During the week of Sept. 16, Nobuko Fujita, a recently retired California State University, Los Angeles professor stepped into the role of teaching Japanese 1A at Pomona College.
This mid-semester change in class leadership comes after previous Japanese 1A Professor Mari Lopez had to step away for medical reasons, with students reflecting on the impact she left during her time teaching the course.
“We only met Professor Lopez about three weeks ago, but she was such a nice teacher and I felt that we were able to build a good relationship with her,” Japanese 1A student Ken Eckel CMC ’28 said. “She is very understanding. You always want to come to class because she’s such a good person.”
Pomona’s Japanese Department was considering a few different options for how to move forward — before hiring Fujita, there was talk of canceling all three sections of the class that Lopez had formerly taught. This would have ramifications for the students in the class and the future of the Japanese program, as upper-level courses would be at risk of lacking sufficient enrollment.
“When they came and told us [that Lopez wouldn’t be coming back] everyone looked visibly sad or concerned,” Noa Baghdassarian PZ ’28, another Japanese 1A student, said.
While students have praised Fujita, some have had trouble having to adjust to a new syllabus, work submission process and grading system.
“I haven’t seen a couple of my classmates since the news,” Eckel said. “I’m pretty sure at least one student did drop the class.”
As student and faculty concerns about the class’ cancellation continued to circulate, administrators and the Japanese Department leadership worked to find a replacement on such short notice.
“Fortunately, through the help of a faculty member at UC Riverside, we learned about Professor Fujita who [had] just retired and had been using the same textbook,” Kurita said. “So she was, in a way, ready to start teaching.”
After studying at Columbia University and receiving her MA in Japanese Pedagogy, Fujita has taught at multiple universities, including the University of California Riverside and California State University, Los Angeles.
“Everybody, [including] HR and the Dean [Melanie Wu] really paid close attention to what was happening,” Kurita said. “I also just wanted to recognize how hard the staff members and administrators were working around the clock to accommodate our situation.”
Before Fujita was hired, Kurita, with the help of Professor of Japanese Kazumi Takahashi, spent many late nights at Mason Hall scrambling to get materials and content for the class. Since taking over for Lopez on Sept. 16, Fujita has now been teaching 1A students for over a week.
“I was a little nervous that the new professor wouldn’t be caught up to speed just because it was such a sudden change,” Baghassarian said. “But she’s been really great. She’s really prepared. She’s had slide presentations for us that are super detailed and helpful.”
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