Tributes
Recollection and Remembrance from a Colleague in the U.S.Shig's career in NAFSA and mine were essentially parallel for a number of years during the 1960s and 1970s; he was then not only my close colleague but my friend. Shig and I were acquainted from the early 1960s, almost entirely in the context of NAFSA activities. We both joined NAFSA about the same time (and, incidentally, we both joined TESOL at its foundation meeting in New York in 1964). He preceded me by two years as Chair of ATESL, and we were both Chair of [U] CIEP, although I do not remember the exact sequence--it seems to me he immediately preceded me. In any case, in both contexts, I learned much from his example and profited greatly from his guidance. During these years, he was heavily involved in NAFSA activities. My recollection is that we served together on a number of NAFSA national committees, were Field Service Consultants in roughly the same time period (from the earliest days of the Field Service consulting activity through the 1970s), and regularly met at every national conference from the mid 1960s until Shig returned to Japan in the early 1980s (and even a time or two since then). |
Shigeo Imamura with Dr. Charles Fries (center) and other students at the University of Michigan in 1951. Imamura pictured second from the right in the first row. |
In those years, Shig was a moving force in ESL teaching, and did much to enhance the field within NAFSA as well as in the US and Japan generally. He was well-connected in Japan (indeed, I believe he later served in leadership roles both in JALT and in JACET). His publications record testifies to the fact that he published widely on ESL topics both in English and in Japanese. He did much to bring into existence the relationship between NAFSA and JAFSA. He was a frequent speaker at NAFSA regional and national conferences, and of course he was vitally engaged in the work of the English Language Center at Michigan State University . In his work within NAFSA, he not only provided a model for others to emulate, but he also guided numbers of young ESL professionals into activity in international educational exchange. At Michigan State , he was responsible for the training of several generations of future ESL professionals.
In sum, Shig contributed in various ways to the emergence of TESL as a distinct field in the United States , ii.) contributed substantively to the professionalization of that field in the United States and in Japan , iii.) contributed as well to the development and professionalization of NAFSA, and iv.) contributed to the development of the broad field of international educational exchange in both the United States and Japan .
Despite these significant contributions, Shig has remained "the invisible man" in NAFSA. He was, by nature and preference, modest and retiring, and he had the misfortune to be Japanese in this society at a time when being so was not necessarily a bonus. For reasons that are no longer relevant, he did not earn a doctorate (though he easily might have done so), and the absence of that credential held him back from advancing in the tertiary academy in this country (though his abilities have certainly been recognized in Japan since his return there). Whatever the reasons, it has always seemed to me a shame that his colleagues in this country and in NAFSA have consistently failed to recognize his real abilities.
I am proud to have known him and happy to provide this brief recollection and remembrance.
Best,
Bob Kaplan
Shig: The True Story of an American Kamikaze, Shigeo Imamura, Memoir, World War II, Kamikaze pilots