Mainetoday.com: Oakland man to head university in Japan
Bruce Stronach, an Oakland native, made history in April by becoming the first foreigner to head a public university in Japan. The 54-year-old was appointed the president of Yokohama City University. Yokohama is Japan's second largest city, 18 miles southwest of Tokyo..."The mayor of Yokohama wanted Yokohama City University to be a leader," he said. "Part of it was to internationalize the community...The biggest problem in internationalizing the campus is the Japanese language, because few foreigners want to learn it...One way (to tackle it) is to create an English language curriculum, with regular content classes taught in English."
