked as went along in the early years of the program. We know now that even if something as major as this pandemic occurs, as long as the institutions communicate as well as they do, it can be overcome.

Jessica Meager
The JDP is designed for students to spend their first two or three semesters at their home school. Two full years at the partner school and then return to their home school. For Ritsumeikan students, it's three semesters at Ritsumeikan: Spring, Fall, Spring, and two years at AU. Then they return to Ritsumeikan so they can graduate on the typical timeline for Japan and start job hunting.

Thomas French
It's not a huge program. We have a close link with all our students and know them all, more-or-less, by name. We worked with them even more intensively than before during this process to try and help them along in their circumstances.

/ THE EXPERIENCE

Matthew Kaulius
If I was a student looking at this, how would I feel about it?
I would certainly say to students who asked me, “why should I do this, versus something else?” That you're not going to get this experience— not a knock to anyone who may study abroad for simply a semester—but what an opportunity! To live in a different environment and learn for two years. The fact you’ll gain both language skills and cultural skills and have shown you can thrive and succeed in that environment! That is beyond marketable.

Thomas French
Often with exchange programs, students just end up being in another country but staying amongst people from their own country. Whereas, in this system, they're not in a separated program. It's fully integrated into a college that does other things and has many students from the host country. It is very diverse.

Jessica Meagher
This is a deep, intense, long-term exchange, and our students are so passionate about it. I get a lot of students thinking about applying, and they’ll say— “tell me about the program!” But I'll say— tell me about you! What brought you? I want to hear your story! And it' great to see how dedicated they are.

Thomas French
I think that might be something potential students might want to know. They get well looked after. We don't hold their hand for everything and they've got to take responsibility for their own education but in as sophisticated a program as this is, we're there to support them at every stage.

6.RELATIONSHIPS (TRUST AND SUPPORT)

“Having those kinds of personal connections and connections… allows people to be open and trusting with one another” --Scott Koga-Browes

/ THE CONNECTION

Scott Koga-Browes
We've worked with most of the AU team for 5-10 years…or even longer. Having those kinds of personal connections and the connections between RU and AU administrators allows people to be open and trusting with one another. It was justification of the importance of interpersonal relationships amongst faculty, administrators, and everybody involved.

Jessica Meagher
Our team already had very strong relationships through virtual meetings, regular contact, emails… But just knowing that we could rely on each other and all the other offices at AU and Ritsumeikan. That we could reach out to colleagues, that these sorts of resources existed, to be able to have that communication was so critical.

Christine Gettings
Our office has many different partners but Ritsumeikan University is the partner, with whom we have the deepest and most wide-ranging relationship and activity portfolio.

7.INTO THE FUTURE (NEXT STEPS)

/ OPPORTUNITY

Thomas French
We had notes from the Ritsumeikan-based graduates, about just how attractive they were in terms of potential hiring. They would comment that the joint degree in itself, what they had experienced was a major topic discussed in job interviews. It was very attractive for the people that had taken them on.

Matthew Kaulius
We had an American student here who got a career opportunity in Japan, which is amazing. We have another group who will finish in August. And the folks now back on the traditional cycle, are going to be great examples for future opportunities, to show that hey, this is how it worked. And, it worked really well for me.

/ A POSITIVE OUTLOOK

Jessica Meagher
We are starting to see students graduating from the program just this year. We've got students going on to law school, to graduate school and the workforce. Where will they go next? How are they taking this forward? That's the next thing? That's what I'm really excited to see.

Thomas French
To see how they were overjoyed, overcoming all of these things. It was great to hear things like, thanks for working so hard and helping us get through all of these challenges that we had …

Scott Koga-Browes
It was a fantastic experience. To learn about the possibilities of this kind of international cooperation. The importance— something I kind of learned from other work I've done, of having strong, trusting interpersonal relationships when these [kind of things] happen.

Christine Gettings
There were a multitude of experiences that we had to face, not planned, not necessarily something we wanted to do. But frankly, there are no people I'd rather be doing this hard work with because of the trust that we have in one another.