Keio Academy of New York in its 33rd Year: 2022 NYSAIS Accreditation Report

Photo: The inspection team after completing their review

In early November 2022, I stayed at the Mountain House on the shores of Lake Mohonk, about an hour north of Manhattan along the Hudson River. This is a massive hotel boasting 260 rooms, built through continuous expansions on a vast tract of land purchased in 1869 by the Smiley family, wealthy Quakers, following the end of the Civil War. Lake Mohonk is situated at the mountain peak, true to its etymological meaning, "Lake in the Sky."

The purpose was not a vacation, but a heads of school conference hosted by the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS). The Mountain House is also known for regularly hosting conferences since 1883 aimed at Native American rights and nature conservation, based on the philosophy of the founding Smiley family. Since the closing of the frontier was in 1890, this series of conferences predates it by seven years. The participant lists from that time included business figures like Rockefeller, as well as President Hayes and Cornell University founder A.D. White; they reportedly invited Native American leaders to engage in thorough discussions on racial and environmental issues in a residential workshop format.

Now, 140 years later, NYSAIS holds conferences at this hotel several times a year in the same residential format to look toward the future of the highly diverse private schools in New York State. The association was established in April 1947 at the suggestion of Paul D. Shafer, head of Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn. The first meeting was held in October of that year to decide on the official name, and the first annual convention took place in January 1949. Eventually, in 1968, following a suggestion from the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, it established bylaws and a board of directors to be officially chartered as a non-profit organization. To this day, it operates as an independent school association completely free from state intervention or regulation, serving institutions from nursery and kindergarten through elementary, middle, and high school, as well as post-graduate students prior to university entry. Since the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) was founded in 1962, NYSAIS actually predates NAIS in terms of its inception.

I participated in a conference where about 200 recently appointed heads of school in New York State met. The program was packed with stimulating projects, including seminars on the management of school finances, the fusion of psychology and pedagogy in school administration, "emotional labor," and lectures examining the currently trending "authenticity complex."

Incidentally, during the self-introductions at the banquet, the room erupted in laughter when I mentioned, "I was appointed Head of Keio Academy of New York immediately after retiring from Keio University in March 2021." When I continued, "Immediately after taking office as Head on New Year's Day 2022, I was informed that I had to undergo the once-in-a-decade NYSAIS inspection," it triggered even greater roars of laughter.

It is well known that Keio Academy of New York has upheld the philosophy of being "bilingual and bicultural" since its inception in 1990, the same year as SFC. However, for it to be officially recognized as an American school as well as a Japanese school, it had to wait until passing its first NYSAIS inspection in 2001. Through this, the Academy acquired a "double status" that guarantees graduation qualifications for both Japanese high schools and North American high schools.

Since then, the Academy has maintained its NYSAIS accreditation for a long time, but as someone unaware of the circumstances, this came as a complete surprise to me. Fortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the inspection was postponed from the originally scheduled March to October. Thus, for the six months after my arrival, I devised a strategy while receiving advice from many faculty and staff members, particularly Mr. Kenichi Sadachi, the Dean of Students, who had experience serving as a NYSAIS inspector himself.

Specifically, we first launched the Academy's first monthly newspaper, "Keio Journal," in June, and the annual research bulletin, "Keio Research Review," in September. Next, to practice the Academy's new mission of "Tri-Culture" (comprising Keio in Japan and the U.S.) proposed by Vice-President and Chair of the Board of Trustees Motohiro Tsuchiya, we began a continuous lecture series in October, featuring university-level lectures every month by scholars and critics I have known who have taught at North American universities. Furthermore, we set about a fundamental restructuring of the library, which had been closed due to the pandemic.

As expected, at the end of last October, a six-member NYSAIS representative inspection team arrived at Keio Academy of New York and stayed for four days. On the first day, I gave a mini-lecture as a sort of orientation to explain the relationship between the history of trans-Pacific negotiations involving Keio in Japan and the U.S. and the Academy's new mission. Since an integrated education system like that of Keio University does not exist in North American, I had to start by helping them understand that concept. Thereafter, the inspection team thoroughly scrutinized every aspect, from the Academy's educational content to staff labor, financial status, facilities, the Board of Trustees, and the Parents' Association, occasionally conducting unannounced interviews with students and parents. In response, the Academy acted as one, from the Board of Trustees to all faculty and staff, the Student Council, and the Parents' Association. It was, so to speak, an all-out war.

Then, on January 17, after the turn of the year, the Academy received the good news that it had passed the NYSAIS inspection. It was decided that we would continue to maintain the honor of being the only NYSAIS member school in Japan.

By the way, you may have noticed that in this article, I have deliberately translated "independent school," the target of NYSAIS, as "shigaku" (private school). Usually, the English for "shigaku" is "private school," but in fact, British public schools are also private schools. The "Gijuku" in "Keio Gijuku" is said to be the Japanese translation of "public school." However, it can only be described as a coincidence that in New York State, there is a tradition where "independent schools" unite extensively to resist all bureaucratic intervention and restrictions, transcending the common public-private dichotomy. In my final lecture in March 2021, "Keio University and America," I examined the possibility that an ideological lineage stretching to Franklin, a leading figure of the American Revolution, and transcendentalist thinkers Emerson and Thoreau, influenced the Fukuzawa spirit of "independence and self-respect." That is surely the true essence of the Fukuzawa concept of "shigaku." Keio Academy of New York, in its 33rd year, entrusts its future to the new things born from such trans-Pacific intersections of Keio in Japan and the U.S.