Staff Advisory Team Seeks Volunteers

Dear Staff Community-

Several weeks ago you had the opportunity to vote on your preferred format
for the new Staff Council. 56 responses were received, and the Advisory
Team format stood out as preferred. We are now calling for volunteers to
express interest in being part of the new Advisory Team. Interested staff
members should submit emails to Amy McGill per the instructions below:

Eligibility: Any staff member is eligible to volunteer except for senior
administration (members of the President’s Staff, Deans, JMCNS Director).

Volunteer statement:  Each volunteer will express his or her interest by
submitting a personal statement that describes the issues that s/he would
hope to address as a member of the team. Volunteer statements should be
submitted to Amy McGill via email (mcgill@exchange.miis.edu) by March 23,
2009.

Selection: The first team will be selected from among the volunteers by
the current working group.  Each team will be responsible for selecting
the following year’s team through the same process. The goal of the
selection process will be to keep participation voluntary, dynamic,
diverse, and flexible.

We have also attached the approved proposal which we encourage you to read
which provides more information about the background, vision, process,
etc.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact any of the Working
Group members listed below:

Karen Weiss, Dean’s Assistant GSTI
Priscilla Lorenzo, Office Services Coordinator
Toni Thomas, MBA Academic Advisor and Program Coordinator
Lynn McDonald, Postgraduate Fellow in Organizational Development
Susan Wolfe, Manager of Foundation and Corporate Relations
Erika Johnson, Acquisitions Librarian
Kenley Butler, CNS Senior Project Manager, Executive Officer

Central campus information portal launched

There are many different sources of information on the Monterey Institute campus today, and it can be challenging to find the information you are looking for in a timely manner. In response to this problem, we recently implemented a new solution that uses RSS feeds to channel information into a single central campus information resource.

This new resource is a campus information portal located on our Moodle site at elearning.miis.edu. The revamped Moodle home page now incorporates the master events calendar and a list of the most recent articles published on our new campus-wide blog aggregator, the Monterey Institute Focus.  The Focus, located at www.miisfocus.com, collects posts from a wide range of campus-based blogs into a single, comprehensive information resource that also feeds directly onto the Moodle home page.

In the near future, Ashley Arrocha will be providing instructions to student clubs on how to set up blogs and/or submit stories directly to the Monterey Institute Focus.

The portal accomplishes many of our key goals regarding funneling campus information into a single point of contact for campus community members that will continue to be enhanced and improved.

Faculty Research in the Spotlight

Spotlight 1

There’s a grassroots effort taking shape to highlight faculty voices through conversations about current professional interests and research.  The vision of the “Faculty Research Spotlight,” is create a venue for faculty to speak candidly about their field work and research beyond the classroom.  More conversation than lecture, the series, which will be recorded for podcast and hosted on the Institute’s new iTunes U site, offers faculty a unique opportunity to share their expertise with a larger audience.

The spotlight conversations will experiment with a format that will include an Opening Big Idea Pecha Kucha Talk, followed by a moderated question and answer session.  Pecha Kucha (pronounced peh-cha-kcha in Japanese) is a presentation format that has gained a following recently because it places a constraint on the presenter, limiting them to twenty PowerPoint slides and only twenty seconds per slide.  The total time comes to 6 minutes and 40 seconds.  While we could just record a regular lecture, we feel that this special format would allow presenters to be creative in how they choose to frame and introduce us to their topics.

A handful of faculty have stepped up to the plate to kick the series off:

Fernando de Paolis and Bob McCleery: Development and Connectivity
March 12, 12:15 – 1:45
McCone Boardroom

Jason Scorse:  Multinationals and anti-sweatshop activism- evidence from Indonesia in the 1990s
March 17, 12:15 – 1:45
Morse room A101

Lyuba Zarsky:  Climate Resilient Development: Models for Government and Business
March 19, 12:15 – 1:45
Morse room A101

The Spotlight series is being recorded for podcast on iTunes U with assistance from the Digital Media Commons staff and participants in the Digital Media for Change workshop.

