Yamagata University (YU) is a national university where its four campuses are located in Yamagata City, Kojirakawa (Main campus), Yamagata, Iida campus (Faculty of Medicine), Yonezawa City (Faculty of Engineering), and Tsuruoka City ( Faculty of Agriculture) in Yamagata Prefecture. The university was established in 1949 but earlier it started as Yamagata Normal school, a public teacher-training institution, then other campuses were established in Yonezawa as well as in Tsuruoka. Following a motto “Act globally, Base locally”, YU is the second-largest university in the Tohoku Region with six faculties and about 10,000 students in four campuses, in which there are more than 1,200 graduate students and 267 International students coming from 29 countries. YU has more than 2,000 academic and administrative staff.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings released in 2016–2017 ranked Yamagata University at 600-800th out of the top 980 universities in the world. In addition, YU is ranked in the tenth place (10th) in the Japanese research organization ranking, announced in April 2017 by the analysis of the number of highly cited papers in a “Materials Science” field alone in the Japanese local national university Ranking by Thomson Reuters.
On December 2018, five SSU personnel headed by the University President, Dr. Marilyn Cardoso, together with Dr. Esteban Malindog, Dean of the Graduate School, Dr. Gina Españo, Dean of the College of Education, Dr. Alex Cardoso, Focal Person for QA of the College of Industrial Technology and the Director for International Affairs, Dr. Elmer Irene conducted an Exploratory Visit and Seminar at YU to learn teaching–learning strategies for international students, assessment and YU curricular programs. The visit explored further academic areas for collaboration and exchange.
As stated in the MOA, each institution may send and accept one Exchange Student (ES) for one year. Further, two (2) ESs studying for up to 6 months shall be equivalent to 1 ES studying for one year. The faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of YU is in-charge of this Exchange program in YU and ESs from SSU will be assigned to this faculty.
YU offers a variety of fixed-term programs to accept international students for up to one year. At YU, this type of program is called a short-term study abroad or exchange program or STEP-YU (Short-Term Exchange Program at YU). STEP-YU is comprised of reciprocal exchange programs and non-degree study programs that are described below.
Reciprocal exchange programs are designed for matriculated students at their home institution who are nominated as exchange students to study at YU for a semester or one academic year. Exchange students are enrolled in either regular programs offered at each academic department or the Japan Studies Program according to their language level and the purpose of the study. There is a range of courses for the students to choose from according to their language level, including regular courses in their major field of study, Japanese language courses, English-based courses in Japanese culture, multicultural studies, and fieldwork. Credits earned at YU will be evaluated at the students’ home institutions.
Non-degree study programs are targeted at those who wish to take courses for credit as non-degree study students in their fields of study for up to one year. These include the Japanese Studies Program (undergraduate), which is part of STEP-YU, and also the Teacher Training Program (graduate), both of which are government-funded and fairly competitive.
