This Week @ MIIS

The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey has received long-awaited approval of a master plan for its downtown campus that will one day transform the campus core into an open and pedestrian-friendly green space.

The Monterey Planning Commission unanimously approved the plan on Dec. 8, clearing the way for for the Institute to launch the first phase of the project, which will focus on creating a spine of attractive pathways with curb bump-outs and lighted crosswalks running from Van Buren Street at the west end of campus to Pacific Street on the east end. An open, green quad area would be created at the center of the existing campus by closing off the south end of Pierce Street from the Lara Soto Adobe to Jefferson Street. 

The resulting campus core will create an inviting space where students and faculty can meet and interact among benches, pathways, and drought-resistant plantings.

“The idea behind the Master Plan is to give more of a sense of place on our campus,” said Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Institute Jeff Dayton-Johnson. “We want to create a greener, more pedestrian-friendly campus where there are more opportunities for faculty and students to interact inside and outside of the classroom.”

Additional changes envisioned under the master plan, which is broken into two five-year phases plus a third long-range phase, include moving most parking areas from the center to the edges of campus and concentrating faculty offices and classrooms around the new, green campus core.

The plan envisions both the refurbishing of existing buildings and the construction of new buildings within the existing campus footprint to accommodate both current capacity and anticipated enrollment growth. The plan also ensures the continued preservation of historic buildings on campus, including the Lara Soto Adobe on Pierce Street and Capitular Hall at Franklin and Pacific. 

For students, it was a welcome development. “We are a small community but we’re separated by a bunch of streets,” said International Education Management student Abbey Wallace, who noted that the changes envisioned in the Master Plan would make the Institute campus feel more like “a traditional college experience.” 

The plan’s approval represents the culmination of three years’ work that began with the appointment of a Master Plan Committee that included student, faculty, and staff representatives. The committee worked with an outside consulting firm to develop a long-term vision for the campus. The process of refining the plan also included a series of reviews by internal stakeholders and governing boards, as well as outreach to neighborhood groups and Monterey city staff.

Approval of the master plan sets the stage for future growth on the Middlebury Institute’s downtown Monterey campus, while crafting a green oasis in the midst of an urban campus.

Last March the launch of the Center of Social Impact Learning (CSIL) brought social enterprise into a new light on campus. Now, the center is branching out and adding more events and programs through a new, entirely student-run group called M-Force.

Feeling a desire to increase student involvement at the center, graduate assistant Kenji Tabery MAIEP ’16 launched M-Force, termed “the student arm of CSIL,” in September. The group now includes around 40 students who are actively involved and meet every month. Though Kenji initiated the group earlier in the semester, he sees himself as “more of a facilitator” than a leader. Many of the students have developed their own independent projects and view the group as their closest support network and sounding board.

Sophie Dresser MPA ’16, who also works as a graduate assistant at CSIL, is a great example. She has taken charge in leading a microfinance project to create a fund for small business owners in Salinas. Sophie was inspired by Stockton Impact Corps, a similar project that Jerry Hildebrand, director of CSIL, started through University of the Pacific.

The idea of this project is to eventually create a nonprofit that will be run entirely by community members, independent from the Institute. The fund is being set up to offer micro-loans, amounts ranging from $500 to $5,000, with $10,000 for exceptional cases, to small business owners or those looking to start their own business in Salinas. The funding would be used for investments ranging from a new vacuum cleaner for a cleaning business, to improved distribution for a produce packaging business to distribute their fresh foods. This kind of project is intended to help people who don’t qualify for or don’t know how to apply for traditional loans, and otherwise wouldn’t have the means for their businesses.

Though they are reaching out and making contacts within the community this year, it’s likely to be another year before the fund is put into effect. “With this kind of project, it takes a long time to go about it, and it takes even longer to go about it in the right way,” Sophie says. “It’s important to build a project like this from the ground up, with input from community members, rather than imposing our solutions on them.” 

In addition to working on their own projects, members of the M-Force support CSIL in its outreach efforts, including helping to organize the Millennial Speaker Series. The largest event this semester was a panel discussion in November titled “B Corps: People Using Business as a Force for Good,” that sparked a conversation in the community that is still ongoing. “We want to find inspiring leaders that have successfully launched projects in health care, education, business, and environmental conservation,” Kenji said, illustrating the broad scope of social enterprise. “There’s a lot behind the curtains of social entrepreneurship.”

“You always go back to the touchstone of being inspired,” says Kathleen Motzenbecker MAIPS ’97. “I would not be where I am without my experience at the Institute.”

Kathleen was honored earlier this year as one of Minnesota’s Top 50 Women in Business award winners. The St. Paul Business Journal described her as the “state’s economic ambassador,” a role she “shines” in. As the executive director of the Minnesota Trade Office, she is the chief strategist for the promotion of the state and its companies in the global marketplace.

“Minnesota is a global place,” says Kathleen who lists 3M, Cargill, and the medical device industry as major economic presences in the state that CNBC ranked at the top of its annual America’s Top States for Business list. In her current position, she has created a foreign direct investment program and is overseeing the establishment of four offices overseas. She recently returned from a trade mission for the governor in Mexico where she used the Spanish language skills she developed while a student at the Institute.

After graduation, Kathleen headed for the East Coast, starting in New York along with classmate André Gutierrez MAIPS ’97. They’ve remained close friends ever since. “Staying in touch with someone who knows you from grad school and can help you strategize about your career is profound,” she says. Next she moved to Washington D.C., where she worked for the Council on Foreign Relations as D.C. deputy director, served as executive director of the U.S. Committee of the UN Development Programme, and participated in election monitoring for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

In her hometown of Chicago, where Kathleen moved next to be closer to family, she worked with Mayor Richard Daley on public diplomacy issues and was responsible for Asia relations at the Illinois International Trade Office. In 2008 she became the founding director of the Center for Global Peace through Commerce at Dominican University in Oak Park, Illinois, where she also helped create a program for MBA students interested in anti-poverty business solutions. 

“Then I fell in love with a Minnesota man,” says Kathleen, “and moved to this wonderful progressive state.” All the while, her experiences at the Institute have helped shape her professional choices. “My global career started with the training I received at Monterey,” she says, adding that she is very happy with the merger with Middlebury and recent name change. “Combining the two schools increases their global connections and the Institute is now very well positioned for the future!”