INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / DECEMBER 11, 1990

 

 

 

The following article appeared in the Vancouver Sun, October 21, 1990

Educator Boosts B.C. To Asians

Tokyo - From his base at New
Westminster’s Douglas College,
Tadatoshi (Tad) Hosoi is a travell-
ing salesman for international
education.

It’s a passion that has taken
the 41-year-old native of Japan to
much of Asia to promote the Royal
City as a great place to learn.

Red-eyed from jet lag, he was
over for dinner the other night to
describe the latest of his three trips
to Japan since June.

As manager of the college’s
Centre for International Educa-
tion, Hosoi represented Douglas at
Canadian education fairs in Tokyo,
Osaka and Sapporo during the
past two weeks.

About 30 Canadian colleges,
private schools and educational as-
sociations were at the fairs draw-
ing rosy pictures of student life in
Canada to attract the 1,400 Jap-
anese prospects who turned out.

It’s a competitive business
trying to pull in a share of the es-
timated 85,000 Japanese students
studying abroad. The British are
holding their own education fair
on Tuesday in Tokyo.

Hosoi said Canada’s future
depends on this kind of effort.
“Canada is so dependent on inter-
national trade,” he said. "Nothing
in Canada is dominant in world
markets so, for the sake of sur-
vival, we have to internationalize.”

Hosoi is particularly effective
in promoting Douglas in Japan,
said Paul Henry, first secretary at
the Canadian embassy, which lent
federal support to the fairs. About
180 foreign students attend
Douglas, including 70 from Japan.

“Tad’s advantage is he is
Japanese and lives in Canada, so
he understands both cultures,”
Henry said in an interview.

“He can speak to prospective
students and their parents in a lan-
guage they understand. He’s an
important bridge in that way.”

Hosoi went to Canada in 1974
to do a master’s degree in history

at the University of B.C. Stuck for
a job, he began teaching Japanese.

Soon he was starting the
Japanese language program at
UBC's Centre for Continuing
Education, Japanese courses at
Vancouver Community College’s
Langara campus and international
education programming at
Douglas.

He was even kind enough to
allow me to pass a night-time
Japanese credit course he once
taught at UBC.

Hosoi got involved in interna-
tional learning by sending Can-
adians to Japan. Since 1982 he has
organized annual summer
programs for B.C. students in
Japanese language and culture at
the Kobe YMCA.

The programs help B.C. kids
see beyond their narrow world.
“People raised in Vancouver rarely
have an international perspec-
tive,” said Hosoi. As part of the
solution, he pointed to the newly

established B.C. Centre for Interna-
tional Education.

Opened last month in
downtown Vancouver, the centre
coordinates post-secondary ac-
tivities in this field and ad-
ministers two new Asia Pacific
scholarship programs for students
and educators that will see many
more B.C. people coming across
the Pacific.

Hosoi had a chance to come
back over here again in November
which he’s passing up. Living out
of a suitcase is hard on the mind
and body, as well as on family life
with his wife and daughter.

“T promised them I’d make
only three trips a year,” he said.
But being back home doesn’t
mean his energy is slacking off.
This weekend he’s taken Douglas
foreign students up to the Adams
River between Sicamous and Kam-
loops to see the spectacular sock-
eye spawning run.

 

 

 

 

 

THE DOUGLAS COLLEGE WRESTLING TEAM split with a
touring New Zealand team 3-3. This action took place in the
concourse November 20. On December 3 a touring Soviet
wrestling team defeated Douglas College 7-1.

 

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