Share your view of the world!

2010 Calendar Photo Contest Announced

The calendar will showcase and celebrate the experiences, diversity and cultures present at the Institute and will be available for purchase this holiday season.

* Open to all members of the MIIS community (Students, Faculty, Staff, and Alumni)

*  There are no specific scenes or categories required for this photo contest. Please consider submitting images that reveal the culture, people, scenery, traditions and/or unique aspects, capturing the essence of a place you have visited or live.

*  All photos must be submitted digitally on a CD or DVD, no exceptions. (If your photo was taken with a film camera, please scan it and submit it as a digital file)

* Digital photos must be at least 300 dpi (1 MB or more in size)

* Color and Black and white photos will be accepted.

* You can submit a maximum of three photos per person.

*  When you submit your photos you must include:

Your Full Name

If you are a Student, Faculty, Staff, Alumni

Email Address

Phone Number

Title of photo (for each photo)

Location (for each photo)

Caption for photo (for each photo)

* You must also submit a signed release waiver for the photos. (Please see attached file)

* Deadline for all submissions is Friday, October 9, by 5:00 pm. (No Exceptions)

* The top 12 photographs will be used in the calendar

* Photographs will be judged by the Monterey Institute Community in an online voting process during the week of 10/12/09-10/16/09. Winners will receive a free calendar.

* The twelve photographs chosen for the calendar publication become property of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Photographs will be viewed online via a password protected website. By submitting your photograph(s) you are authorizing that they can be uploaded to a third party site for viewing and voting.

* Only one photo from each photographer will be eligible to win a place in the calendar. If more than one photograph from a single photographer wins, the photograph that received the most votes will be the winning photograph for that photograph. The subsequent places will be awarded to the photographs from other photographers with the next highest vote count.

Submit your photos to Gail Lu, Coordinator of Student Services, in the Student Affairs building. If needed, you can also send your photo CD by mail to Gail Lu, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 460 Pierce Street, Monterey, CA 93940.

If you have any questions, please call 831.647.3586 or email gail.lu@miis.edu.

We will continue to hold the Annual International Bazaar Photo Contest in the spring.

Style Guide Released by Communications Department

The Monterey Institute’s Style Guide was recently updated and is available for download here and on the Web site’s Faculty & Staff resources page. The Style Guide provides policies and guidelines for use of the Institute’s logo and seal, as well as answering questions from “What’s the correct way to refer to alumni degrees?” to “How should I format the term M-squared?” Please make it your first reference for any and all question about Monterey Institute style, and share any feedback with Jason Warburg, executive director of communications.

Film Series Screens Argentine Comedy

The T&I Spanish Program of GSTILE is proud to present the twenty-fourth film in its Argentine Film Series. This is a continuing, free-of-charge event, open to all MIIS students, faculty, staff and guests. Films are in Spanish with English subtitles. The blockbuster comedy UN NOVIO PARA MI MUJER (A BOYFRIEND FOR MY WIFE, 2009) will be screened Tuesday, October 6 at 6:30 PM in Room B 104. The film stars award-winning actor and producer Adrián Suar as Valeria Bertuccelli’s husband. Valeria is the “perfect” manifestation of pessimism, bad vibes and constant nagging and whining. Adrián is so fed up with her that he tries to find a man who will seduce her, since he can’t bring himself to ask for a divorce.

A BOYFRIEND FOR MY WIFE has been recognized both by film critics and audiences alike, and has been nominated for four Silver Condor Awards—the statuette of the Argentine Film Critics Association—for Best Actor (Adrián Suar), Best Actress (Valeria Bertuccelli), Best Supporting Actor (Gabriel Goity) and Best Screenplay (Pablo Solarz).

Watch the trailer (in Spanish) on YouTube

Future screenings will include The Signal (November 10) and Argentina’s representative to the 2009 Oscars® Leonera.

Special screenings on demand. Please contact Prof. Marcos Celesia.

** See poster attached **

Kathi Bailey Chairs TIRF Board

Monterey Institute Professor, Dr. Kathleen M. Bailey, has been elected as Chair of the Board of Trustees of TIRF (The International Foundation for English Language Education), and as President of the Foundation. TIRF is a charitable foundation that raises funds for research, solicits and vets proposals, and disseminates the findings. The current focus of the foundation is on creating and disseminating research evidence on the international role of English, to support best practices in the development of English language skills in our 21st century global society. For further information, please visit www.tirfonline.org

Carlos Prieto to Speak at MIIS on Friday

The Monterey Institute of International Studies will host world-renowned cellist, author and raconteur Carlos Prieto for a special public lecture on Friday, September 25 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the Irvine Auditorium.

In addition to performing with many of the world’s most widely known and respected classical musicians and orchestras, Prieto has written seven books: Russian Letters, Around the World With the Cello, From the USSR to Russia, The Adventures of a Cello (translated into English, Russian and Portuguese), Paths and Images of Music, 5000 Years of Words, and Throughout China With the Cello. His extraordinarily diverse background includes degrees in engineering and economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a long-standing interest in and affinity for Russian culture and language. In January 1998, Strings magazine declared Prieto a “Renaissance Man” and extolled “his astoundingly rich life as a performer, author, globe-trotter and tireless promoter of Latin composers.”

