By Aya Murata '84
(Nishimachi Report/The Internationalist Fall 2003Vol. 31)
Aya lives with her husband, Mike Charland, and two sons, Aki (almost three) and Kai (eight months). In addition to being the international student coordinator at Phillips Academy, Aya is the Asian and Asian-American student advisor, a dormitory house counselor, and the assistant coordinator of the Abbot Scholars Program. This is her twelfth year at Phillips. Aya's grandmother, Yuri Murata, worked alongside Tane Matsukata in the establishment of Nishimachi International School. Her father, Hiroshi Murata '57, and uncle, Kiyoshi Murata '59, were two of Nishimachi's first four students. Aya attended kindergarten at NIS.
Greetings from Andover, Massachusetts, U.S.A.! My name is Aya Murata, and I am the International Student Coordinator at Phillips Academy (an independent, secondary school just north of Boston, Massachusetts). While I first worked in the Andover Admission Office overseeing international applications (and had the pleasure of interviewing NIS student Weston Fuhrman NIS '98, Andover '01), I have since moved to the Office of Community and Multicultural Development and currently work with the international students once they arrive.
In my role as international student coordinator, I am a creator and organizer of international related programs and supporter of international students. For example, in a given year, my job entails creating the special New International Student Orientation, overseeing and organizing the Host Family program, issuing required documentation for the acquisition of student visas, disseminating information to faculty regarding topics such as culture shock and various cultural differences which might surface in dorms or classrooms, and working with student leaders to run an effective and fun student organization for international students and those students interested in learning about other cultures and countries. Perhaps most importantly my role is to serve as a continual advocate for international students and to make sure that my institution is sensitive to the special needs and circumstances of international students and their families.
While every student who comes to Phillips Academy has a transition to make and must undergo a certain level of discomfort as they become acclimated to their new surroundings, international students have an even greater adjustment to make. For some, it is weather. For others, it is cultural customs. For most, it is food! Institutionalized food is certainly a long stretch from the comforts of home-cooking. At least our food service is willing to make a special trip to buy furikake, which is available to students at all meals. But on a more serious level, for some of my international students, adjusting to a different and sometimes conflicting set of values and new expectations of appropriate and acceptable behavior can present many challenges as students strive to understand their new environment and become contributing members to our community. I see it as my job to help prepare new international students for what they might encounter and help them work through any difficulties they may have.
At Phillips Academy, one of the founding principles was "youth from every quarter" and while this statement has certainly expanded in practice over the past 225 years, there was evidence of the school's commitment to bring students from various experiences and perspectives in Andover's early history. For example, Joseph Hardy Neeshima was Andover's first Japanese graduate (1867). He later became the first Japanese to be ordained as a Congregationalist minister and was the founder of Doshisha University.
International students are integral to the diversity at Phillips Academy and are what make our community so rich and unique. I continue to challenge the international community to share themselves and their life experiences so as to expand and broaden the viewpoints of others (both their peers and their teachers) while also remaining open to learning about cultures and traditions different from their own. In this fast-paced, ever-growing, global community, cross-cultural understanding will be imperative for optimum success in this world, and to have the opportunity to intersect with people from myriad experiences is invaluable in building bridges among seemingly disparate groups or individuals.
As the international student coordinator, I love listening to the differences and similarities between cultures, the things that surprise or frustrate or humor international students. For example, there was surprise expressed by some of my European students about the true seriousness with which Andover views cheating and plagiarism Ð for many of them, "collaborative" work was an accepted and assumed part of their school experience. For one of my Thai students, she was amazed by the casual and open relationships between students and their teachers and has had to learn to be more comfortable engaging with the various adults in the community. And finally, a Japanese student expressed surprise to see how shallow a traditional American bathtub was -- and frustration that he was unable to have an ofuro (and that the only option in the dormitories was to take a shower). He also could not understand how Americans could balance on one foot to wash their toes.
As the international student coordinator, I feel the greatest success when I can help Andover's international students establish themselves in the community, thrive, and make the most of their high school experience. In doing my job, I like to believe that I am perpetuating my grandmother's lifelong desire to promote international education and cross-cultural understanding.