The Graduate School opened in 1994 at the Calabasas, CA campus of Soka University of America (SUA) with the first class of ten students pursuing the Master of Arts degree in Second and Foreign Language Education with a concentration in teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). The School subsequently graduated 12 classes of 96 students until its relocation to the Aliso Viejo campus in 2007.
To this day, the overall mission and the objectives have remained constant. The SUA Graduate School strives to provide an academic setting that nurtures men and women from a variety of cultures and national backgrounds, who seek to learn from shared experiences. The School also strives to develop critical thinking and learning and to foster a value for lifelong learning. To this end, the School emphasizes small class sizes that cultivate a close and informal relationship among the teachers and students, rigorous academic endeavors, free and open dialogue, and an appreciation for human diversity, especially linguistic and cultural diversity.
The Graduate School currently offers a certificate program:
Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language*
* Holders of an MA in Second in Foreign Language Education with a concentration in TESOL from Soka University of America may take this certificate program to fulfill requirements for an MA with double concentrations (TESOL and TJFL).