Prieto’s appearance at the Institute will feature a lecture addressing his experiences as a self-identified “citizen of the world,” a question and answer session, and a brief musical performance.

Found in Translation: the latest in T&I research

MIIS faculty, staff and students are invited to visit the world of translation and interpreting research in an ongoing series of talks that bein next Tuesday, September 29.

The series provides a forum to share and discuss recent developments in research on the practice and training of translators, interpreters and localizers. All sessions will be  interpreted by Practicum students.

September 29 (Tue) 12:15 – 1:45 @Irvine

“Experimenting on/with students – applications of process research to translator training” – Anthony Pym

There is a growing body of research on what happens in the translator’s brain. The challenge is now to find ways to apply that research to the ways translators are trained. One way is to conduct simple experiments in the translation class, not so that students become guinea pigs but to help them discover things about their own translation processes.

This talk will present the results of experiments conducted in my classes in Monterey in 2008 and 2009, dealing with language-specific translation norms, the impact of different translation instructions, the use of human-revised machine translation output, and the speed variable.

Students who have been experimented upon are very welcome to attend, as are instructors who might like to experiment.

October 27 (Tue) 12:15 – 1:45 @Irvine

“Translation and Globalization: the Spanish-language translation publishing market” – María Sierra Córdoba Serrano

November 17 (Tue) 12:15 – 1:45 @Irvine

“Building Corpora for Translator Education: methodology and applications” – Wallace Chen

Please contact Kayoko Takeda (kayoko.takeda@exchange.miis.edu) for details.

MIIS Photo Archive on Flickr

Good News!! There is now an archive of MIIS campus photos on Flickr!

Over the past year Jenny Manseau, with the help of a few colleagues, has created a photo archive for the Monterey Institute of International Studies. We currently have over 2,500 photographs on our Flickr site. This account has been purchased by the Recruiting department and this is the official account for the Monterey Institute of International Studies (there are several Flickr accounts on campus that use a similar name and profile picture, but please keep in mind this is the official site). If there are photographs on campus that need to be added to this account please contact Jenny at miisphotos@gmail.com.

To access the site you must Create a FREE account and request to be a contact of MIIS_Photos. We have set the account to private so not just anyone online can use these photographs. Many of these photos do not have photo release forms so we need to be careful about who can access to them. If you have questions on whether or not you can/should use these in any publication or on the website please contact Jenny.

Once you are approved as a contact, you may view the photo stream, view images in all sizes, download the different sizes, view/add tags, and see/add comments about the photographs (waiver forms, location, subjects etc.). You will not see any of this information unless you have been approved. The photographs have been “tagged” to help with the searching process. When you are using the search feature please be sure to search “your photo stream” and not every one’s photographs. Jenny will continually be adding photographs and tags to help with this process, maintaining this account and approving requests to become contacts.

McCleery leads conference panel on “Making Basic Services Reach the Poor”

Robert McCleery was a featured speaker at the Second Conference on Integrated Social Policies in Egypt, July 4-5, 2009 in Cairo. The conference was organized by the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity, and was attended by that Minister (H.E. Aly Moselhy), the Minister of Housing, National Democratic Party rising star Gamal Mobarak, representatives of other parties and ministries, representatives of domestic and international NGOs, and other foreign experts. Prof. McCleery headed the second session: Making Basic Services Reach the Poor. He presented a refined and targeted version of the “Development as Connectivity” story, first presented with Prof. De Paolis at the Faculty Research brown bag series, organized by Prof. Kardam, last spring. The presentation also drew on their joint research, presented in a consulting report to the United Nations Development Program, New York, titled: Making Infrastructure Work for the Poor.

Staff Performance Evaluations

It’s that time again!…

As the HR office indicated in a message to all staff in June, the Staff Performance Evaluation period for this year began on August 1 and extends through November 15.  If you have not yet initiated the evaluation process for yourself, or for those you supervise, please consider doing so soon to avoid the last minute rush.

Here’s a recap of the original communication:

This year, because of the number of adjustments in staff positions and supervisors resulting from administrative reorganization, we have decided to shift the staff performance evaluation period until later in the year.

This year, the performance evaluation process will commence August 1 and run through November 15.  This will allow enough time for staff to become accustomed to new responsibilities, and for supervisory relationships to develop.

While we would like for the evaluation process to be constructive and forward-looking, we would also like to acknowledge staff performance prior to the reorganization.  For this reason, we have incorporated into the process a requirement that when a supervisory relationship is less than six months old, input from the previous supervisor should be included.  The form has been revised to provide for this requirement.

The form has also been revised slightly to reflect a need for a more meaningful rating scale in the “general performance” areas such as attendance.

