Chancellor Li Builds Connections Between Japan, UNO Through Academic Partnership Trip

Continuing the university’s work to foster international partnerships, UNO Chancellor Joanne Li, Ph.D., CFA, recently visited Japan to sign updated memorandums of understanding with university partners, meet with international recruiting partners, and speak with future Mavericks as well as current UNO students and alumni abroad.

“UNO has a long history of building relationships for teaching and exchange with institutions in Japan,” Chancellor Li said. “UNO is a campus that truly reaches a global stage, and through further development of these relationships, I look forward to expanding our opportunities to bring UNO to the world and to bring the world to UNO.”

Chancellor Li and other representatives from UNO visited Chiba University of Commerce (CUC) in Ichikawa and Meiji University in Tokyo. UNO has enjoyed a longstanding partnership with CUC that has enabled students from UNO’s College of Information Science & Technology to study abroad during the summer. A planned updated memorandum of understanding (MOU) intends to open doors for additional exchange opportunities during the academic year.

In early August, Chancellor Li signed an MOU with Meiji University’s President Kosaku Kairokuno to build on a decade of exchange opportunities and 13 years of summer English language and professional development programs. The new MOU will spark development of a visiting student program, ILUNO intensive English options, and potentially new custom training programs.

The academic partnership trip also included visits with several international recruiting partners during which Chancellor Li showcased UNO to a class of undergraduate students in Japan. Through updated MOUs and student transfer articulation agreements, these international partners will expand the number of undergraduate students who come to UNO from Japanese institutions.

Before leaving Japan, Chancellor Li joined with Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen and agricultural, manufacturing, and trade representatives at the annual Midwest U.S.-Japan conference. Japanese UNO alumni and some current UNO students studying in Japan greeted Chancellor Li, Governor Pillen, and Nebraska Director of Agriculture Sherry Vinton at a well-attended Friends of Nebraska event.

Li and Pillen also met Shizuoka Prefecture Vice Governor Tsutomu Ideno and former Vice Governor Akihito Yoshibayashi. UNO and Shizuoka University have enjoyed a formal partnership since 1979 alongside a sister city agreement between Omaha and Shizuoka dating back to the 1960s.

UNO’s enrollment of international students rose in fall 2023 spurred by a nearly 14% increase in international graduate students. Between this trip to Japan and a previous trip to Vietnam in July 2023, these partnerships support UNO’s goal of growing its international student population to comprise 10% of its student body by 2027.