East West Foundation
EWF-Educational Service Corporation
Each summer Martin Methodist College plays host to thirty or forty Japanese students who come with the East West Foundation for a five week Orientation Program on the MMC campus. These students arrive with their leaders in mid-July and stay through the end of the summer. They live in the MMC student apartments, eat in the dining hall and are in classes for a full day Monday through Friday. The Japanese students study English language classes in Conversation, Grammar, Reading and Writing, as well as American culture. They also take two Martin Methodist College classes for one credit hour each. One of those classes is a physical education credit and the other earns a one-hour credit in Art, Mathematics or Computers.
Activities are planned for most Saturdays and Sundays and may include a trip to a shopping mall in Nashville, a visit to the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, or an afternoon at David Crockett Park in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee on Saturday, as well as a visit to one of the local churches for worship on Sunday.
At the conclusion of the five-week Orientation Program at Martin Methodist College, the Japanese students disperse to various colleges and universities, mostly in the southeastern United States. Martin Methodist College generally enrolls from four to six of these students here at MMC. Most of the Japanese students plan to remain in the U.S. studying for either an Associate Degree or a Bachelor’s Degree. Possibly even more important to them is the opportunity to become proficient in speaking and understanding the English language.
The President of EWF/ESC is Dr. Shin Nishimura, an ordained Methodist Minister, who pastors a church in Japan and also has a large Christian based Kindergarten School there. Dr. Shin’s daughter, Keiko Nishimura, administers the EWF program on the Martin Methodist College campus, with the assistance of her sister, Minako Nishimura.
American students benefit greatly from the cultural exchange with the Japanese students during their stay in the summer, just as the Japanese students benefit from the association with the American students who are on campus.
