Month: February 2009

JD Yuan has published an op-ed article in the Asia Tmes entitled “New US tone, same old issues,”  in which he comments on Hilary Clinton’s Asia trip.  Read it here.

The Fisher Graduate School of International Business has been profiled by The Aspen Institute in their recently published “Guide to Socially Responsible MBA Programs:  2008 – 2009.”  The Fisher School is currently ranked 40th among the Global Top 100 schools for demonstrating significant leadership in integrating social and environmental issues into its MBA curriculum.

Since 2003 The Fisher Graduate School of International Business has been consistently ranked as a socially responsible MBA program by Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial research survey looking at how well social and environmental issues are incorporated into the training of future business leaders. The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education, a program of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, published the data from the 2007 Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey for the first time ever in a guide marketed to both prospective MBA students and the business education community at large.

Invitations to participate in the 2007 survey were sent out to over 600 internationally accredited business schools with in-residence, full-time MBA programs. Schools receive an overall ranking, and are also ranked on four main categories:
–    Student Opportunity measures the number and enrollment of courses with social and environmental content;
–    Student Exposure is a measure of teaching hours dedicated to considering social and environmental issues;
–    Course Content is a breakdown of selected courses that highlight the role of mainstream business in improving social and environmental conditions; and
–    Faculty Research notes relevant articles published in leading academic journals.

The Fisher School ranked 40th overall in the survey, and received special recognition for Course Content (13th), Student Opportunity (26th) and Student Exposure (35th).

According to The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education, The Fisher School “….offers an excellent number of courses featuring relevant content, and does a truly extraordinary job in those courses explicitly addressing how mainstream business improves the world.”

For more information on the Fisher School’s profile in the survey, please visit http://www.BeyondGreyPinstripes.org

As the M² integration process has unfolded over the last two years, we at MIIS and our Middlebury colleagues have focused our attention on the legal and infrastructural issues – finance, HR, information systems, advancement, and communications – that need to be resolved in order for our two institutions to become one on June 30, 2010.  Throughout this period, we have never lost sight of the broader purpose of our efforts:  to realize the exponential power of M² to prepare global professionals to be the solution to the world’s most critical problems.

As we begin the bridge-building process, I have asked Tsuneo Akaha to take on the role of M² Academic Programs Coordinator effective March 1, 2009. In his new role, Tsuneo will report to me, and will chair an M² Academic Program Committee that will include the Monterey Institute’s academic leadership and faculty from across the Institute.  The entire membership will be announced shortly. Tsuneo will be responsible for developing productive relationships with the Academic Programs group at Middlebury, and will begin the process of exploring the best ways to build on shared strengths in the academic realm.  The Middlebury Academic Programs group is chaired by Michael Geisler, Vice President for the Language Schools, Schools Abroad, Graduate, and Special Programs, and includes academic leaders from throughout the Middlebury community.

Initial priority areas for the M² Academic Program Committee will include developing programs that build on established strengths — languages and linguistics, international policy and management, and international environmental policy.

These efforts will not only help to build a strong integrated academic community between our two institutions, but will also result in exciting new opportunities for our students, faculty, and staff, such as strengthened program links with the Middlebury Study Abroad sites, Language Schools, shared faculty speaker series, more J-Term classes that leverage each of our strengths, collaborative faculty research projects, and additional internship options abroad. Tsuneo will also ensure that these programmatic efforts mesh well with infrastructural integration by coordinating with Amy McGill, who chairs the M² Finance, Operations and Communications group here, and collaborates with counterparts at Middlebury.

Professor Akaha brings to these responsibilities extensive experience at the Monterey Institute, having been a faculty member here since 1989, and an active participant in many Institute and GSIPS initiatives and faculty committees.  He also regularly teaches in our Monterey Model courses, collaborating with the language studies colleagues as well as offering content courses in his native language of Japanese.  Professor Akaha established and has directed the Center for East Asian Studies which sponsors research, guest lectures, visiting scholars, and seminars, as well as internships and scholarships to students studying in this region.  Reflected in all of these activities is his commitment to providing our students with the subject knowledge and skills required for critical analysis of international policy and area studies, particularly in the Asia-Pacific context, and to work collaboratively with his colleagues here and internationally on the central challenges of our time, ranging from peace and security issues to human rights and migration concerns.

