Yale Alumnus Sponsors Scholarship for Study of Japanese

Yale University alumnus Norman H. Tolman –’64 M.A.– has established a scholarship that will enable a Yale student to study at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies –IUC– in Yokohama. The gift honors Roy Andrew Miller, one of Mr. Tolman’s professors in the 1960s at Yale, now an emeritus professor of Japanese at the University of Washington.

“I think it is most fitting that Mr. Tolman has chosen to demonstrate his regard for the Inter-University Center by creating this scholarship for Yale students who wish to study there,” says Edward Kamens, professor of Japanese literature and director of graduate studies in East Asian Languages and Literatures. “For over three decades, the Center has been a place where budding scholars of Japan – including many Yale graduates – have obtained language training of unparalleled quality and rigor.”

Mr. Tolman studied at the IUC in 1964-65, and serves on its recently created Financial Advisory Committee. In 1972, he established the Tolman Collection of Tokyo, a gallery specializing in contemporary Japanese art, which he owns and operates. The gallery has branches in Paris, Honolulu, and New York. His books, written with Mary S. Tolman, include People Who Make Japanese Prints, a Personal Glimpse; Aramush, the Warrior Artist; Toko Shinoda, a new Appreciation; and Collecting Contemporary Japanese Prints, Then and Now. In 1994, Mr. Tolman established a collection of contemporary Japanese prints at the Yale University Art Gallery in honor of his daughter, Allison Tolman –B.A. ‘81–.

“I felt the need to thank Professor Miller and Yale, and wanted to make some gesture, small though it is, to thank them for the beneficial influence they have been in my life,” says Mr. Tolman. “My study of Japanese changed my life,” he adds.

Since 1963, the IUC has offered programs in advanced Japanese language studies to American and Canadian university students and graduates. Yale has been a member of the consortium – now including 17 universities – that has run the Center since its inception. Mr. Tolman attended the IUC in its second year of operation when it was located in Tokyo. Throughout its 33 years, the IUC has trained distinguished specialists on Japan in the fields of higher education, law, business, public service, and the arts.

The first Roy Andrew Miller Scholarship was awarded to Kenneth Toshima –’96 M.A.–. Mr. Toshima will spend the academic year 1996-97 at the IUC and then will enroll in a doctoral program studying Japanese history.