Crossing the finish line in Canberra

After a couple of cool, cloudy and drizzly days, the sun finally shone over Canberra today, giving members of the IU delegation their best glimpse yet of the acclaimed architectural features and carefully calibrated streetscapes of Australia’s capital city.

There’s a striking symmetry to Canberra’s design and a certain serene and holistic quality to this unmistakably busy and dynamic city. Indeed, much of Canberra’s calm seems to emanate from how neatly nestled its many contemporary-style buildings, homes and monuments are among the city’s many forests, hills, tree-lined streets and large open green spaces.

View of Canberra and Australia National University from Telstra Tower, which rises 640 feet above the summit of Black Mountain.

Canberra, which was chosen in 1908 as the site for nation’s capital, has an unusual history among Australian cities in that, like Washington, D.C., it was entirely planned outside of any state. In fact, it was a major American architect, Walter Burley Griffin, and his wife, Marion Mahony Griffin, who drew up the city’s blueprint. The Griffins’ design featured various geometric shapes such as circles, triangles and hexagons and was heavily influenced by the garden city movement, a method of urban planning initiated at the end of the 19th century in the United Kingdom in which communities are surrounded by “greenbelts.” Rather than operate like a grid, Canberra’s major roads follow a “wheel and spoke” pattern that, at least during our travels here, ensured a smooth traffic flow in and around the city and reduced the thruway tension one might expect to be associated with a city of nearly a half-million people.

When he presented his winning design for the city in 1911, Walter Burley Griffin proclaimed, “I have planned a city that is not like any other in the world. I have planned it not in a way that I expected any government authorities in the world would accept. I have planned an ideal city – a city that meets my ideal of the city of the future.”

As members of the IU delegation experienced Monday during partnership meetings at the Australian National University that suggested an extremely bright future for the longstanding IU-ANU relationship, the city’s beauty and energy are truly infectious and inspiring.

And down the stretch they come …

Tuesday was the day of the Melbourne Cup, Australia’s most prestigious thoroughbred horse race – better known here as the “race that stops a nation.” For members of the IU delegation, the Melbourne Cup signaled their arrival at the backstretch of this busy and productive presidential trip, which began in Tokyo over a week ago.

Buoyed by Monday’s successful summit meeting at the Australian National University, IU President Michael A. McRobbie, Vice President for International Affairs David Zaret and their colleagues met today with the leaders of several national government, nonprofit and scientific research organizations. Among them were the top executives of Universities Australia, which supports the national policy framework in which the country’s top universities operate, one characterized by quality, accessibility, innovation, internationalism and high performance; the deputy secretary of the Australian Government Department of Education and Training, which oversees national policies and programs that help Australians gain access to quality and affordable higher education; and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, a corporate entity that carries out scientific research to assist Australian government and business needs and commercialize new innovations. CSIRO, which works with nearly 50 Fortune 500 companies and a number of major international organizations, is also aiming to increase its presence in the U.S. through a new Chicago office and partnerships with our country’s large research universities.

From left: David Zaret, IU vice president for international affairs; Frances Adamson, secretary of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; IU President Michael A. McRobbie; and Shawn Reynolds, IU associate vice president for international partnerships.

McRobbie and Zaret also had an enlightening and productive meeting with Frances Adamson, secretary of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and former Australian ambassador to China. Together they discussed common goals, such as encouraging more U.S. and Australian students to study abroad, and possible collaborative activities that would ensure greater understanding of contemporary Australia and its role as a major strategic player in the Asia-Pacific region of the world.

Two countries, two wins for IU students and our state

Once they had finally crossed the finish line of their dash through Canberra, Sydney and Tokyo, members of the delegation could take full stock of the successes that transpired during this trip. They included:

  • Meetings with leading Sony executives to discuss how to further strengthen a successful IU-Sony relationship that, to date and under the direction of IU’s Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, has resulted in the digital preservation of 250,000 priceless audio and video recordings at IU for future generations of scholars and students.
  • A spirited performance of Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms, marking the 500-year anniversary of the Reformation, by two IU Jacobs School of Music alumni at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre.
  • A successful meeting at the Japan Foundation, the country’s only institution dedicated to fostering cultural exchange programs throughout the world.
  • A home-run celebration to honor IU’s Japan Alumni Chapter, IU’s oldest global alumni chapter, and two of the university’s most distinguished international graduates.
  • A celebration of IU’s Australian alumni in Sydney who are contributing to an increasingly active chapter.
  • Participation in the second annual Indiana University-Australian National University summit meeting, which included faculty from both institutions who discussed their work and possible future collaboration in such areas as art and design, business, cybersecurity, law, linguistics, public affairs and public health.
  • A formal extension of IU’s longstanding partnership with ANU, which has generated exchanges of faculty, students and staff and supported collaborative research and scholarship led by the ANU-IU Pan-Asia Institute.
  • Productive meetings with top government and education officials in Australia and Japan that set the stage for further relationship building.

