the opportunity to reflect back on that year, 1959-60. I was an “experimental” student, the first one to attend the Institute for American Universities in Aix-en-Provence, France. Before starting my academic year there, I had the opportunity to attend the International Youth Conference in the Bavarian Alps where I made a lot of friends whom I visited in several European countries during my year abroad. I can say unequivocally that the year I spent abroad was the best year of my life because it was the year that I “grew up” and learned how to live responsibly. Having virtually no rules or regulations and no hours when I had to be back in my room, I learned how to make responsible decisions and do what was right. I also had the opportunity to meet Albert Camus who spoke to our philosophy
allowing me to spend that year abroad Fran Wagner Rehm ’61 Wimauma, Fla. ON HIS OWN IN TOKYO I studied abroad at Sophia University in Tokyo from December 1971 through January 1973. I was raised in suburban St. Louis, and I’m sure that when I went to DPU, study abroad in Tokyo was the farthest thing from my mind. I knew that I liked history and law and wanted to major in one or the other. My first adviser, Dr. [ John] Eigenbrodt in religion, suggested that for my first semester I try a course a bit “out-of-thebox,” History of China and Japan with Professor Clifton Phillips. The course changed my life! Although I had taken world history in high school, it omitted Asia and Africa. Dr. Phillips introduced
“My world was a whole new place filled with possibility and hope and wonder. ” ELIZABETH COFFMAN SPEHAR ’96, STAMFORD, CONN.
class not long before his untimely death, and our art class visited Mont SainteVictoire, the subject of a number of Paul Cézanne’s paintings. Of course, I lived near Arles, where Vincent van Gogh lived. I made many trips that year to Italy and Spain, where my horizons were once again broadened by so many historical events and sights, and I was close enough to the French Alps to take advantage of occasional skiing expeditions. All in all, I had more “growing experiences” in that one year than I have ever had in my life. Yes, I missed out on many experiences I would have had – if I had stayed at DePauw that year – but I certainly feel it was well worth it. I will always be grateful to DePauw for taking a chance and
me to a brand new world, to civilizations and peoples I didn’t even know had a history. His course was very challenging for a first-semester freshman. I did well in the course, and I left it with an abiding interest in China and Japan, the so-called East Asian world. At first my primary interest was China, but in 1970 the United States had no diplomatic relations with China, and DPU taught only Japanese. During my next year, I took up the study of the Japanese language and took more courses on China. Finally, this country boy from St. Louis was accepted into the DPU study-abroad program for Sophia University. I had never flown on an airplane, ridden on a subway or lived in a city the size of Tokyo. What is more, the program to Sophia (a
Jesuit school) was not a real program at all – all four of us who went on that program during the early ’70s were forced to find our own accommodations and negotiate Tokyo on our own. The courses at Sophia were not very challenging, but the great challenge was learning the Japanese language and culture. I became so fixated on the language that I ran into street signs as I was trying to read the Japanese characters. At first, I lived with a Japanese family, but eventually moved into my own apartment(s). In a word, living on my own was a great stimulus to learning the language and culture, and getting to know more about the Japanese people. By the time I left Tokyo in January 1973, I was fluent, and that spring I merited acceptance into graduate school in Japanese history at Harvard University, a mecca of sorts at that time. I also came to my eventual academic interest, the history of Japan to 1600. I have spent a lifetime researching, writing and teaching about this subject. I have produced six books, including the most widely used textbook, on this topic. In these ways, I feel certain that I have influenced countless people. Periodically, I receive email from France, Germany, China, Australia, Canada and Japan – from people wanting to know about my teaching and research. And it all began at DPU, with Professor Clifton Phillips and that year abroad in Tokyo. It was one of the most liberating experiences of my life. As a fellow student wrote, for a short time I shed my previous identity and was free to pursue my own agenda. I can only thank Dr. Phillips and DPU for that wonderful experience, which gave me a purpose and a plan for my life. W. Wayne Farris ’73 Honolulu, Hawaii
WINTER 2013 DEPAUW MAGAZINE 29