Instructor Bio

Laura Renz

Part-Time Instructor in the Department of World Languages & Cultures – Japanese

Education

• B.A., University of Findlay, Japanese language and culture
• M.A., The Ohio State University, Japanese pedagogy

About

Laura Renz grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and attended the University of Findlay to get her Bachelors in Japanese with a minor in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). During her undergraduate, she studied abroad in Fukui, Japan at Fukui University for one year. After graduating, she moved to Okayama, Japan for two years to work at a junior high school and high school, not as an assistant teacher but rather as the sole instructor in charge of planning and carrying out the class as well as classroom management.

Upon returning to the US, she entered The Ohio State University to pursue her Masters in Japanese Pedagogy. She worked as a TA in the Japanese program until graduation whereupon she was hired by Jun Kawabe to work for her company Mirai Intercultural since 2014. She is still employed with Mirai Intercultural, where she teaches Japanese language and culture to the American engineers of Japanese companies in the Columbus area as well as teaching English and American culture to the Japanese engineers living in Columbus for temporary work.

She started working at OWU in 2023 teaching two EAP courses (English for Academic Purposes), both with the purpose of teaching international students, one in writing and the other in speaking. She is now extremely excited to also be teaching Japanese from 2026 at OWU.

She lives with her husband, daughter, son, dog and cat in Columbus. In her free time she enjoys going out with her kids to experience all of what Ohio has to offer. She travels internationally with her family to visit her husband's family who live in Germany. She is also a serial crafter who dabbles in everything but mostly loves sewing clothing.