WOODBURY UNIVERSITY : Tokyo Connection Is Established : Operation Tokyo is under way at Woodbury University in Burbank.

Hoping to promote its professional program, the university agreed to open a Tokyo-based student recruitment office in late September.

Japanese businessman Mitatsu Toyoda, who earned an honorary degree from Woodbury in business administration in June, 1990, founded the office and provides funds for its staff and operation. He said he opened the office because of his commitment to business and his belief in Woodbury programs.

Toyoda is president of Mitsuya Travel Service Inc., Fuso Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Dream Automatic Door Inc. and Dream Automatic Door Service. His companies have branch offices in 11 key cities in Japan.

Toyoda was introduced to Woodbury by George R. Hensel, chairman of Woodbury’s Board of Trustees and president of the California Safety Center Inc.

Katy Murphy, director of admissions, is serving as the liaison between the Tokyo office and Woodbury’s Burbank campus.

The Tokyo office is targeting community college transfer students, and in particular Japanese women because, said Donna Huchel, Woodbury’s director of international services, women “have fewer options available to them than Japanese men in the business world.”

Woodbury currently has seven students from Japan (most of them male), a small number in the university’s total international student population, in which 33 countries are represented.

But the Woodbury staff does not expect to see a flood of Japanese students recruited through the Tokyo office. “There will be a cap on the amount of students recruited,” Huchel said. “We do not want to disrupt the balance of the campus’ makeup.”

Tokyo office coordinator Mayuni Ohmi, office supervisor Masayuki Kawai and Toyoda attended a four-day training session at Woodbury to become familiar with the campus and its academic programs.

The first group of students recruited by the Tokyo office will attend Woodbury’s 1992 summer session to study English and American culture. A larger contingent of students are expected in the fall of 1992.