Reflections: Featuring My Least Favorite Question
Gretchen Shinoda (IR89, and IUJ employee 1994 to 2024) shares her thoughts and experience at IUJ.
I am a unique IUJ graduate. And I love the role.
Many of you have asked me about my retirement plans, and shared your memories with me in the process. I wanted to take the opportunity of my last Alumni Newsletter as a full-time IUJ staffer to share some thoughts with you. I hope you do not mind!
I came to IUJ as the wife of a student in 1985. I was one of 3 white women in the entire valley! While playing tennis and basketball, and even soccer, not to mention singing in the IUJ Band, I got to meet many of the first batch of alumni, and all of the 2nd batch who graduated in 1986. I studied with IUJers from the classes of 1987-1989 and call ALL of you my classmates. My husband and I left IUJ in 1989 – Miyagawa-san drove me to the station with tears flowing down my cheeks. I thought I would never return.
Tomohito and I then experienced being alumni overseas from June 1989 to October 1994, when we were then asked to return to IUJ with the presidency of Dr. George R. Packard. It was our honor.
I started working at IUJ with the glamorous title of Special Assistant to the President (Packard-sensei), and he asked me to solve troubles and make campus life more fun. We had movie nights with popcorn, tennis tournaments, language circles, etc. It was quite fun.
Then in 1995, Dr. Packard asked me to start IUJ Alumni Relations and IUJ Career Services. After learning from IUJ’s partner universities in the USA – namely Tuck and SAIS, plus my alma mater, Lewis and Clark, I went to work with the help of many to create an alumni database and online directory, various alumni services such as the newsletter, IUJ Fridays, Alumni Chapters, Ambassadors Program, mentor programs, etc. The Career Counseling and Services program was complete with workshops and coaching, a Resume Book unique to Japan, and on campus recruiting – bucking the traditional recruiting strategies and timing of Japan to meet IUJers’ needs.
Pioneering these programs based on how US universities do them was a special experience here.
When Dr. Packard left IUJ in 1997, I created the Packard Fund to provide IUJ goods, mostly T-shirts, for purchase – a labor of love! Dr. Packard donated the seed money for the fund, and I order shirts, sell them, put the money back into the fund, and start again. The fund is still going strong!
In 2009, IUJ asked me to add managing the Office of Student Services to my roles. With the number of students growing, specifically non-Japanese, this presented another challenge. Even before this time, student and campus issues were coming to me in increasing number. One issue I addressed with Tamaru-sensei was harassment: Power, Academic and Sexual harassment. Together we created IUJ’s Professional Ethics Committee, PEC, in 2006 after 1.5 years of research in how to address issues in such a unique environment IUJ presents where cultural, religious or “common sense” shared values do not necessarily contribute to addressing such issues.
With so many hats to wear, and being a bit burnt out on career services (you can only correct so many resumes!), I asked for more time to focus on students services and alumni relations. Career Services thus went to two amazing people in the new Office of Admissions and Career Services. Student issues require most of my time. Working with professionals from over 70 countries and with all their stories is both rewarding and overwhelming: from the loss of parents to discoveries of pregnancies, from celebrating a thesis defense to getting angry about not separating garbage correctly, from hearing of fears of academic failure to winning a scholarship – there have been a lot of hugs!
But, getting to focus exclusively on Alumni Relations has never been possible. I love serving our network more than anything. Bringing people together, helping them network, and adding leverage to that network is exciting. Finding lost alumni is quite rewarding! Following your careers makes me proud. I am hopeful I can continue even after March 2024.
SO WHAT IS THAT QUESTION you do not like, Gretchen?
Throughout these 30 years, I have been asked so many interesting questions, and been presented with so many challenges I do not know where to begin. I often say なんでもあり国際大学。“IUJ – where anything can happen.” But I wanted to share a few of them including my LEAST favorite question of all.
Of course, questions of “where can I buy an adapter for my computer,” “Which brand of shampoo do you recommend?” “How do I call overseas?” etc. are normal. But here are a few whoppers I will never forget.
Why didn’t Citibank offer me the job? I really think I was most qualified among those that interviewed today.
My answer: Because you told the Citibank recruiter that you would never work for an American company.
My resume looks wonderful in the Resume Book, but I am not getting any job interviews. Why not?
My answer: You need to apply to the openings noted on the career board to let them know you are interested. You cannot expect the company to find you – do the work for them!
1:30am – pounding on my SD3 apartment:
Gretchen, my passport has expired? What do I do?
My answer: Come see me in the morning at the office. There is nothing I can do at 1:30am.
