Arkansas Northeastern College students Chelsea Pierce of Kennett and Kyle Cassidy of Armorel will be this year's ANC student ambassadors to Japan.
Rachel Gifford, ANC dean for development, explained how the student ambassadors to Japan program began.
"The September before the first ambassadors went to Japan in May of 1996 Mr. Hirokyul Inoue, president of Yamato Kogyo, attended the Yamato Kogyo/ANC Foundation Scholarship Golf Tournament and he made an invitation to bring students to Japan with the intent to share the culture between the U.S. and Japan," Gifford said. "Not only for our students to bring back and share what they learned about the culture of Japan, but also for them to learn about us and our community. Our foundation pays for the students air fare but Yamato Kogyo take care of the rest."
Pierce and Cassidy will be the college's 29th and 30th students to go to Japan and serve as ambassadors for the college. Students have to be between 18-24 years old; the reason for that is because when the students get to Japan, children of Yamato employees serve as their tour guides and that is their age range. ANC students also have to have a minimum of 3.0 GPA, be degree-seeking, have a minimum of 9 hours a semester and have between 15 to 45 credit hours by the end of the spring semester. The students also have to be willing to come back and speak to groups such as churches and civic organizations about their travels and what they learned by visiting Japan.
"They are gone for two full weeks," Gifford said. "We don't send chaperons, so they are pretty much on their own. Yamato Kogyo employees meet them at the airport take them around from there. They stay for the most part in Hemiji City and they get to tour the Hemiji castle the Yamato steel mill. They also get to go see other cities such as Tokyo. In the past they have gotten to go to Disney World in Japan and they get to do a whole bunch of different things depending on what their likes and dislikes are. They are so good to them over there. One year we had a student who loved fishing and they took him deep-sea fishing. Last year Josh Cook was a huge baseball fan and they took him to a professional baseball game there."
The students get to visit numerous temples and museums and really experience the culture of Japan. Gifford said for some students, it changes the course of their studies, and for others, it is just a once-in-a-lifetime experience they would not otherwise have.
"We have students come back a lot of the times and say they didn't want to come home," Gifford said. "Most students convey what a wonderful opportunity it is and it is -- truly something that most of these students would not get to do without this program. It is also really wonderful for us as college to be able to offer this kind of program to our students."
Gifford explained that a sort within the college computer system is used to generate a list of students qualified for the program, and those students are sent letters and an application. There are also fliers posted on campus for students who may have been left off the computer-generated list. The students fill out the application and write a short essay as to why they want to go to Japan. Once all the applications are in, interviews are conducted with an interview committee of about five people. This year Cassidy and Pierce were picked out of the more than 100 eligible students at ANC.
"That is more for us to see how they are going to react, us to learn about them and for them to learn more about the program," Gifford said. "We want them to understand this is sponsored by Yamato Kogyo and the intent is for them to represent us over there and for them to come back and share with us what they have learned because the rest of us don't get to go. They know before they accept the trip that is what is expected of them. This is a wonderful educational opportunity for them."
This year's ambassadors will leave on May 15 and will return on May 29.