Staci Muckelvane-Holt

Welcoming Speech

September 4, 2002

 

 

Welcome Kyoto University!  We are honored and excited about your visit here to UNCW.  As the Student Body President and on behalf of Chancellor Leutze, the faculty, the staff, and the entire student population, again welcome. We have been anticipating your arrival and have prepared for your visit with this welcoming ceremony followed by lunch in the Warwick Ballroom.  

 

When I was preparing for your visit I noticed that one of the goals of Kyoto University is to establish new graduate schools.  UNCW is similar is that regard.  One newly added program here is a Masters in Public Administration.  Both universities are making graduate schools more detailed and tailored to the current events that will take us into the next century.  This positive approach to teaching illustrates to us here in Wilmington, North Carolina that Kyoto University is a leader in being proactive not just reactive to modern problems and concerns with in our society.  This is just one of many reasons that we are excited about joining forces with you in a common student and faculty exchange program.  In your current exchange program you have well over 1,100 foreign exchange students from right here in the United States to Indonesia.  This number is impressive and we at UNCW are striving to meet your expectations.

 

Kyoto University and UNCW are very similar is student population, both housing over 10,000 students.  Currently Kyoto University exceeds our level of programs offered and this can be contributed to the lengthy history, you being the second oldest university in Japan.  While UNCW cannot carry the distinguished honor of that type of history we can contribute with our list of accomplished current events.  We were ranked by US News and World Report in the top 10 public southern schools for masters programs.  This new recognition from a national magazine will be a great way to round out Chancellor Leutze’s career here at UNCW.

 

I mentioned Chancellor Leutze in my opening and since this is his last term as Chancellor I know he wants a strong and prosperous relationship with Kyoto University, a relationship that will last well into the next decade.  We here at UNCW were most impressed with your approach to a flexible and challenging learning environment.  Similarly, UNCW prides itself on offering that same learning environment.  Depending on what meets that student’s need we most likely have a program that will fit into it.  If you’re a student who is all business than undergraduate or graduate work at the Cameron School of business would be the best choice.  If hands on with in your degree program and community are what you like, then the Watson School of business might be for you.  On the other hand if you need direction and what the positive influence of a strong and involved faculty then tries the Communication Studies Department.         

 

In closing again I would like to welcome you to both the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, to the city of Wilmington, and to North Carolina.  We are honored to have you visit and we hope that this relationship will be as valued to you as it already is to us.

 

Thank you.