Discounted Dells

The IT department would like to pass along to faculty and staff some information about discounts available on the purchase of Dell computers through the end of March:

For more information, visit www.dell.com/eppbuy and use the following MEMBER ID: KS60572387

President Ramaswamy Announces Expanded MIIS Role for Bob Huth

I am pleased to announce that Bob Huth, a frequent visitor from Middlebury and valued partner in our preparations for financial integration, has agreed to take on a significant role in the MIIS community over the next 16 months.

Bob, who is currently Executive Vice President at Middlebury, will take on the principal responsibility for guiding and supporting our financial operations effective July 1, 2009, and lead those efforts all the way through full integration with Middlebury on June 30, 2010.

Bob has been involved in the Middlebury-Monterey affiliation since it began, and has worked diligently with colleagues at Monterey to lay the groundwork to ensure the smoothest transition possible for both Monterey and Middlebury.

A graduate of Moravian College, Bob has been at Middlebury since 1998 and is a certified public accountant with an M.B.A. from Lehigh University. Bob has over 30 years of experience in finance and accounting, including serving as Senior Vice President for Administration at Moravian College and Controller of Lehigh University.  He is a past President of the Eastern Association of College and University Business Officers (EACUBO), a former Board member of the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) from 2001 to 2004, and has served as a Commissioner of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) since 2007.

Bob will spend approximately 3/4 of his time in California and, back in Vermont, will continue to oversee Middlebury’s Department of Facilities Services and real estate holdings.  He will also continue his service as a NEASC commissioner.

Bob and his wife Barbara are in the process of relocating to Monterey for the duration of this assignment, and I am sure you will all give them a warm reception.

Jim Graber, who has provided exceptional service to the Institute as interim CFO during the early stages of integration, will complete his contract at the end of June, at which time Bob will assume the title of Acting Executive Director of Business and Finance Operations at the Institute.

We are extremely grateful for Jim’s contribution to the Institute, as a six-month initial assignment turned into a two-and-a-half-year stay marked by increasing financial stability and progress toward our strategic goal of long-term sustainability.  We have been fortunate to benefit from Jim’s wisdom and experience, and he and Deb will remain in our circle of friends in the Monterey community.

MIIS M-squared Program Committee Named

In February, we announced the appointment of Tsuneo Akaha to the position of M2 Academic Programs Coordinator.  We are now pleased to announce that Tsuneo has assembled the M2 Program Committee, which includes members of the academic administration and faculty representing key areas of potential synergy between the Monterey Institute and Middlebury’s various programs.

The members of the M2 Program Committee are:

Tsuneo Akaha, GSIPM faculty in International Policy Studies; coordinator
Amy Sands, Provost
Yuwei Shi, GSIPM faculty in International Business and dean designate
Renee Jourdenais, dean, GSLEL; dean designate, GSTILE
Anna Vassilieva, GSTILE faculty in Language Studies
Jeff Langholz, GSIPM faculty in Environmental Studies
Fernando De Paolis, GSIPM faculty in International Policy Studies
John Balcom, GSTILE faculty in Translation and Interpretation
Patricia Lewis, deputy director, JMCNS

The M2 Program Committee will initially focus on program opportunities that build on established strengths at both institutions, including languages and linguistics, international policy and management, and international environmental policy.  We thank them for their willingness to undertake this important work.

We are looking forward to a visit from the Middlebury M2 Program Committee in early April, to meet their Monterey counterparts and begin to get to know our programs and faculty.  This is the first step in building a strong integrated academic community that we believe will result in exciting new opportunities for our students, faculty, and staff.

Pizza Party Success!

The Pizza Innovation Process is off to a good start. 47 faculty, staff & students enjoyed some pizza and brainstormed ideas to help shape MIIS. To get involved, join the Pizza Process Social Network.

The party started with a small group icebreaker activity where teams created pizzas with a topping for each member and a name that described the whole pizza.  The pizza process was then introduced followed by great conversations about the definition of innovation, barriers and drivers to innovation, and some tips for success in the process.  The party ended with pizza for all and ideas shared with the group.

If you couldn’t make the party, you’re not out of the process!  Interested innovators can join our social network and form a pizza group.  To “officially” register your group, set up an appointment with Lynn McDonald.  Groups should be diverse, passionate and fun to work towards finding solutions and making a better MIIS.  Ideas will be shared with the entire community on April 16th at the Idea Fair.

