Welcoming Speech

COM 345

Ben Best

Welcome our honored guests, our honored Chancellor, distinguished academics, and members of the Wilmington community. My name is Ben Best. As a student of this University, it is my privilege to welcome the instructors and accomplished students of Kyoto University who have traveled so far for the sake of education and international community.

I cannot possibly articulate the full esteem that our institution holds for Kyoto University, the second oldest university in Japan and a world-renown academic institution. With a history of progressive higher education spanning more than a century and Nobel Prize winning alumni, Kyoto’s has a record of excellence. We also recognize Kyoto University’s effort in strengthening Japan’s contribution to the international community by sending its students in the same year that it has established its Organization for the Promotion of International Relations.

UNC-Wilmington also feels that this is an important step for itself as our own students reach across the globe to Japan for the first time. We are both humbled and honored to be a part of Kyoto’s one-hundred and eight-year legacy. We realize that this is a great opportunity for our students to obtain real exposure to Japanese culture for the first time, and to enjoy being a part of Kyoto’s research in the physical sciences, including Molecular Biology, Physics, and Chemistry.

We also recognize that this will be a great opportunity for the students of Kyoto, a landlocked institution, to enjoy our Marine Biology program, which employs many coastal habitats of the Center for Marine Science to facilitate aquatic research. We encourage visiting students in this department to return for the Masters program, or perhaps even for the department’s latest degree offering, a Ph.D. in Marine Biology.

Lastly, we are most of all pleased by this opportunity of a cultural exchange, to increase both of our schools visibility in the international community, and to allow our students to familiarize themselves in entirely new worlds. We encourage you to enjoy both our cultural commonalities and differences, to enjoy recognizing our common humanity, and also to learn about a world both beautiful and alien, as we will enjoy the world you bring with you.