Participants pose for a group picture after the second-annual IU-ANU summit meeting.

Each of these activities reflected the depth, breadth and impact of IU’s ever-increasing engagement in this strategically important part of the world. Each also highlighted a university that, without question, is among our nation’s most international universities, with an alumni base that gets stronger each day as its members enthusiastically embrace their role as IU’s greatest global ambassadors.

And like the planning that went into designing the city of Canberra, there’s a method to IU’s internationalization efforts and, in particular, its strategic partnerships, which have been carefully calibrated to support students for whom an international experience has never been more vital and to address the needs of communities around our state that are increasingly impacted by foreign investment and activities around the world.

Thank you for following along, and see you back home in Indiana!

A premier global partnership with a bright future ahead

A steady, relentless rain fell today on Canberra – which was on track Monday to receive at least half of its average November rainfall in what one local newspaper called a once-in-every-two-years “soaking.” Still, the wet weather did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the IU delegation as it arrived here in Australia’s capital city, the final stop on a whirlwind presidential trip that began a week ago in Tokyo. What’s more, the rains would ultimately prove auspicious for one of the university’s most productive international partnerships.

One person whose spirit didn’t seem at all affected by the weather was IU President Michael A. McRobbie, who returned Monday to his alma mater, the Australian National University, where he spent 17 years as student, fellow and faculty member. McRobbie, a native of Australia who became a U.S. citizen in 2010, has maintained continuing close relations with ANU throughout his professional career, including his 10 years as IU president. In turn, in recent years, Australia’s leading university has bestowed upon McRobbie several major distinctions, including an honorary degree and, in 2015, ANU’s Alumnus of the Year award.

In 2015, IU President Michael A. McRobbie was recognized by the Australian National University as its Alumnus of the Year.

Shortly after arriving today at ANU, McRobbie recalled a casual dinner conversation he had several years ago with then-ANU vice chancellor and distinguished neuroscientist Ian Chubb. During that discussion, McRobbie talked enthusiastically about IU’s teaching and research strengths related to almost every region of the world; but he noted that the university lacked sufficient expertise in Southeast Asian studies, an area  in which ANU is considered a world leader. As the two men continued to talk, Chubb determined that ANU could benefit considerably from IU’s renowned mastery of the study of the languages, history and culture of Central Eurasia, housed in its Department of Central Eurasian Studies.

Their conversation ultimately spawned a new international initiative. Since its establishment in 2009, the ANU-IU Pan Asia Institute has emerged as one of IU’s most active and successful global partnership programs. Based in IU’s School of Global and International Studies, the institute brings together leading scholars and students from both institutions with mutual academic interests in a complex part of the world that is of ever-increasing strategic importance to economic stability and global security.

In its first year, the institute focused primarily on distance education courses in selected foreign languages (for example, Uzbek and Pashto for ANU students and Indonesian for IU students) and exchanges of students and staff. In subsequent years, the institute has convened joint workshops and supported collaborative research and scholarship on the Pan-Asian region.

A midday meeting afforded McRobbie the opportunity to sit down with the institute’s newly named co-directors, IU’s Michael Brose (who also directs IU’s East Asian Studies Center) and Michael Clarke of ANU, as well as members of, among other units, ANU’s College of the Asia and the Pacific and Crawford School of Public Policy. Over the course of several hours, the group discussed ways to further enhance the institute’s mission, including efforts to facilitate greater numbers of student and faculty exchanges; deliver expertise to IU on issues concerning Southeast Asia and countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand where the university has growing numbers of alumni; and establish an annual conference centered on major global issues, such as the rise of Chinese power in the Asia-Pacific region.

Strengthening the foundation

While the Pan Asia Institute represents, as McRobbie called it, the “core” of the IU-ANU partnership, it is only one facet of a relationship that IU and ANU have worked to strengthen and broaden in recent years.

Almost exactly a year ago, during a visit to Bloomington by ANU Vice Chancellor Brian P. Schmidt, a Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist, the two universities announced the establishment of a joint master’s degree program in arts administration and museum and heritage studies. Graduates of the dual-degree program, which launched this fall, will receive both a Master of Arts Administration degree from IU’s top-rated School of Public and Environmental Affairs and a Master of Museum and Heritage Studies from the College of Arts and Social Sciences. (Canberra has Australia’s largest concentration of museums and other cultural institutions.)

