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In 1900, Umeko Tsuda (1864 � 1929) started the first college to offer Western-style education to women in Japan. Her story has lessons for managers today: it shows what can be done when leaders who want to introduce radical changes work on changing mindsets at the same time.
In 1871, Tsuda took part in Japan�s famous Iwakura Mission, a diplomatic world tour to bring Japan closer to the West. It was part of the Meiji government�s attempt to modernize Japan and bring it out of the isolation of the feudal Edo period (1603-1867). As part of the mission, many students were sent to Western countries to be educated, and so bring knowledge and new thinking back to Japan.
Tsuda was one of five young girls selected to be educated in the US. Their mission was to be cultivated in Western ways and become models of �ideal womanhood�. Tsuda stayed with the secretary of the Japanese legation, Chales Lanman, In Washington, DC, for 11 years, attending two very good girls schools. When she returned to Japan aged 17, she was shocked of how dependent women were there. After a short time teaching in Tokyo, she returned to the States, where she studied biology at Bryn Mawr, the then newly opened college for women in Philadelphia.
Tsuda thought about staying in the US, but she was deeply concerned about education for Japanese women. While Japan made reforms, the main focus on education for women was on their roles in the home. In 1900, after having returned to Tokyo, Tsuda started the Joshi Eigaku Juku (now called Tsuda College). The college, still running today, has produced more that 27,500 woman graduates.