Last years pizza process produced the DMC, CNS Second Life and Delcats along with some good ideas that just didn’t stick.  Innovation is a risk, but also an invaluable learning experience with idea sharing and organizational development.  Groups this year will be working on building community, connecting with alumni, understanding and incorporating competition, building a knowledge base and so much more!

For more information, contact Lynn McDonald at lynn.mcdonald@miis.edu or ext. 4633.  Join us for this pizza journey!

Master Calendar Now Available Online

Trying to find contact information for that on-campus forum next month?  What are the dates for the recruiting visit to Eastern Europe this spring?  And where is next week’s Student Council meeting, anyway?

You may not know the answers to all of those questions yet, but now you can with just a few clicks of your mouse, thanks to the new MIIS master events calendar.  In an effort to reduce “calendar clutter,” a campus-wide team of staff recently researched and implemented a low-cost, off-the-shelf calendar solution.  The new master events calendar posted on the MIIS web site and on the Moodle homepage incorporates entries for:

Prospective Students
Student Affairs
Career Development
Institute Events
Alumni Events

For those with events to post, you should continue to work through the same channels you do today to get your events posted – see the full list of contact points and categories of events below — but now they will all be posted to this single master electronic calendar.  (Please remember that the Venue Reservation Policy issued by the President’s Office must be followed to reserve rooms for events.)

Calendar Contacts

Prospective Students
Robert Horgan and Alice Villemaire

Student Affairs (Student Council, clubs and associations, International Student Services and Student Affairs)
Ashley Arrocha and Shawna Routh

Career Development
Policy: Jen Hambleton
Business: Nina Dutra and Toni Thomas
Language Education: Jennifer Tuman
Translation and Interpretation: Jeff Wood

Institute Events (Speaker Series, President’s Forums, department and program events, conferences)
Linae Ishii-Devine and Dollie Pope

Alumni Events
Maureen Anda

Academic Events (Information and important dates, academic and special programs)
Policy: Nathan Westrup
Business: Nina Dutra and Toni Thomas
Language Education: Jennifer Tuman
Translation and Interpretation: Karen Weiss

Third Community Retreat Looks at Advising

Fifty-nine faculty, staff and students helped to plan the new, unified advising function that will ensure future students a seamless educational experience at MIIS.

Held at the La Playa hotel in Carmel on Friday, February 27, the retreat provided an opportunity to build on conversations begun at the previous retreats on February 20 by creating road maps of the ideal student experience and describing the relationships we need to build in order to get there.

Notes from the retreat are posted in an online Reorganization Resource Center and members of the community are invited to comment or add their ideas.

Kropp Wins Award for Research on Entrepreneurship

Prof. Fredric Kropp has received an award from Emerald, a publisher of management research journals, for his article, “Entrepreneurial Orientation and International Entrepreneurial
Business Venture Startup,” published in the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour Research. His article has been chosen as a Highly Commended Award Winner at the Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2009.

Congratulations, Fredric!

Monterey Institute To Host Children Of War Symposium

Guest speakers include doctor from Darfur refugee camp, former refugee camp resident

The Monterey Institute will host a public symposium exploring the effects of war on children this Friday at 7:00 pm as the American Red Cross presents its Children of War Symposium in the Institute’s Irvine Auditorium.

The Children of War Symposium is a public service offered by the American Red Cross which examines the psychological and physical effects of war on children through the eyes of five renowned international speakers.  These speakers will share their firsthand experiences of living and working in war zones around the world:

Michael Khambatta, International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), Deputy Head of Delegation, US & Canada.

Dr. Ashis Brahma, Sole doctor for Darfur refugee camp in Chad for two years

Dorothy Sewe
, Tracing specialist and former refugee camp resident

Dr. Marc Sommers, Associate Research Professor of Humanitarian Studies, Institute of Human Security, The Fletcher School, Tufts University; and Research Fellow, African Studies Center, Boston University.

Meghan Frank, Senior at Granby High School, Norfolk, VA, daughter of a US Navy Captain, and creator of Operation Pen & Pencil, collecting school supplies for Afghan teachers to use in their classrooms in Kabul.

Over the course of two days, the Children of War Symposium will travel to several locations in the area, including the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Santa Cruz area high schools, the University of California at Santa Cruz, Stanford University, and Santa Clara University.