President McRobbie and members of the IU delegation participate in a meeting at the Australian National University on issues related to cybersecurity.

IU, through the Institute of International Business at the Kelley School of Business, and ANU have also worked together in recent years to support economic and educational reforms in conflict-torn Myanmar. Other recent collaborations between the two universities include exchanges between ANU and IU’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and between the ANU National Security College and the IU Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.

Indeed, the topic of potential research collaboration in cybersecurity took center stage at two meetings today – one intended to initiate exchanges among IU and ANU faculty in computer science, business, IT engineering and law and another to address more stringent safeguarding of massive amounts of important scientific data. The latter discussion took place at the National Computational Infrastructure at ANU, which operates Australia’s fastest supercomputer, highest-performance research cloud and largest repository of data.

A successful second summit

On Monday, members of the IU delegation were joined in Canberra by nine IU faculty members at a second annual IU-ANU summit meeting. In the days leading up to the delegation’s arrival, the IU faculty had been meeting with their counterparts in several ANU schools to discuss potential collaborative activities spanning a wide range of academic areas, including art and design, business, cybersecurity, law, linguistics, public affairs and public health.

President McRobbie and ANU Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt formally renew a partnership agreement between their respective institutions.

McRobbie and ANU Vice Chancellor Schmidt convened this afternoon’s summit, opening the floor to their respective faculty so they could briefly present their plans for new teaching and research collaborations and point out where the greatest potential exists to develop increasingly important comparative perspectives on the most critical issues impacting both the U.S. and Australia.

Attending the summit and speaking on behalf of IU’s academic and research units were Michael Brose; Damir Cavar, Department of Linguistics, College of Arts and Sciences; Lesley Davis, IU Maurer School of Law; Carrie Doherty, School of Public Health-Bloomington; Margaret Dolinsky, School of Art, Architecture + Design; Beth Gazley, School of Public and Environmental Affairs; Carolyn Lantz, College of Arts and Sciences; LaVonn Schlegel, Kelley School of Business; and Von Welch; Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.

Packed into a couple of hours, the summit featured a nearly overwhelming display of ideas, all of which highlighted the remarkable energy and enthusiasm that exist on each side of the IU-ANU relationship and the power of a partnership that – in McRobbie’s words – is “one of the most substantial relationships that a U.S. university has with any overseas institution.”

McRobbie then joined Schmidt in a ceremony where the two university leaders formally renewed the IU-ANU partnership agreement, which will now extend into IU’s bicentennial year celebration in 2020, capping an exhausting and exciting day here in Canberra, where even a driving rain couldn’t hide the bright future ahead for one of IU’s premier global partnerships.

Participants pose for a group picture after the second-annual IU-ANU summit meeting.

Building bridges down under

G’day from Sydney, Australia’s most populous city and one of the most visited destinations in the world.

Despite being a bit jet-lagged from a full day of travel from Tokyo, members of IU’s delegation spent several hours here on Friday setting the stage for the second leg of what has already been a busy, enlightening and productive trip.

Much like Japan, Australia serves as a major focal point for IU’s international efforts, reflecting the country’s size and strategic location, history and culture, diversity, dynamic economy and major two-way investment relationship with the U.S. To the latter point, more than 1,200 Australian firms have operations in the U.S., 12 percent of which have assets or income greater than $20 million.

From left: Simon Jackman, CEO of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, IU President Michael A. McRobbie and Mark Baillie, chairman of the center.

In recent years Australia has become an increasingly popular destination for IU students seeking an overseas study experience. Currently, about 150 students study abroad here – more than any other Big Ten university – and that total has risen by over 50 percent in just the past three years alone. At the same time, the university continues to open its doors each year to about 25 students from Australia, as well as a half dozen visiting scholars.

On Monday in Australia’s capital city, Canberra, IU President Michael A. McRobbie will formally extend IU’s longstanding partnership with the Australian National University, the country’s premier university. The partnership has generated exchanges of faculty, students and staff and supported collaborative research and scholarship led by the ANU-IU Pan-Asia Institute. Launched in 2009 and based in IU’s School of Global and International Studies, the institute is one of IU’s most active international collaborations, and its work covers a broad range of issues related to Asia.

McRobbie will also co-chair, along with ANU President Brian Schmidt, a summit meeting featuring faculty from both institutions who will discuss their work in, among other important areas, art and design, business, cybersecurity, law, linguistics, public affairs and public health.

A brief stop in Sydney would take McRobbie and his fellow delegation members to the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. McRobbie serves on the advisory council for the government-funded center, which seeks to provide Australians with a deep and balanced understanding of the U.S. through teaching, research and public engagement. Now in its 11th year of existence, the center also provides support for scholarly exchanges between Australia and the U.S.

