Agenda

• Getting Started at MIIS Course & Cohort Model Overview
• Fall Planning & Budget Update
• Curricular Change Update

Notes

Getting Started at MIIS Course & Cohort Model Overview (Alisyn Gruener & Charlotte Roulet)

• There are three phases to our revised orientation program:
• Getting started at MIIS (July 27 – August 14) 
  • Note: The course content is available to students beyond this window and has been developed as a living resource for students to engage during their time at MIIS.
  • All of the information in this course is helpful for students to have early, or not time-bound, so there is some flexibility. There are certain assignments that students do need to complete to participate in Welcome Week.
  • Course outline:
    • Week 1 is all about getting started and getting to know different departments around campus, acclimating to technology platforms.
    • Week 2 is focused on helping students understand life as a MIIS student.
    • Week 3 is on understanding and embracing community values, including diversity and inclusion and academic integrity.
  • Most of the course is self-directed so that students can engage with asynchronous content. There are several live sessions, these include introductions to technology platforms, resources, students life, student council, student financial services, language studies, library info session, communicating in intercultural spaces, immersive professional learning.
• Welcome Week (August 17-21)
  • Schedule is intentionally lighter than our typical welcome week to limit time on the computer and to allow space for programs to connect with students
• Cohort Programming for Fall (August 24 and beyond)
  • This year we want to be highly focused on new students making connections with one another and continuing students. 
  • We have redesigned the cohort program to more intentionally focus on student-led community building.
  • This year the incoming class will be divided into groups of 15-18 students made up of students from different programs, locations, backgrounds, etc.
  • Each group will be facilitated by a current student, and there are 18 students who will be cohort coordinators.
    • The cohort leaders are currently going through training to prepare for the role and develop their facilitation skills.
    • They will not be expected to be experts in any one area, but have a strong baseline knowledge of the resources at the Institute.
  • The cohorts start during Welcome Week and continue through fall.
  • Our hope is that cohort members will:
    • Feel welcomed and included as part of the MIIS community
    • Form friendships with members of other degree programs
    • Develop intercultural competence skills
    • Build familiarity with building remote community 
  • There will be space for synchronous and asynchronous communication, and a coordinated welcome session for all cohorts, but beyond that it is going to be largely up to the cohort coordinator to determine the frequency and types of activities that they will engage through the semester.
  • Questions:
    • If we wish to review these sessions, is it possible to get access to the canvas site?
      • Yes! Please email student.services@miis.edu

Budget Update (Jeff Dayton Johnson)

• Typically the budget is approved by the board in May, but this has been an exceptionally challenging year for budgetary planning. 
• The budget for this fiscal year was approved in a special meeting for the board of trustees earlier this month, and the budget process is being rolled out this week.
• This year’s budget will reflect a drastically reduced number for non-compensation items. This is largely due to the commitment to wage continuity, a priority which was also reflected in the employee survey results.
• A significant portion of the non-compensation budget cannot be compressed. This includes rent and other areas where we are committed to inflexible budget lines. This means even deeper cuts in flexible areas.
• All of the non-compensation budgets in areas that roll up through the Office of the VPAA are going to be in a single budget managed through the VPAA account. More details about the process are forthcoming, and budget officers on this campus will have a meeting as soon as there is a clear procedure for managing non-compensation expenditures. 
• If you have questions, please contact Barbara Burke, and she can help you with how to record those and to which accounts those should be charged.
• Those who are part of anchor functions will need to connect with their area VP to understand how they will be managing the budgets for their areas.
• There have been a lot of questions about professional development for faculty and staff. 
  • The answer for faculty development is that there will be funding, and that the process will be similar to the way this has been handled in the past. Faculty development is funded by gift funds and is not subject to the reductions. We are likely to reduce the maximum awards, because we suspect that the funding will be primarily registration fees and not travel or other associated expenditures.
  • On the staff side, the staff development funding has been managed by HR. We do have funding for staff development, the budget is now combined with the VT staff development fund, so there is one central pool of funding. We will follow the same process as in the past, prioritizing first time applicants. More to come on full availability of resources.
• There has been a lot of concern about student employment, there was a message that went out from David Provost and Karen Miller weeks ago, and most of the information was pertinent to the processes that exist at the College and we are still working to understand how it applies to Monterey. We are committed to supporting student employment.
• We want to do everything we can to support GA positions for students present in the U.S. including international students (who are not eligible for Federal Work Study).

Curricular Changes (Jeff Dayton Johnson)

• The ILG is a part of our curricular change process, and when changes are proposed to curricula, the ILG typically reviews these changes after APSIC has had the chance to provide their review and recommendations.
• There are a few curricular change needs that have arisen over the summer. In light of the current circumstances, these proposals have been moving through an accelerated curricular change process, and we wanted to make the ILG aware of these changes and provide an opportunity to ask questions.
  • Required Anti-Racism Courses for Fall 2020
    • All students, staff, and faculty received an announcement from the Office of the VP (attached) that this fall semester, students will be required to complete one of the following two courses.
      • Education for Action: Racial Equity and Social Justice
      • Education in Action: Anti-Racism in Praxis
    • These two-week courses, developed by Pushpa Iyer in consultation with experts Ericka Huggins and Anita Crawley, will be fully asynchronous, non-credit bearing, and offered in several time slots across the semester.
  • MATLM Consolidated Degree Tracks & Language Requirement for Fall 2021
    • TLM would like to return to a single MATLM with an evolved “Language Requirement.” All TLM students would have a 16 credit (8 for Advanced Entry) language requirement satisfied by taking either Translation or LS/EAPP courses, or a mix..
• We recognize the process for introduction of anti-racism course work was highly accelerated. We want to be inclusive and transparent about decision-making, while also being decisive in a context where things are changing rapidly. The ILG is also a forum where we can address those issues, and are open to changes that invite consultation and engagement.
• Wallace has taken over as the chair of APSIC, a group that does not typically engage summer curricular change review, so we really appreciate APSIC jumping in on issues that have arisen over the summer.
  • APSIC reviewed the TLM changes and thought they were minor and necessary. APSIC was happy to approve and recommend these changes aside from minor tweaks and clarifications.