Sophia Magazine vol.5 / SUMMER 2017

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The history of the Summer Session can be traced to the establishment in 1949 of Sophia’s International Division (the precursor to the Faculty of Liberal Arts), which offered a curriculum taught entirely in English. Organized just four years after the end of World War II, the International Division was the only program of its kind in Japan. It was Father John Blewett, a professor in the International Divi-sion, who had the idea to establish what would become the first summer program in Japan. Father Maurice Bairy, also a professor at Sophia, recognized the promise of the proposed Summer Session and devoted many years to developing it. According to Professor Gardner, Father Bairy was both an inspiring intellectual and the heart of the Summer Session: I came to Sophia in 1982 and during the first year or so I got to meet Father Bairy. He soon became my mentor. He was probably one of the most well-read people I have ever met. There are very few academics with whom you can actually sit down and have an intellectual conversation, but he was one of them. And he was always so welcoming and had a great sense of humor. Father Blewett initially proposed the program, but it was Father Bairy who expanded on and made Blewett’s vision a reality. That vision was very much in line with the Jesuit philosophy of higher education which values sending people to encounter other cultures and peoples. Father Bairy’s generation of Jesuits came to Japan in the wake of World War II, and I think that their wartime ex-periences defined their interest in cultural exchange and getting people to encounter and learn about each other. Father Bairy is the reason I got involved in the Sum-mer Session. I started teaching classes and leading tours early on, and I was pulled in as his successor. Although he officially retired in 1985, his great enthusiasm for the program kept him active in the Summer Session for nearly two decades after that. Professor Gardner’s increasingly active participation in the Summer Session led to his appointment as Director of Father Bairy’s Visionthe program in 1997. He has deep respect for Sophia Univer-sity for pioneering in Japan the kind of summer program for students from abroad that was already commonly available at American and European universities. The program’s role and audience have evolved over the decades, from the Sum-mer Session’s early days as an innovative experience for high school teachers from America to a program offering courses, both in summer and winter, to students from throughout the world.Early on, the Summer Session primarily offered courses for American high school teachers who would in turn incorporate their experience into their teaching back home. The program involved both academic courses and Japanese cultural experiences such as bonsai, noh, and the tea ceremony. Before the internet, the Summer Session was also a major madoguchi (service window/contact point) to Sophia University and Japan as a whole. During this period, Sophia sent out thousands of Summer Session pamphlets. This led us to get all sorts of inquiries, which were not just about the University, but often about vari-ous Japan-related topics. During the 1980s, my colleague Shizuko Ueda, former assistant to Father Bairy, was like the Google Search for Japan. People were constantly call-ing to ask questions, often arcane questions, about Japan. The Summer Session staff gladly did their best to answer all of them. In the 1990s when the internet began to be widely used, Professor EmeritusRichard GardnerDuring his 35 years at Sophia University, Professor Gardner taught courses on critical thinking, Japanese religions, and the history of religions at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and also served as Direc-tor of the Summer Session in Asian Studies. His research interests include the relation of religion and humor, the noh theater, and Aum Shinrikyô. Professor Gardner retired in March 2017. A Madoguchi to JapanFather Maurice Bairy, the heart of the Summer Session for nearly four decades 9Approach