In 2015, the center helped bring award-winning Australian poet Kate Lilley to IU’s Bloomington campus as the first recipient of the United States Studies Centre-Indiana University Creative Arts Fellowship. The fellowship was made possible by a gift from former Australian Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Thawley, who received IU’s prestigious Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion in 2002.

While at the center, McRobbie and IU Vice President David Zaret talked about the breadth and depth of IU’s relationship with Australia and the university’s desire to expand upon its research and scholarship on contemporary Australian politics and culture. For their part, center officials expressed their appreciation for IU’s international engagement, while also suggesting that Australia’s government and educational institutions would benefit from learning more about IU’s and Indiana’s advancements in the life sciences, information technology and business innovation, all areas relevant to the center’s work to better understand Australia’s rapidly-evolving economy and its relationship with U.S. investment.

Finally, as day receded into evening over stunning Sydney Harbour, the IU delegation met with a number of Australian alumni eager to swap stories and reconnect with their alma mater. Their energy and excitement about IU, the progress being made across the university and IU’s increasing engagement in Australia truly were infectious and made for an energetic start to what promises to be an exciting couple of days down under.

Members of IU’s Australia alumni chapter with the IU delegation in Sydney.

Strengthening and renewing ties in Tokyo

Read a Japanese translation of this blog entry.

The former vice minister of foreign affairs of Japan, Mitoji Yabunaka, wrote a column last month that appeared in a local Japanese newspaper in which he referred to Indiana as the most pro-Japanese state in America. To support this claim, he cited the fact that many major Japanese companies, including Honda, Subaru and Toyota and many automotive component companies, have invested heavily in the Hoosier state and its workforce.

According to statistics from the Indiana Economic Development Corp., more than 280 Japanese companies operate across Indiana, and they employ more than 58,000 Hoosiers. Among all U.S. states, Indiana has the largest amount of Japanese investment per capita. Last year, Indiana exported $1.6 billion of Hoosier-made goods to Japan, which is currently the state’s fifth-largest export partner. Many Indiana-based companies, including Eli Lilly, Cook Medical, Cummins, Urschel Laboratories and Zimmer Biomet, have operations in Japan.

More than 280 Japanese companies operate across Indiana, and they employ more than 58,000 Hoosiers.

As a result of Japan’s increasing impact on the Hoosier economy, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence made several trips to Japan while he was governor of Indiana, and current Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb recently returned from leading a delegation of Indiana business leaders and economic development officials on a trade mission to Japan.

And if that’s still not enough evidence to support the winning Indiana-Japan connection, I might also point out – as the vice-minister did in his article – that a Japanese driver, Takuma Sato, captured the checkered flag at this year’s Indianapolis 500!

Building bridges: the IU-Japan relationship

One connection the former vice minister didn’t make in his story, but that definitely demands telling, is the historic, bridge-building relationship between higher education in Indiana and Japan – a relationship Indiana University has played a major role in building for more than a century.

Indeed, it would be far from a stretch to call IU one of the most pro-Japanese universities in the U.S., especially when one considers the longstanding ties between Japan and the state’s flagship university.

IU’s first alumnus from outside North America, Takekuma Okada, was an alumnus of Waseda University and earned a master’s degree at IU in 1891. Another international IU alumnus, Masuji Miyakawa, graduated from the Indiana University Law School in 1905 and was the first known Japanese student to be admitted to the bar in the U.S. He was also a civil rights pioneer who fought against the racial segregation of Japanese in America in the early 1900s, and he spent many years promoting better understanding between our country and Japan.

Yet another early IU Japanese alum was Paul Isobe, who earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at IU in 1909. He went on to become a prominent industrialist, helping develop the soybean processing industry and chemical industry in Japan.

Paul F. Isobe, second from left, a leading Japanese industrialist and chemist and a 1909 graduate of IU, inspects an IU chemistry laboratory in 1959 with two of his former chemistry teachers. Photo from IU Archives collection.

In the many years since, IU has welcomed a large number of Japanese scholars and dignitaries as visitors to its campuses across Indiana, and many of the university’s current students, faculty and staff have close personal and scholarly ties to Japan. More than 70 Japanese students studied at IU last year, and today there are over 1,500 IU alumni who are affiliated with Japan and continue to serve as some of IU’s most active and dedicated global ambassadors. (More on that in just a bit.)

Many of IU’s Japanese alumni are members of the Japan Chapter, IU’s oldest international alumni chapter, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014. The chapter was founded by Kaoru Ando, who served as its president for nearly two decades. Ando also co-founded Fujitsu, one of the world’s leading computer manufacturers, which is sometimes referred to as the IBM of Japan. At IU, he is honored by the Ando Scholarship, which provides opportunities for IU students to study in Japan.

