Island Pacific Academy junior, Rachel Novak, has been selected to participate in the 2016 Reischauer Scholars Program (RSP) by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) at Stanford University.
Rachel Novak (’17) will represent not only IPA but Hawaii as well in the prestigious Reischauer Scholars Program (RSP).
Named in honor of former Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer, the RSP annually selects 25 exceptional high school students from throughout the United States to engage in an intensive study of Japan. Selected students will participate in this online course about Japan from February to June 2016.
Currently entering its thirteenth year, the RSP is an intensive online program that offers unique opportunities for students to engage with top scholars and diplomats, and introduces both American and Japanese perspectives on many historical and contemporary issues.
Rachel Novak is a member of IPA’s Japanese National Honor Society. Above, Novak wears a traditional kimono along with other IPA JNHS students during 2015’s Japan Day activities in Honolulu.
Each fall the RSP accepts applications from high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Novak, who applied last year as a sophomore but was not selected for the 2015 program, is thrilled to be a 2016 RSP student. She is looking forward to the start of classes in February and is particularly intrigued that part of the course will be taught by Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, who she greatly admires.
The college-level instruction provided by top scholars and diplomats is unparalleled in other distance learning courses for high school students. Among the distinguished lecturers for the course are Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae, Japanese ambassador to the U.S.; Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan; Dr. Sadako Ogata, former UN High Commissioner for Refugees; Ambassador Michael Armacost, former U.S. ambassador to Japan; Professor Daniel Okimoto, Political Science, Stanford University; and many other scholars from the United States and Japan.
Novak will attend online lectures from scholars and diplomats during the RSP course including ones given by Ambassador Michael Armacost, Dr. Sadako Ogata, Professor Daniel Okimoto, Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae, and Ambassador Caroline Kennedy.
The Virtual Classroom sessions also provide students with the occasion to engage in live discourse with these preeminent scholars and diplomats. During the VCs, the discussion leaders often challenge students to engage higher-order thinking skills and to consider multiple perspectives. This unique opportunity to learn directly from such noted scholars is a distinctive element of the RSP.
Students who are selected for the program are of diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, and range from those who have exhausted every possible opportunity to learn about Japan and want more, to those who have never had the opportunity to take a course on Japan but are intellectually curious about Japan and its culture. Many of the participants want to be challenged to a far greater extent than their high schools can provide.
The RSP notes that the selected high school students are self-motivated, genuinely interested in learning about Japan and U.S.–Japan relations, and excited about interacting with other high school students across the United States.
(Information for this article is from the Stanford University, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education SPICE webpage: http://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/fellowships/reischauer_scholars_program)
