October 22/99

Portrait of a second family

Hannan students are pictured here with their homestay parents. They are, from left, Shiryo Yasuta with Marianne Ketchen;
Naoki Habata, in front (missing, Brenda Briscoe); program manager, Glenda Hofmann; and Jodi Jensen with Kumiko Okazaki.

Continuing Education hosts 81 Japanese students

t a time when fall courses were just
beginning and organized chaos
reigned supreme, Continuing Education

hosted 81 Japanese students from
Hannan University in Osaka, Japan.
International programs consultant,
Glenda Hofmann, hardly stopped to
catch her breath the entire three weeks
they were here.

“Unlike other programs, I wasn’t able
to relax and get to know the students,
says Glenda. “However, Professor Yorio
Nishimura and I developed quite a bond
between us taking students off to the
medical clinic . . . my parting gift to him
was a travelling first aid kit!”

(None of the students became
seriously ill or had a serious accident,
but with that many students there were
bound to be instances where medical
attention was needed.)

Glenda says that the organization of a
program this large was tremendous.
Usually she has only 20 to 30 students.

“T had a lot of help,” she adds.

Her help consisted of ESL teachers
Dan Pontalti, Janet Langford, Helga
Mankhof and Azzam Premji;
Continuing Education employee,
Marianne Ketchen; and 12 cultural
assistants — all college and university
students.

“The most difficult part was
scheduling and making sure there were
backup plans for every single activity,”
says Rajiv Jhangiani, an international
student who assisted Glenda. “If it rained
one day there would be four events that
needed to be rescheduled.”

Cultural assistants took the Japanese
students out on organized activities on
almost every weekday afternoon. In
manageable groups of 20, they did things
such as sailing, hiking in Lynn Canyon,
cycling the seawall and visiting the Imax
theatre. Rajiv says in their spare time, the
cultural assistants also took Japanese
students out at night to show them

Vancouver nightlife.

Eighty-one students require 81 host
families. Marianne and former Capilano
College student, Teanny Lau, scoured
the North Shore at a time when requests
for host families were coming from a
number of competing institutions.
Thanks to assistance from College
employees who volunteered their homes,
Marianne and Teanny were able to fill
their quota.

“The host families were great,” states
Glenda. “Those that attended the
graduation ceremony really enjoyed the
spirited presentation of the students and
found this animated group refreshing.”

The students’ departure was set for the
day after graduation, and Glenda admits
to breathing a sigh of relief as she
counted two professors Yorio Nishimura
and Isao Nakajima and 81 satisfied and
happy students as they climbed aboard
the bus and headed for the airport.

Submitted by Lauren Mulholland

@nformer