LBW Community College President Dr. Herb Riedel will travel to Japan this summer as part of the TeamUp 2016 program, an initiative of the United States-Japan Bridging Foundation.

“Being selected is indeed an honor and I’m excited to part of such a remarkable exchange of ideas,” Riedel said.

He was selected, along with other senior-level higher education professionals from across the United States, to be part of a weeklong familiarization tour of Japan to explore strategic educational partnerships with Japanese colleges and universities.

“The all-expense paid trip is set for the latter part of June,” he said. “We will begin in Tokyo, visit Fukuoka, and end in Okinawa. This is a wonderful opportunity to develop contacts and build relationships with educational institutions.”

TeamUp is a campaign to increase the number of American and Japanese undergraduate and graduate students studying in each other’s country by expanding relevant, active, mutually beneficial and innovative agreements among American and Japanese institutions of higher education.

The program is a result of an education task force recommendation addressing how to increase student mobility between the two countries. The recommendations included promoting active and mutually beneficial partnerships between universities and extending the range of institutions included in the program.

“I am happy to represent not only LBW Community College, but also the Alabama Community College System in this venture,” said Riedel.

The task force set a goal in 2013 to double the number of students studying in each other’s country by 2020 to “ensure the future strength of the U.S.-Japan relationship.”

The TeamUp program was recognized by Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe and President Barack Obama in the April 2015 Summit in Washington, D.C.  In a joint statement, they recognized the need to “continue to strengthen people-to-people ties, including efforts to increase student, research, and legislative exchanges,” and to continue “efforts by the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange, which inspired the ‘TeamUp’ campaign to promote university-to-university partnerships.”