September 15, 2008

Professor Emeritus Rev. Zuigaku Kodachi honored by Consul General of Japan

On September 5, Kodachi was honored by the Consul General of Japan for receiving the Emperor’s Decoration of Japan.

Rev. Zuigaku Kodachi, professor emeritus of Japanese language and literature:

On September 5, Kodachi was honored by the Consul General of Japan for receiving the Emperor’s Decoration of Japan. More than 100 guests were in attendance to honor Kodachi for more than 40 years of work building cultural bridges between the United States and Japan. He spent 34 years building and growing Lewis & Clark’s Japanese language program. Under his tutelage, enrollment in Japanese language courses increased and Lewis & Clark was able to increase courses at the third year level, add Japanese as a minor, and allow students to use Japanese as one of their two language requirement. Kodachi  stills assists Lewis & Clark with overseas programs in Waseda, Hokusei and Kansai Gaidai. He also continues to research  central Asia and will publish a book this fall in Japan.

“Our undergraduate curriculum is global in scope rather than predominantly Western, and we offer robust programs and events that take international education beyond the classroom setting. No institution or organization achieves such success overnight. And certainly such achievements are not possible without the dedicated and inspiring work of many people over many years. At Lewis & Clark, Reverend Kodachi is one of those people,” stated President Thomas Hochstettler at the event honoring Kodachi.