Arcadia University has been selected for the third year in a row to host a Long-term Educational Administration Program (LEAP) intern from Japan. This month Arcadia welcomes Sayaka Minami, who works in the Office for Student Exchange at Osaka University.

LEAP is a year-long professional development program sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) and managed by the Montana State University Office of International Programs.

Each participant in the program is a young Japanese university administrator. The program endeavors to help the participants improve their English proficiency, learn about the U.S. higher education system, and become accustomed to an international programs office in the United States. The participants spend the first six months at MSU and . the second part of their year (October to March) at a select U.S. institution. Prior to this year-long experience in the United States, all LEAP participants intern in Tokyo at MEXT for one year.

A large part of Minami’s responsibilities will be to attend a sequence of professional rotations during which she will work with Arcadia staff dedicated to a specific set of responsibilities—study abroad program management, foreign student advising, admissions and recruitment, and student affairs. She will introduce herself, her country and her home university in a presentation in the fall on campus.

Minami is one of nine 2010-11 LEAP Interns; other participating universities include American University, University of Tennessee- Knoxville, Michigan State University, New York University, San Francisco State University, University of California, Davis, University of Minnesota, and University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Amanda Zimmerman and Dr. Dennis Dutschke, from The College of Global Studies, will administer the LEAP internship at Arcadia.