I just bought a bed off Amazon and it was delivered in pieces. Will you please come build my bed?
My answer: I have no idea. Please ask someone in your community to help.
It is raining. Can the OSS lend me an umbrella?
My answer: Well….. I guess you can take one from the Lost and Found.
What? You want me to give you a poop sample in order for me to get to cook for Open Day?
My answer: I know… it is rather awkward, but required (It isn’t any more by the way!). And that wasn’t even my least favorite question…
My least favorite question of all is . . .
Gretchen, who are IUJ’s Successful Alumni? Please make me a list of them.
My answer: How can I make such a list? Our alumni are amazing people and I have no idea how to assess who is “more successful” than others.
You, IUJ Alumni, are truly amazing people. First, you found your way to this campus we call home. You worked for 1-2 years so hard in such diversity, making it to the finish line we call graduation. You have carried the IUJ spirit into your various careers. You find each other at business negotiation tables in Australia, on airplanes headed for a Maldives crisis meeting, at environmental and SDG panel discussions for Eurasia. You work with each other from roles with Japan’s MOFA and Vietnam development organizations. You have helped establish Japanese firms overseas in India, Cambodia, Vietnam, and more. You discover an IUJer in Fiji where you are there to discuss Asia-Pacific issues and see someone wearing an IUJ T-shirt. The examples go on.
We boast CEOs of major corporations and small, growing startups. We have Ambassadors and government ministers and parliament politicians among our ranks. We have university faculty and elementary school teachers helping the next generations. We have UN junior staff starting their careers, leaders of major UN and other world organizations from Haiti to Mozambique to Iraq, and UNHQ Permanent Mission Ambassadors in New York. We have non-Japanese working well in Japanese companies and Japanese working in consulting firms and international organizations around the world. We have a Nobel Peace Prize finalist and winners of multiple top business and CFO awards. We have journalists covering regional and world news, and those featured in their articles. We have stay-at-home parents and now even grandparents raising the next generation. We have survivors of war zones, natural disasters, major illnesses and a pandemic – and we have lost alumni to these as well: I have had to say goodbye to 46 IUJers from the classes of 1985 to 2023 – Each one harder than the next.
Each world event, good and bad, finds IUJers involved. Many reach out to me with heartbreaking or inspiring stories and requests. The trust many of you have shown in me is humbling, and my inability to meet all your expectations is agonizing. Hopefully, I have helped more than I have disappointed.
So how can I say who our successful alumni are, when you are all out there doing amazing things every day? You are all heroes, retired and up-and-coming stars, survivors and creators. It is an honor to call you part of my family.
IUJ: Where the World Gathers*
IUJ Alumni: Gathering Around the World**
*I am proud to have been on the team of 3 that created this slogan
**This one is all mine. I think it is fun
SO, what are you going to do in retirement?
MANY of you have asked, so please let me share: I have a bucket list I cannot wait to start on.
For fun, I want to . . .
· Clean my house! Mari Kondo is inspiring.
· Cook for my husband who has been the chef our entire marriage of 39 years
· Swim a lot, walk a lot, and do those bungee jump workouts at the gym!
o Teaching elderly people at the pool HOW to swim – teaching swimming is a passion
· Write 2 children’s books that have been in my mind for years
o Learn to draw to illustrate them too
· Write a book with my daughter on raising a bilingual, bicultural kid in the countryside of Japan – my experience AND hers (we are asked all the time about this)
· Live on Sado Island and help with the World Heritage bid for a few months.
· Go to Malaysia to help the Orangutans – This should be at the TOP of my list, but it is expensive.
· Play the piano again
· Play golf again
· Travel and scuba dive again
· Go fishing
· Sit in the forest and breath
· Do puzzles and crafts (I have SO many project ideas)
· Make my yard nice – flowers, grass and veggie garden
Professionally, I want to . . .
· Connect IUJ Alumni better and deeper
· Help Japanese young people get to overseas university or international work experiences with resume building, essay development, interview skills and finding the right university/organization for their goals
· Provide public speaking workshops: from developing the presentation content and image to delivery in English
· Translate menus, Japanese Inn guides or signs, website content, tourist spot signs, hospital and clinics, etc. to help Niigata better welcome or work with Non-Japanese tourist and residents (IUJers and beyond)
· Work with Sado Island in their bid to become a World Heritage Site, and more well-known tourism destination
· Maybe help IUJers again with career workshops and career coaching – I love that kind of work!
· Maybe help some of your companies with special short-term projects.
Thank you IUJers.
Let’s see where the road takes us next. And please, STAY CONNECTED.
