January 24, 2022 | by Rachel Christopherson

January 2022 marked the start of the first-ever Middlebury Climate Change Semester program, a unique and much anticipated collaboration between Middlebury College in Vermont, and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at Monterey.  Undergraduate students from Middlebury College have joined graduate students at MIIS to study place-based examples of climate change, environmental history, and environmental justice.

LEARN MORE: Middlebury Climate Change Semester

This January five Middlebury College students and one alumnus participated in the following Middlebury Institute courses:

Traveling Cuba’s National Freeway: The Road to Revolution

The Cuban Revolution was not just a historical event; on the contrary, it is an ongoing project. Led by Dr. George Henson, this course focused not only on the historical and geographical roots of the Cuban Revolution but also its present-day political, economic, diplomatic, and cultural realities, as they relate to education, healthcare, tourism, international relations, and trade. Correlative topics of race, gender, LGBT activism, the arts, and sports were also covered.

International Development and Social Change

Students developed skills in program design, evaluation, strategic partnering, and facilitation of projects supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Students also conducted appreciative inquiry interviews with local noprofits including Read to Me, Gathering for Women, Peacocke Acres, Big Sur Land Trust, and First Five Monterey County.

Frontier Market Scouts Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing

Frontier Market Scouts selects and trains compassionate and capable professionals to become talent scouts and investment managers serving local entrepreneurs and social-minded investors in low-income and weak-capital regions of the world. 

FMS training instructors are leading practitioners in the impact space and work with organizations that include Omidyar Network, Cordes Foundation, Accion Venture Lab, and Unreasonable Group. Through the combination of teachings and applicable projects, participants walk away with a comprehensive understanding of who the key players in the impact sector are, how to design an innovative impact-focused business model, and what it takes to implement and scale a social venture.

Institute to Welcome Prof. Pieter Broucke for Spring Course on Public Space and Development

Professor of History, Art, and Architecture, Pieter Broucke, will teach a spring graduate course at the Institute on Public Space and Development March 23-April 10.

Architecture may be defined as the deliberate transformation of the natural environment into a cultural environment. It should also be seen as a means for building (literally!) sustainable solutions to problems pertaining to public space, access, and identity. In this course, students will explore the intersection between architecture and development through case-studies that range from the large to the small, all centered on a number of typologies: markets, schools, places of worship, clinics, transportation nodes, water points and more. Students will work in teams to analyze existing solutions to significant development problems that involve the use of public space. They will then create alternative solution strategies that incorporate systems thinking, human-centered design, development theory, and, sound public policy.

Fund for Innovation International Security Simulation to Host 6 College Students in Monterey September 5-6

MIIS Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism Deputy Director Kris McGuffie (College and Institute alumna) will be traveling to Vermont in March to provide information on an International Security Simulation taking place in Monterey September 5-6. There are six funded spots for College students to travel to Monterey to participate. Contact kmcguffie@miis.edu for more information.

In effort to build community and foster more collaborative decision-making, the Middlebury Institute held a three-day training on restorative practices in mid-November on the campus in Monterey.

These practices are emerging many student life departments in universities, but can be applied more widely to foster creativity, collaboration, and well-being at the workplace. The training was guided by facilitators from the International Institute for Restorative Practices.

This training was also offered on the College campus several times in the recent past.

Future training are likely in the works, but interested faculty and staff can learn more at the  International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP):

·         What is Restorative Practices?

·         Defining Restorative

o    Social Discipline Window

o    Restorative Practices Continuum

o    Nine Affects and the Compass of Shame

o    Fair Process

o    Restorative Conferences (including the restorative questions)

o    Circles

Ask any of these training participants about their experience to learn more:

Ashley Arrocha, Student Services

Laura Burian, Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation, and Language Education

Jeff Dayton-Johnson, VP Academic Affairs

Lydia Gentry, Library

Alisyn Gruener, Student Services

Jeni Henrickson, Office of Digital Learning & Inquiry

Rana Issa, Language Studies Faculty

Pamela Jungerberg, Library

Carolyn Taylor Meyer, Immersive Professional Learning

Betty Nguyen, Events Management

Grace O’Dell, Center for Advising & Career Services

Melissa Sorenson, Organizational Development

Patricia Szasz, Language and Professional Programs

Toni Thomas, Academics

Scott Webb, Center for Advising & Career Services

Julianne Merry, Alumna MAIEM ’15

Thanks to Melissa Sorenson for organizing this training with the IIRP.

The Middlebury Institute William Tell Coleman library now displays one piece from Henry Simond’s Global Impact exhibit. A contemporary photographer, installation artist, exhibition curator, and film producer, Henry J. Simonds sees himself first and foremost as an interpreter of culture. As the self-styled “Chief Sphaeralogist of the International Sphaeralogical Society” he has meticulously explored and documented the wonderful world of the “Super Ball,” the bouncy toy inveted by Norman Stingley in 1965. One of the 21 close-up views of this toy is on display in the Middlebury Institute library. A second close-up view is on display in Old Chapel at Middlebury College. The remaining pieces will be distributed to the Middlebury Schools Abroad campuses. This will be the first installation that spans the entire Middlebury campus network. 

The MIIS Committee for Art in Public Places (CAPP) is collaborating with the College CAPP by sending representatives to each campus through an innovation grant. Prof. Peter Broucke, Director of Art at Middlebury College, presented a lecture on Institutional (Art) History at Monterey: The “Spanish Lady” Painting in February. The lecture includes a discussion on the work by Ignacio Zuloago (1870-1945) referred to as “the Spanish Lady” that resides in the Middlebury Institute Lara Soto Adobe. Broucke discussed how Zuloaga’s nationalistic politics aligned with his art and the path that brought the painting from pre-WWII Spain to Monterey, California, by way Claude Kinnoull, a British countess, who played a key role in the founding of the Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies, now the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, at the height of the Cold War.