ABSTRACT
The email had come a few days before: “Can you meet me on Thursday at lunchtime?” While I found Dean Tomita amicable, being summoned to his office—with advance notice, no less—made me nervous. I opened his door with trepidation, trying futilely to recall any reason, negative or positive, why I could have been called here. But once inside, with his usual warm candor, the dean invited me to sit down and began to explain. He used words like shikkoubu and kyoumu fukushunin—Japanese which I did not know but dutifully wrote down. I would soon learn that they meant, respectively, Dean’s Committee, which he was asking me to join, and associate director of academic affairs, which was to be my new title.
