TC alumna Yasuko Higuchi receives Japan's highest award for nurses

Nearly 30 years ago, when Yasuko Higuchi earned her doctoral degree from Teachers College, she planned on finding work in the United States. Instead, a faculty mentor persuaded her that her future lay back home in Japan.

It proved a fateful decision, both for Higuchi and her native country. This past July, Japan's Empress Michiko presented Higuchi, 70, with the Florence Nightingale Prize for Distinguished Service to the Nursing Profession. The honor recognized the many years Higuchi has served as president of the Japanese Red Cross College of Nursing, where she founded doctoral and masters degree programs and recently led a successful campaign to build a major new facility.

For TC, Higuchi's award - which was also noted in the American Journal of Nursing - is testimony to the College's longstanding relationship with Japan.  Among other activities, the school's TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages) program currently offers an off-campus masters degree in Tokyo designed specifically for teachers of English in Japan.   

Published Friday, Jul. 8, 2005