award – Global Voices™ Journal

At its year-end graduation and awards ceremony, the Japanese Studies Program announced the recipients of the Kinyo Awards for Excellence in Japanese language study for the 2019 – 2020 academic year. The prize recognizes the hard work and achievement of the top student at each level of William & Mary’s Japanese language program, as selected by our senior lecturers, Ms. Tomoko Kato and Ms. Aiko Kitamura. The awards are made possible through the generous support of Mr. Kazuo Nakamura of Kinyo Virginia, Inc., who established the awards in 2007 and has maintained them ever since. This year’s recipients are:

at the 100 level, Grace Liscomb;
at the 200 level, Gokul Achayaraj;
at the 300 level, Jackson Lawson; and,
at the 400 level, Julia Wright.

These students have demonstrated extraordinary diligence and accomplishment in Japanese language study over the past year. This year’s ceremony was held over Zoom, due to the COVID-19 emergency, but that did not dim the celebratory spirit; and all four winners were able to join us for the presentations and receive the congratulations of their instructors, classmates, family and friends. Congratulations to all the winners, and keep up the good work!

皆さん、おめでとうございます！

The Japanese Section awarded several prizes to mark the end of the 2016-17 academic year.

First, we are proud to announce the recipients of this year’s Kinyo Awards for Excellence in Japanese language study. The prize recognizes the hard work and achievement of the top student at each level of William and Mary’s Japanese language program. The awards are made possible through the generous support of Mr. Kazuo Nakamura of Kinyo Virginia, Inc., who established the awards in 2007 and has maintained them since then. This year’s recipients are:

Hayley Snowden (100 level)
Michael Park (200 level)
Veronica Deighan (300 level)
Mackenzie Neal (400 level)

Second, we inducted several graduating seniors into the Japanese National Honor Society. Inductees must meet several criteria, including: completion of five semesters of Japanese language study (or their equivalent), all taken for a grade (rather than audited or pass-fail); a grade-point average of at least 3.5 in Japanese language courses; and an overall GPA of at least 3.0. This year’s inductees are:

Wei Chang
Gyeong Young Cho
TianChu Gao
Kexin Ma
Anastasia Rivera
Jiacheng Xi

Finally, the award for Outstanding Achievement by a graduating senior in Japanese goes to Anastasia Rivera. A double major in Philosophy and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (and a past winner of the Kinyo Prize), Anastasia was an active resident of Japan House, served as a TA for the Japanese language program, and spent a summer in Japan conducting research on a contemporary genre of fiction, the “keitai shousetsu,” or “cell-phone novel.” Anastasia will be putting her studies and experiences to excellent use next year, as she returns to Japan on the Jet (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program.

Congratulations to all our awardees! おめでとうございます!