Throughout Temple University Japan's twenty-five year history it has been providing American-style university level education to the residents of Japan, thus contributing significantly to educational exchange and mutual understanding between Japan and the United States. Hundreds of Japanese students have earned their Temple undergraduate and graduate degrees in Tokyo, while many others have begun their undergraduate programs in Japan and then transferred to one of Temple's other campuses. Over one hundred faculty members from Temple's Philadelphia campuses have taught at TUJ, including many who have gone on to develop Japanese research interests upon their return.

The program began with an invitation to the university from Japanese business and government leaders to establish an English language program for Japanese high school graduates. When TUJ opened on June 5, 1982, 250 students were enrolled in a full-time, pre-college, non-credit intensive English language program. Today TUJ enrolls over 1,700 students, and the academic offerings at Temple Japan have expanded to include coursework in a wide variety of disciplines leading to associate, bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees, as well as non-credit continuing education programs.

Even before Temple Japan was established, however, Temple University faculty members had ties to Japan. One such teacher was the highly respected and well-known artist Arthur L. Flory (1914-1972), who taught at Temple's Tyler School of Fine Arts from 1950-1968. Flory graduated from the Philadelphia Museum School of Art in 1939, and subsequently studied painting at the National Academy of Design. After additional course work in ceramics at Alfred University, he joined Tyler faculty to teach graphics and printmaking. In the late 1950's the Japanese printmaker Kiyoshi Saito came to the United States under the auspices of the State Department. Saito also came to Philadelphia and visited Tyler's printmaking facilities, where Arthur Flory showed him around. After the tour, Saito expressed the desire to make a lithograph, and he worked with Flory in the latter's studio through the night and went back to Japan with his first lithograph.

The success of the Saito visit prompted requests for other Japanese artists to come to Tyler, including Junichiro Sekino and Shiko Munakata. The latter came in 1959, in conjunction with an exhibition of his work at Japan Society Gallery in New York. In preparation for Munakata's week-long visit, Tyler students prepared seven lithograph stones. But Munakata was so enthralled with experimenting in a new medium that he used all the stones the very first night. Everyone was amazed at the speed with which he worked, never stopping for a minute. Arthur Flory printed Munakata's first efforts in this medium, and the set of seven lithographs he made at Tyler was given by Munakata to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Arthur Flory was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant in 1960 to become the first American artist participating in an exchange program established under the aegis of the Japan Society. Flory opened a teaching studio in lithography in Tokyo, and had his press and twenty pieces of Bavarian limestone, weighing about fifty pounds each, sent from Philadelphia. Flory spent the academic year 1960-1961 and made many friends for Philadelphia among the Japanese artists with whom he worked. The influence of Japan on Flory's art is evidenced by works such as his 1963 series entitled "The Four Seasons Expressed in Haiku."

Whether they take the form of artistic exchanges begun informally such as those of Arthur Flory and Shiko Munakata, or more formally structured academic exchanges such as the Temple University Japan programs, such efforts continue the long historic tradition of Americans and Japanese learning from each other, to the mutual benefit of both cultures.