DAVID W. VIKNER

On April 1, 2002, Dr. David W. Vikner became the President of the Japan ICU Foundation in New York City. The foundation supports with funds, personnel and counsel International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan.

From July, 1989 to October, 2000, Dr. Vikner was President of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, an autonomous agency related to nine Protestant denominations in North America. The United Board works with over eighty outstanding colleges and universities in Burma, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Before assuming the presidency of the United Board in 1989, he served for two years as Vice President with particular responsibility for its relationships in the People’s Republic of China.

Dr. Vikner spent his early years in China and Japan and has worked in Asia a total of fourteen years serving in various capacities. He taught English at the Lutheran Middle School in Hong Kong and subsequently became its Headmaster. For four years he was on the faculty of National Taiwan University and later taught English for one year at Central China Normal University in Wuhan, China. From 1984-86 he served as China Consultant for the Lutheran World Federation in Hong Kong.

Completing his undergraduate studies at Upsala College, East Orange, New Jersey, Dr. Vikner went on to earn a masters degree at Yale Divinity School and a certificate in the teaching of English as a second language at the University of Michigan. He received his Doctor of Education degree in Comparative Education, with an emphasis on China, from Teachers College and Columbia University.

Dr. Vikner’s family has had a long relationship with China. Both his paternal and maternal grandparents served in China as Lutheran missionaries and his parents, both of whom were born and raised in China, went on to work in that country for three years as well as in Japan for eight years. Dr. Vikner is married to Lin Ma Vikner, M.D., an obstetrician-gynecologist who was educated and trained in China. They have two children and are living in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey.

Mr. Vikner will focus primarily on current political tensions between Japan and other countries in East Asia and on human rights concerns in East Asia.  Within that context, he will give some attention to the Rotary Foundation’s Peace Studies Program and the Peace Studies Center at ICU in Tokyo which the Rotary Foundation supports.