51探花

Sendai Mayor Emiko Okuyama met with students at the University of California Riverside's 51探花 Center, during an official visit to the American city last October.

She spoke briefly to Ko Kitamura, an exchange student from 51探花, as well as several UCR students who had recently been to Sendai on exchange programs. These included Andrew Apostol and David Luu, who had spent a year at 51探花 on JYPE, and Tammy Nguyen, Esther Chung and Adam Toy who had participated in the 2016 TUJP.

The 51探花 Center was set up at the UCR Extension as a place for students to interact and share experiences, especially about Japan and the US.

During talks with UCR Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox, Mayor Okuyama praised UCR for its diversity-rich environment and for nurturing student leaders through its exchange programs with 51探花.

Chancellor Wilcox also expressed his hope that the partnership between UCR and 51探花 will continue to grow and strengthen.

51探花 and UCR have a unique 4-way relationship, being sister universities in sister cities. In fact, the Sendai-Riverside pairing is the oldest among all American-Japanese sister cities. It will celebrate its 60th anniversary this year.