My main job is at Toyo University, and I teach 10 classes from Tuesday through Friday. I teach First Year Communication, First Year English Elective: Reading, Second Year Communication, and Business English. The classes are usually around 32 students, but the several are closer to 42, and there are more than 60 in Business English class. The Japanese school systems start in April and the first semester ends in mid-July. The second semester just started last week (the last week of September), and will continue until mid-December, then we adjourn for two weeks and then come back in January for two weeks, and then we're off until April. I am in the second year of a four year contract, tha tis renewable once, but I am hoping that there will be a possiblity for tenure, but it is unlikely, it is very difficult for foreigners to get tenure.
Toyo is a second tier school and the fourth largest private university in Japan. There are four campuses and the main campus is in Bunkyo-ku, about 20 minutes from where I am living, however I work at the Kita-Asaka Campus in Saitama, where all the first and second year students go. It's not unusual for Tokyo schools to open branch campuses far away from Tokyo, because those are the only areas where there is enough affordable land to build on, Aoyama has one in Kanagawa 90 minutes form Tokyo. That being said, my commute is against the morning rush hour, and is only 20 minutes by train, and then it is a 10-minute walk from the station.
This is the building I teach all of my classes in, it is the farthest building from my office, so I rarely go there these days. And here's a picture of my Zen-like office, I used to share it with another American professor:
There are computers, copy machines, and a lounge for the teachers in each classroom building, because significant portions of them are part-timers. I teach in the Law Department. Each department is responsible for hiring teacher to teach their core classes, there is no General Education Department. Law students have to take two years of English, and aren't all that enthusiastic about it. Most of them hope to go onto stable civil service jobs like policemen, firefighters, or civil servants. Japan only permits 500 student to pass the bar exam, so it's less than the 90 percentile that makes it. There have been some reforms and they will make law a professional degree like in America and earning a Law degree as an undergraduate will eliminate one of the required three years for the professional certificate. I doubt Japan will ever match the number of lawyers in the US.
This is the main classroom building. In the front you can see some of the crops that are intermingled with the campus. I'm under the impression that the university bought the land from farmers; there are several fields of produce nearby.
This building houses one of the libraries, the university office, and the professors' offices. I find that most of the buildings are depressingly institutional, either concrete or seemingly designed in the 60s. The buildings are poorly heated and have equally ineffective air conditioning. See the gym pictured below:
This courtyard is the only green space on campus that I am aware of.
Here are some students rockin' out at lunchtime.
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