Josef Mestenhauser's scholarship and generous sharing of his research, travels, and strategies to address the issues of justice throughout the world are lessons he taught his students and colleagues. With this book, that model can survive this troubled period of history.
Dr. Josie R. Johnson, regent emeritus and former associate vice president, University of Minnesota, USA
This book is the must-read for those willing to venture into the reformation of international education as the core of university curriculum, pedagogy, and administration.
Dr. Yuichi Kondo, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan
[T]his book ... spreads Joe's message, a message that, in a world with its anarchy of globalizing and de-globalizing tendencies of today, is needed more than ever.
Dr. Tomas P. Klvana, New York University Prague, Czech Republic
Josef Mestenhauser's scholarship and generous sharing of his research, travels, and strategies to address the issues of justice throughout the world are lessons he taught his students and colleagues. With this book, that model can survive this troubled period of history.
-Josie R. Johnson, regent emeritus and former associate vice president, University of Minnesota
Background on Dr. Johnson
https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/hope-in-the-struggle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josie_R._Johnson
Josef Mestenhauser came to Japan on a Fulbright award, was invited back many times, and with a handful of Japanese pioneers in the field, became one of the founders of international education in Japan. His main message to international educators was to keep university education relevant to the needs of stakeholders of a university and society. With diversity and inclusion, economic and political polarization, and uncontrollable globalization, all educators will need to reframe and reinvent the higher education system. Dr. Mestenhauser saw that international education was the indispensable component for the necessary transformation. He never isolated international education from the mainstream but insisted that all university education must be international. Relapsing to narrow discipline-oriented education, ethnocentric class content, deemphasis of intercultural dialogue, and any efforts to bind us to a closed value system is a disservice to the democratic and fast-changing society. This book is the must-read for those willing to venture into the reformation of international education as the core of university curriculum, pedagogy, and administration. Mestenhauser's words remind us why we are serving in education and encourage us to move forward.
-Dr. Yuichi Kondo, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan
Background on Dr. Kondo
https://global.umn.edu/awards/dlai/07_kondo.html
https://www.timeshighered-events.com/teaching-excellence-summit-2021/agenda/speakers/1308948
As a refugee from dictatorship, Josef Mestenhauser understood clearly that open minds and liberal education were not only antitheses to tyranny, but also powerful agents of change. He devoted his professional life to international education, helping students from all over the world to fulfill their highest educational and professional potential. His personal example and mentorship inspired dozens of advisees over decades, including me. Unlike some political refugees, Joe never succumbed to bitterness and cabinet-style politicking so evident in exile organizations. He was generous, open and pragmatic in the best sense of that adjective. In addition to his humanity and kindness, we were drawn to Joe's educational perspective: always cross-cultural, always illuminating. His theoretical work closely connected to practice. His insights were derived from diligent observation of political and cultural realities on the ground in many countries, from Asia to Central Europe to the United States. Joe managed to fuse an outlook on international education to a cross-cultural perspective on leadership that became at once insightful and motivational. I am both excited and thankful for this book that spreads Joe's message, a message that, in a world with its anarchy of globalizing and de-globalizing tendencies of today, is needed more than ever.
-Dr. Tomas P. Klvana, New York University Prague
Background on Dr. Klvana
https://www.amo.cz/en/autor/tomas-klvana
https://global.umn.edu/awards/dlai/12_klvana.html