Creating new connections

A celebration of IU’s Japanese alumni would be on order for Wednesday evening here in Tokyo, but first up for IU President Michael A. McRobbie and his fellow delegation members was a meeting with the directors of the Japan Foundation. Founded in 1973, the Japan Foundation is the country’s only institution dedicated to fostering cultural exchange programs throughout the world. As part of its mission, it seeks to deepen mutual understanding between the people of Japan and other nations.

The meeting provided an opportunity for the IU contingent and their counterparts at the Japan Foundation to discuss their mutual interest in increasing student and faculty mobility between Indiana and Japan. It also allowed delegation members to share several of the university’s most notable accomplishments over many decades in the area of Japanese studies, as well as its goal to become the leading center in the Midwest for in-depth study of contemporary Japan and, more broadly, East Asia.

Members of the IU delegation discussed increasing student mobility between IU and Japan at a meeting with leaders of the Japan Foundation.

At the Japan Foundation headquarters in downtown Tokyo, IU Vice President for International Affairs David Zaret and former U.S. Ambassador to Poland and IU School of Global and International Studies Dean Lee Feinstein spoke glowingly about the work of IU Bloomington’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the central academic unit at the university for the study of all aspects of East Asian language, civilization and society.

IU has 700 students studying East Asian languages, including more than 300 students taking Japanese. The department offers a wide range of courses on East Asian literature, history, politics, religion and art, and it continues to expand its teaching and research expertise on contemporary U.S.-Japan relations in an effort to promote a deeper understanding of Japanese politics and culture.

Fittingly, joining the delegation for today’s meetings was Adam Liff, an assistant professor of East Asian international relations security studies in the School of Global and International Studies. Liff is spending six months at the University of Tokyo studying, among other areas, U.S.-Japanese relations, regional security issues and the effect of recent political tensions on Sino-Japanese trade and investment. He is also one of many IU faculty from the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and other IU schools and departments who constitute the East Asian Studies Center in Bloomington, which has linked the university’s East Asian area specialists to the needs of business, education and government since 1979.

The leaders at the Japan Foundation, with their increasing interest in “policy-driven scholarship,” responded enthusiastically to the idea of IU’s School of Global and International Studies serving as a hub in the Midwestern U.S. – which is where much of Japanese investment is now focused – for the study of modern Japan and U.S.-Japan relations. Likewise, foundation members sounded their support for furthering student and faculty exchanges and research collaborations between IU and Japan’s leading educational institutions. That sentiment was echoed later in the day Wednesday as President McRobbie met with the new U.S. ambassador to Japan, William F. Hagerty IV, and then with the leaders of Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, an organization dedicated to internationalizing Japanese universities and promoting greater student mobility.

A home-run celebration

The IU delegation’s all-too-brief time in Tokyo ended with a rousing celebration of IU’s Japanese alumni and its half-century-old Japan Chapter — which, if Wednesday night’s event is any indication, isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

The celebration was nothing short of a home run – in more ways than one. President McRobbie used the occasion to observe the 95th anniversary of the IU baseball team’s 1922 visit to Japan at the invitation of Waseda University. As chronicled in a wonderful IU Archives story — part one and part two are available on the IU Archives website and are required reading for any IU baseball fan! — the team’s trip fostered friendly relations between Japan and Indiana and promoted international understanding during the early part of the 20th century. It also served as a huge hit with enthusiastic crowds both in Japan and back home in Indiana. At IU, classes were dismissed early and 3,000 people — including IU’s 10th president William Lowe Bryan, who played on one of IU’s earliest baseball teams — went to the train station to see the team off.

On one side of Wednesday evening’s event space, a series of photographs from the IU Archives collection were displayed for IU Japan Chapter alumni, who also enjoyed seeing McRobbie drive home the commemoration by delivering an authentic red-and-white IU baseball glove to Shinoda Toru, dean of the Center for International Education at Waseda.

The IU baseball team was a huge hit on its 1922 trip to Japan. Photo from IU Archives collection.

As he typically does at international alumni gatherings such as this, McRobbie provided an update on recent record-breaking progress at the university for the Japanese alumni, many of whom hadn’t been back to Bloomington for several decades and expressed excitement at seeing the new schools, facilities and major academic programs that have come online in the past several years.