Open Enrollment

All faculty and staff have received information from HR about how to participate in Open Enrollment for the short plan year (October-December 09) that will serve as a bridge between our current plan and the anticipated alignment with Middlebury’s benefit plans.

A question has arisen about how deductibles and out of pocket maximum’s will be handled for the short plan period.  It turns out that these are already calculated on a calendar year (rather than the plan year) so that if your deductible has been completed for Calendar Year 2009, that will continue to be true through December. If your out of pocket max has been reached for Calendar Year 2009, that will continue in place through December.  We will all begin with a clean slate on January 1, 2010.

Please remember that we need to receive a signed flexible spending account election form FROM EVERYONE — regardless of whether you wish to participate in this program, and regardless of whether you are making any other changes in your benefits. Please get your FSA Election Form in to HR as soon as possible!

President’s Message on Health and Welfare Benefits

Dear Monterey Institute Faculty and Staff:

I am writing to keep faculty and staff informed regarding ongoing integration efforts that are bringing systems, processes, and policies at MIIS and Middlebury College into alignment with one another. As you know, the goal of the two boards of trustees and two presidents at MIIS and Middlebury with respect to institutional policies is to achieve parity, meaning not necessarily identical policies, but highly compatible ones that may be adapted to the unique circumstances of either campus.

In the area of health and welfare benefits, our analysis has pointed to distinct advantages with respect to both absolute cost and the coverage we get for our money when we team up with Middlebury to create a larger pool of enrollees.

At the MIIS board meeting later this month, we will be presenting a proposal to align MIIS health and welfare benefits with Middlebury’s beginning on January 1, 2010. The changes being proposed will result in more generous benefits and greater choice of providers than are available under the existing MIIS plans. The specific changes include:

o Transition MIIS to the Middlebury medical plan (a self-insured plan under which the College contracts with CBA Blue to administer its claims process)

o Transition MIIS to the Middlebury dental plan

o Existing vision plan retained by MIIS, but not added by Middlebury

o Consolidate COBRA administration

o Consolidate flexible spending administration (with retention of debit card feature for MIIS employees)

o Consolidate Employee Assistance Program (retaining student coverage at MIIS)

o Joint transition by both MIIS and Midd employees to Mutual of Omaha life insurance, disability, etc., with adjustment for California disability plan

o Implementation of income sensitive premiums at MIIS

Overall Impact of Proposal:

o Significant potential monetary savings for the Institute, that would become available to address other pressing needs

o Plans have similar or greater value

o Greater flexibility in choice of medical and dental providers

o Overall ratio of employer to employee contributions remains approximately the same

o Income sensitivity in employee contributions, based on a percent of pay

o most employees will see reduced premiums

o some more highly compensated employees will see increased premiums

o one-year transitional funding to provide the latter employees with a year to budget for the increase

Among the benefits we can look forward to if this plan is approved by the board is an enhanced ability for Middlebury Human Resources staff to assist Institute employees with questions and issues, since all Middlebury and MIIS employees will be under the same benefit plans.

Because the MIIS plan year begins in October, we will conduct an open enrollment period to continue our existing plans for the three months remaining in 2009. Open enrollment for calendar year 2010 will take place in November and December. HR staff from MIIS and Middlebury will offer a series of webinars and/or videoconferences in order to explain the various benefit plans and answer questions from faculty and staff.

We believe these changes retain all of the key components of existing health and welfare benefits for Institute employees, while offering significant cost and/or coverage advantages for many members of our community. This proposal was presented to the Faculty Senate and the Staff Advisory Team on September 15, and will be presented to the Institute’s board of trustees for approval at their regularly scheduled September 24-26 meeting. This timing will ensure our ability to implement the changes by the January 1 start of the new plan year.

We will make every effort to respond to any questions or concerns faculty or staff may have about these changes. Please direct your questions to Cathy Vincent or Michael Ulibarri in the Human Resources office.

Sunder

Writing Center Opens September 21

Faculty and staff, please share this information about the Writing Center with your students:

Make your appointment for the Graduate Writing Center beginning Monday, September 21st, and visit us on the web .  From blank sheet of paper to polished copy, the Graduate Writing Center loves to help bring beautiful words into the world. Do you have punctuation problems? Development dilemmas? Writer’s block? Grammar headaches? Word choice worries? Never fear! The Graduate Writing Center is here! You can find us on the west wing of the Simoneau house at 456 Van Buren Street. We offer one-hour appointments (limited to one per student per week), but if there is an open slot that no one is using, you can just drop in! The grand opening for the fall 2009 semester will occur on September 28th, but you can begin making appointments on September 21st using the sign up sheet outside the GWC. The writing center will be open from 2-8 Monday through Thursday and from 10-4 on Fridays. Spanish Tutoring is offered Monday and Tuesday from 2-3. Chinese tutoring is offered Monday and Thursday from 7-8. Arabic is available Monday 6-7, Thursday 4-7, and Friday 2-4. We look forward to another great semester working with you!