After doing a bit more research on each of the students from Japan that I was looking into, I realized that there is not as much documented on a few of them when compared to others. Because of this, I’ve decided to expand my research into our former Korean students as well since initially, Roanoke started with the Japanese students but since that program was such a success, they expanded it into Korea and later China. Hopefully, this will provide more results as well as help aid in telling their story of their time here.

For this post, I’m also focusing on Roanoke’s second Japanese student, Toyojiro Terashima. He came to Roanoke a year after Hidei Fukuoka did in 1889. Similarly to Hidei, Toyojiro was also the son of a Viscount in Japan, Munenori Terashima. During Toyojiro’s time here, he was featured in many pieces of the Roanoke Collegian, such as “Japanese Notes” where there is a description of one of his breaks. After his time at Roanoke, Toyojiro attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to get a degree in Civil Engineering. After this, according to the Annual Register of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Toyojiro was the assistant engineer for the Japanese Imperial Government Railroad.

This goes to show that even more of our Japanese students have made an impact on their countries after their time here at Roanoke. It makes a lot of sense with both Toyojiro and Hidei that they would do prominent work since they both came from fathers who were high up in the government but this aside, they are still Roanoke Alumni who have done a great deal of work after their time here.