McRobbie also presented two of IU’s most prestigious international alumni awards. He awarded the Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion, given to individuals who have achieved a level of distinction in public office or service and have exemplified the values of IU, to distinguished business leader Hideo Ito. After earning a Master of Business Administration from IU’s Kelley School of Business in 1977, Ito went on to serve the Toshiba Corp. for a remarkable 36 years, including as chairman and CEO of Toshiba American Electronic Components. Later, McRobbie and Vice President Zaret, whose office organized the trip to Tokyo, delivered the Distinguished International Service Award to Yasunori Hattori (MBA, IU Kelley School of Business, 1969), a former manager at IBM’s Asia Pacific Service Corp.

To conclude the evening, IU Jacobs School of Music alumni Robert Ryker and Johann Schram Reed, who delivered such a powerful performance of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem on Tuesday night at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, led attendees in a rousing sing-a-long of the IU fight song.

It was a wonderful coda to the IU delegation’s busy and productive time in Japan, which once again proved that even when the spirit of IU might seem like it is thousands of miles away, it is always easy to catch.

Distinguished Japanese business leader and IU alumnus Hideo Ito received the Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion in recognition of his international achievements.

To commemorate the IU baseball team’s 1922 trip to Japan, President McRobbie presents an authentic IU baseball glove to Shinoda Toru, dean of the Center for International Education at Waseda University.

Members of the IU delegation celebrated the university’s Japan Alumni Chapter, now 53 years old.

A partnership to preserve knowledge and a performance to remember

Read a Japanese translation of this blog entry.

University collections are vital tools for scholars and scientists from nearly all disciplines. They inspire students and are vital parts of their learning and understanding. And they draw people from beyond the university to view and study them. They have been accumulated, in some cases, for centuries, and can contain unique and irreplaceable material of enormous value. Though not always thought of in these terms, they can be among an institution’s most valuable resources.

 Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie, State of the University address, Oct. 10, 2017

On Tuesday in Tokyo, members of the IU delegation headed to the Japan headquarters of Sony for a lively and productive discussion of the technologies being used – and those still in the process of being developed – to preserve and ensure greater access to the university’s most precious resource: knowledge.

For as long as they have been in existence – more than 25 centuries – universities have prided themselves on their three fundamental missions:

  • The creation of knowledge through research and innovation.
  • The dissemination of that knowledge through teaching and learning.
  • The preservation of that knowledge.

For many years, the last of those missions was almost exclusively the license of libraries and museums. But in today’s digital age, however, the preservation of knowledge – including books and journals, as well as collections of other objects, such as paintings, photos, prints, sculpture, sound and video recordings, and scientific data – no longer depends as much on place. Now, as IU President Michael A. McRobbie has noted in recent speeches on the subject, vast amounts of materials can be made – indeed, are expected to be made – instantly accessible, sharable and transmittable over the internet to students and scholars across the world.

Delegation members from IU with their counterparts from Sony at the company’s corporate headquarters in Tokyo.

Over the years, as part of its academic and research mission, IU has accumulated a number of unique educational, cultural and historic objects, and many generous donors have entrusted to IU their most important and irreplaceable collections. (Coincidentally, just as McRobbie and his colleagues were preparing to meet with their counterparts at Sony, IU shared the news that legendary American actress Glenn Close was donating her treasured costume collection, including pieces from her most iconic stage and screen performances, to the university’s new School of Art, Architecture + Design, where it will be used to educate and inspire IU students and faculty in theater, design, merchandising and other areas.)

IU’s extensive collections contain material from a wide range of disciplines, including the humanities, arts and music, social sciences and health sciences — all areas of traditional strength for the university. A comprehensive study in 2009 estimated that there are well over half a million audio and video recordings and film reels on the IU Bloomington campus alone, to go along with another 100,000 or more objects of significance on the Indianapolis campus and on IU’s five regional campuses.

A worldwide leader in digital preservation

The challenge facing IU and other keepers of major legacy collections is how to best manage the digital storage of large amounts of accumulated material, which are often vast in size and scope, and fully maximize their usage by the broadest possible audience. Fortunately, IU finds itself ahead of the pack when it comes to digital preservation, thanks in large part to successful and innovative partnerships like it has with Memnon Archiving Services, a Sony Group Company.

Few movie fans and scholars around the nation likely know that IU possesses one of the largest and most diverse collections of motion picture film at any U.S. college or university. Through the IU-Memnon collaboration, many of those films are now preserved for future viewing and study.

The IU-Memnon partnership dates back to 2013, when McRobbie announced the creation of IU’s Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative during his annual State of the University address. The goal of the ongoing initiative is to digitally preserve and provide access to all significant audio and video recordings on all IU campuses by the university’s bicentennial celebration in 2020. After conducting a global search of the best solutions in digital preservation, IU selected as a project partner Memnon, which Sony subsequently acquired in 2015. With its industrial-scale digitization process, and when operating at peak performance, Memnon can process up to 600 recordings in a day.

