Matsuri Arai (freshman at Health and Sports Sciences Department) has successfully marked the 2nd place for high diving at Japan Indoor Sports Tournament held from 19th to 21st of April.
She passed the qualifying round with score 328.60 and marked 321.25 at the final which made her won the 2nd place of the competition. Along with this great result, she is now chosen to participate World Tournament held in South Korea. If she can finish this cpmpetition with 12th palce or higher, she will be assigned to 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

The rythmic gymnastic group of MWU has accomplished the 15th victory for group performance at the 69th Western Japan Student Gymnastics Contest, which was held in Aichi, Nagoya from 28th to 30th of May.
Two groups were chosen for the competition and Group A won the first place, as well as group B won the 2nd Place.
For individual, Juri Shimane (sophomore at Health and Sports Sciences Department) won the 8th place, and Kotoka Yamaguchi (Freshman at same department) on 14th and Minami Okajima (sophomore at same department) on 17th followed.
This successful result leads both groups and individuals to the 71th Japan Student Gymnastic Contest which will be held from 25th to 27th of August in Northern Kyusyu.
The director of the team, Yuri Yanagawa commented their victory and the proceed to the Japan cup was "thanks to those who keep cheering us up." "We have also get warm cheers for Napoli 2019 Summer Universiade scheduled to be held from 11th to 13th of July in Napoli, Italy. Our team will keep performing our best for the next comeptitions too.", she added.

A fascinating lecture by special guest from Eastern Washington University (EWU) was given as the 21st Fosseen/Kusaka Distinguished Professorship Endowment in International Program.
Fosseen/Kusaka Distinguished Professorship Endowment in International Program, which has been held for more than 20 years, was established in 1994 by Neal R and Helen W. Fosseen and Akira Kusaka (a former chancellor of MWU). It aims to flourish the partnership between Spokane (where EWU is located) and Nishinomiya (where MWU is located) though educational corporation. Every year the two universities in each city exchange a professor and offer a special public lecture in each university.
Prof. Cebula, who is currently teaching history in EWU, was the 21st guest to come to MWU for this program. Dr. Cebula specializes in public and digital history and actively takes part in various history-related activities, including developing a smart phone app to let people learn more about history. His special lecture given to MWU students and public visitors was about the historical connection between Japan and North Pacific. The interesting, yet not too serious lecture with jokes and laugh greatly attracted participants. At the tea party held after the lecture, many participants were eager to talk with Prof. Cebula about the lecture and had great fun listening to him.
During his stay in Japan, Dr. Cebula also taught some classes of English Department. Students were excited to take lectures by the professor from foreign university in English.
We deeply appreciate his contribution to the program and EWU for keeping such a great relationship with us.

Exchange students excitingly participated an rice planting event on Sunday. This is an annual event which takes place in a private rice field. Rice planting is a very traditional and authentic experience for exchange students and they had really good time there.
Rice usually takes approximately four months to be fully grown and will be harvested in September.

We have welcomed eight new exchange students from all over the world. Those girls will study at our university from this April to next January. On their first weekend in Japan, they went to Osaka Castle Park to see a performance they were invited to called "Keren" held by Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. The performance features various aspects of Japanese culture from traditional Kabuki to modern Kawaii culture. After they enjoyed the spectacular show, they walked through hundreds of beautifully full bloomed cherry blossom trees planted in the park.

The new academic year has started with full of pink trees. New students enrolled at our university first came to our pink decorated campus on the entrance ceremony day. This year, 2019, will be a significant year with the change of Japanese Imperial era from Heisei to Reiwa, and also 80th anniversary celebration of our university. We sincerely hope our students and university will have successful year.