If major, internationally recognized research grants are any indication of a department’s health, the Japanese Department is alive and well.

Erik Slivken ’02, a mathematics major, and Sarah Pradt, professor and chair of the Japanese department, have both won Fulbright Awards to study in Japan.

Every year the Fulbright Program awards nearly 900 post-bachelor student scholarships to pursue higher education in another nation. Additionally, the Fulbright Program awards grants to post-doctoral scholars (such as professor Pradt) and sponsors exchange programs, all in the hope to encourage an “international educational exchange.”

Slivken, also a physics minor, hails from Iowa but currently calls Minnesota home. “I’m of the Midwest,” he said with a smile that spreads under the shadow of his dark blue Twins hat.

He is enthusiastic about the opportunity to study abroad, citing his inability to study abroad while an undergraduate, “I wanted to do something-not grad school-that involved math.” Going to Japan will allow him to both. Starting in September, Slivken will spend one full year in Japan, studying mathematics and taking classes at a university that is yet to be determined.

Slivken said he feels that fluency is the only true way to immerse one’s self in a foreign culture. “Being able to go into a broad social setting, such as a bar or restaurant, and knowing what people are saying is invaluable.”

But Fulbrights are not awarded to people who simply want to pick up a foreign language or immerse themselves in another culture-he must advance himself academically as well.

Slivken will therefore be using the majority of his time to study and observe the differences in educational style. “Just to work on math in a different setting and to be able to see what the class structure is like in a Japanese University as opposed to in a U.S. school will be interesting.” He goes on to say that he is also very interested by “how [the Japanese] go about researching math [and] how they tackle problems.”

Sarah Pradt is hoping that the Fulbright Award she won will help her research Miyamoto Yuriko. A prominent communist sympathizer, Yuriko’s groundbreaking novels and essays were among the first to advance the idea of feminism in Japan, a nation often characterized as male-dominated and patriarchal. Many of the Yuriko’s materials are not available in the United States, or in English, in part because of the anti-Communist atmosphere in the 1950s.

Pradt beamed as she emphasizes the difficulty that she would face were it not for winning the award. “The Fulbright will open so many doors,” she said. Even if Pradt were to simply travel to Japan on her own funds, many of Yuriko’s materials would be unavailable to her because they are housed in private libraries.

Pradt also expects that more opportunities will exist simply because of the recognition that goes along with the Fulbright.

Both Slivken and Pradt acknowledge that the Land of 10,000 Lakes will be missed, and that leaving behind family could be hard. Slivken reveals that he’ll also miss the local professional sports teams, “I’ll get one of my friends to tape the Vikings games for me and then [I] can fast-forward through the season [on the VCR] when I get home. I’ll miss pizza too.”

Ellen Guyer, Academic Dean, estimates that the college has had approximately 91 Fulbright winners since 1960.