By last spring, the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, which is in the Innovation Center on the IU Bloomington campus, had outpaced its own timeline projections, with 250,000 priceless audio and video recordings already preserved for future generations of scholars and students.

Film digitization scanners are being used by Memnon, a Sony Group Company, to preserve IU’s collection of film reels, one of the largest and most diverse collections of motion picture film at any U.S. college or university.

What’s more, IU’s partnership with Memnon, now in its second phase, has further cemented the university’s status as a worldwide leader in high-volume digital preservation, storage and access — one that, in recent years, has entered into a number of other successful digital collaborations with, among other organizations, universities, commercial broadcasters and museums.

For example, in 2016, IU announced a cooperative agreement with the renowned Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, to carry out the 3-D digitization of the museum’s entire collection of 1,250 pieces of irreplaceable classical Greek and Roman sculpture. The project between the Uffizi, one of the oldest and most visited art museums in the world, and IU’s Virtual World Heritage Laboratory is creating high-resolution 3-D digital models of the Uffizi sculptures and is making them freely available online. It, too, is expected to be completed by the IU Bicentennial.

Today at Sony headquarters, McRobbie met with a group of leading Sony executives to discuss how to further strengthen the successful IU-Sony relationship and pursue opportunities for future technical collaboration that would enhance classroom learning, enable greater student success and support the innovative work of IU teachers and researchers. McRobbie also shared a number of developments at IU, including the addition of several new schools and academic initiatives, such as IU’s new degree program in intelligent systems engineering, the first-ever engineering program at IU. The program, offered through IU’s School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, is focused on the development of small-scale, networked and mobile technology — areas in which IU has long been a leader.

Accompanying McRobbie at the meeting were IU Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Brad Wheeler; IU Vice President for International Affairs and trip organizer David Zaret; Lee Feinstein, former U.S. ambassador to Poland and dean of IU’s School of Global and International Studies; and Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative Executive Director Dennis Cromwell, each of whom contributed to a productive and spirited morning session.

During the session, the senior IU leaders were asked by their Sony counterparts for their thoughts and insights into how new Sony technologies might best translate into opportunities for more dynamic, active campus learning environments. They also were treated to a showcase of Sony’s newest and most innovative market technologies, which sparked a number of possible ideas for new collaboration, suggesting that IU and Sony may just be scratching the surface of what has already been a most inspiring, innovative and productive partnership.

A historic and harmonious event

Inspiration of a far different kind was on order Tuesday evening when members of the IU delegation joined several distinguished guests for a special musical performance – one featuring a couple of major IU connections – at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre.

IU alumnus and world-renowned conductor Robert Ryker, who is music director of the Tokyo Sinfonia and music director of the National Philharmonic of India, conducted a stirring performance of Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms, marking the 500-year anniversary of the Reformation. Recent IU Jacobs School of Music graduate Johann Schram Reed, performing in Japan for the first time after receiving critical acclaim for his appearances in various operas along the West Coast of the U.S., served as one of two featured solo vocalists for the concert.

IU President Michael McRobbie, left, with Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado of Japan and IU alumnus and world-renowned conductor Robert Ryker.

Backed by the Tokyo College of Music’s large symphony orchestra and chorus – as well as a massive pipe organ that, amazingly at one point, rotated appearances (starting off Baroque, then shifting to a more modern, industrial-looking side) – both IU alums delivered emotionally powerful performances. For their impressive efforts, they received a lengthy standing ovation from a packed audience that included, among other guest dignitaries seated with McRobbie, the ambassadors to Japan from Austria, Germany and the Holy See, as well as Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado of Japan.

It was a moving celebration of a historic and harmonic event, and, in keeping with the day’s earlier theme, a performance absolutely worth preserving.

Newest chapter in IU’s international engagement marks an investment in Indiana’s future

Almost a decade ago, Indiana University embarked upon its first-ever international strategic plan, which offered a bold vision for the university to expand upon and enhance its engagements around the world, thus positively impacting IU students and communities around the state.

As a result of the plan, initiated in 2008, IU continues to see record numbers of its students studying abroad. (Today, around one in four IU students will graduate having participated in a form of overseas education.) At the same time, the university has opened its doors to the world’s top students and visiting scholars in an effort to foster greater cultural understanding and more closely reflect the competitive global marketplace IU students will enter after they graduate.

IU has more than 1,500 alumni who are affiliated with Japan.

Additionally, IU has successfully renewed connections with its international alumni, who continue to serve as great ambassadors for a university that is fast approaching its 200th anniversary. IU’s Bicentennial will commence in fall 2019, and it promises to be — as a result of the university’s continuing efforts to expand its international footprint with the help of its friends around the world — a truly global celebration.

