This was truly an historic event in the history of Nanzan University: hosting a sitting ambassador of the United States on our campus. Ambassador Roos came to talk with our students in a town-meeting style event.

As an introduction, he spoke briefly on the importance of Japan-U. S. relations. The remainder of the session was dedicated to live interaction between the Ambassador and the students of the Department of British and American Studies. Students themselves presented questions to the Ambassador and received a “real time” response.

Topics varied widely and included:

　　•President Obama and his present policies and popularity;

　　•the situation of the American health care system;

　　•the current state of Japan-US relations;

　　•nuclear weapons in today’s world and the meaning of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to

　　 generations now and in the future;

　　•how the Ambassador felt after he was named to the post.

It was an active and lively exchange of views, with a great deal of excitement among faculty and students. The large amount of positive feedback received from the students following the event indicates how much of an impression this program made on them and how important it is to continue to create such opportunities for international exchange in the future.

We are very grateful to all organizations and individuals that made this event possible including the American Center (Consulate) Nagoya, the Embassy of the United States of America (Tokyo), the Aichi Prefectural Police, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology for their generous support of our GP program; all of our university staff for their help; and it goes without saying, our deepest thanks to the Ambassador himself for the generous contribution of time from his busy schedule to visit our campus.