Today, another chapter in IU’s longstanding history of international activity begins as IU President Michael A. McRobbie prepares to lead an IU delegation on a weeklong trip to Japan and Australia, two of the most dynamic countries in a region of the world that, increasingly, is playing a critical role in the economic and cultural life of our state. The trip is being organized by the IU Office of the Vice President for International Affairs, led by David Zaret, who will accompany McRobbie at a series of meetings with leaders in education, government, technology, culture and business in both countries.

Japan is Indiana’s largest investor, a fact that may come as a surprise to many Hoosiers. Currently, there are 280 Japan-based companies that employ more than 58,000 Hoosiers, and IU joins a number of major Indiana organizations, such as Eli Lilly, Cook Medical, Urschel Laboratories and Zimmer Biomet, in partnering with some of Japan’s leading firms. Just last month, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb led a delegation of business and economic development leaders on a trade mission to Japan to further the state’s economic and cultural binds with the country.

The relationship between the state’s flagship university and Japan actually dates back a century, during which time IU has welcomed many Japanese scholars and dignitaries to its campuses as visitors. Last year, the university hosted more than 70 Japanese students, and there are now over 1,500 IU alumni who are affiliated with Japan.

Over the years, IU has also engaged in a number of important scholarly and research collaborations with several of the top educational and research institutions in Japan. These include a major collaboration with Memnon Archiving Services, a Sony Group Company, on IU’s ambitious Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, which has led to the digitization of 250,000 precious audio, video and film items for long-term preservation. These collections contain material from a wide range of scholarly disciplines and represent an investment in research and scholarship at IU, spanning many decades, by businesses, foundations and individuals across the Hoosier state.

IU’s trip this week to Tokyo reflects how highly engaged the university continues to be in Japan. On Tuesday, McRobbie, Zaret, IU Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Brad Wheeler and former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee Feinstein, dean of the IU School of Global and International Studies, will participate in a daylong series of meetings with senior officials at Sony.

The following day, McRobbie, Zaret and Feinstein will meet with the new U.S. ambassador to Japan, William F. Hagerty IV, as well as with members of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to discuss the importance of bilateral exchanges between Japanese and U.S. universities. They will also talk with representatives from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership to discuss potential collaborations with IU’s School of Global and International Studies to support the study of Japan at IU and cooperative research. And they will attend a concert at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theater Concert Hall directed by IU alumnus and world-renowned conductor Robert Ryker and featuring recent IU Jacobs School of Music graduate Johann Schram Reed.

From Japan, the delegation will depart for another country in the Asia-Pacific region where IU’s connections run deep: Australia, a continually popular destination for IU students to study abroad and, over the last decade, an active site for educational and research collaboration between IU faculty and their colleagues at the country’s top academic institutions.

In Australia’s capital city, Canberra, McRobbie will formally extend IU’s longstanding partnership with the nation’s leading university, the Australian National University, which has generated exchanges of faculty, students and staff and supported collaborative research and scholarship led by the ANU-IU Pan-Asia Institute. Established in 2009 and based in IU’s School of Global and International Studies, the institute works on a broad range of issues related to Asia and is one of IU’s most active global partnerships activities.

ANU Vice Chancellor Brian P. Schmidt, left, and IU President Michael A. McRobbie. ANU and IU have had an institutional partnership since 2009 that has resulted in student and staff exchanges and collaborative research.

The partnership renewal will take place during a joint ANU-IU summit, chaired by McRobbie, an alumnus of ANU, and ANU Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt. The summit will include faculty from both institutions who will discuss their work and possible future collaboration in such areas as art and design, business, cybersecurity, law, linguistics, public affairs and public health.

McRobbie, a native of Australia who became a U.S. citizen in 2011, received his Ph.D. in logic in 1979 and an honorary doctorate in 2010 from ANU. He also received the university’s Alumnus of the Year award in 2015.

At the University of Sydney, delegation members will visit the United States Studies Centre. McRobbie serves on the advisory council for the organization, which offers many education programs, including an undergraduate major and postgraduate degrees in American studies and study abroad programs.

Finally, while in Japan and Australia, the delegation will meet with alumni who are members of active IU Alumni Association chapters in both countries.

And I’ll be there as well in Japan and Australia, sharing details of the IU delegation’s daily activities and providing news, background information and insights into the university’s increasing international engagement in this important part of the world. I hope you will follow along with me, and please feel free to contact me directly with questions or comments at rpiurek@iu.edu.

Next up: A report from Tokyo. See you soon.