Professor Akaha specializes in Japanese foreign and security policy, international relations of the Asia Pacific, international political economy, and international marine affairs. He came to the U.S. as an AFS student during high school, then was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Tokyo and Seikei University (Tokyo), and a Japan Foundation Research Fellow at Hokkaido University’s Slavic Research Center (Sapporo).  He has served as President of Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC) and is on the editorial board of International Relations of the Asia-Pacific.  His own publications include numerous books (such as The Future of North Korea; Politics and Economics in Northeast Asia:  Nationalism and Regionalism in Contention; and co-editor of Crossing National Borders: Human Migration Issues in Northeast Asia; and articles in such journals as American Political Science Review, Journal of Asian Studies, Asian Survey, Peace Forum, and Brown Journal of World Affairs.

I am grateful to Tsuneo for accepting this challenge at a critical point in the integration process, and I am confident that his leadership will play a significant role in realizing the tremendous potential for collaboration and innovation that lies at the heart of the MIIS-Middlebury integration process.

All of the areas discussed above are, have been, and will be critical to the Institute’s success.  As we move forward with our reorganization and integration activities with Middlebury, it is important to step back and acknowledge the hard work that each of these areas have done in support of the new academic organization and integration with Middlebury.  These changes, along with those occurring in the academic programs, will create a revitalized organizational structure geared to address the professional graduate educational challenges of today, allowing us to remain flexible, dynamic, and relevant.  It will also provide us a solid organizational foundation critical to a successful full integration with Middlebury College in the summer of 2010.

The Office of International Services at MIIS and the Tax Office at Middlebury College provide support and resources to all international students and scholars in F, J, or H-1b who were employed in the U.S. in 2008.

California State Income Tax Workshop
The Office of International Services will hold a workshop on California State Tax Return Preparation on Monday, February 23rd at 5:00 pm in Irvine Auditorium. A representative from the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) will present on CA state tax issues for nonresident students and scholars.  In preparation for the presentation, please print the two Powerpoint presentations located on the OIS website at this link: http://www.miis.edu/ois/ois_social.html.

Federal Income Tax Information
This year MIIS and Middlebury are again making available the web-based tax preparation software program called CINTAX, available free for all students and scholars who are considered nonresident for tax purposes.  CINTAX allows you to easily prepare your federal income tax return from any computer connected to the internet.  The program should only take you twenty to forty minutes to complete your federal income tax return.  Once completed, CINTAX will produce (in PDF format) your completed federal income tax forms ready for printing, signature and mailing to the Internal Revenue Service.

You will be receiving additional information along with the password to CINTAX from Dr. Corinna Noelke at Middlebury very soon. Please note that the staff of the Office of International Services (OIS) cannot provide individual tax preparation information but there are a number of resources available to you on the OIS website: http://www.miis.edu/ois/ois_social.html

With the incoming deans of the Institute’s new Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation and Language Education (GSTILE) and Graduate School of International Policy & Management (GSIPM) now identified, our new leadership team has turned to its first major task: determining how the substructures of the two new schools will be organized.

After reviewing several conceptual approaches to this question, we have decided to make our current degree programs the focal points of the new substructure.  This will ensure a smooth transition to the new schools, providing students and faculty with the necessary continuity in terms of curriculum and degree requirements, while at the same time creating a strong specialized foundation for future initiatives and innovations.

Specifically, the substructure of the Graduate School of International Policy and Management will consist of the following four programs:

The Fisher Program in International Business (MBA)
Program in Public Administration for International Management (MPA)
Program in International Environmental Policy (MAIEP)
Program in International Policy Studies (MAIPS)

In addition to these degree programs, several non-degree GSIPM activities and programs — including DPMI, CLP, IPSS, CEAS, MonTREP, and the GLOBE Center – will be grouped together under “Special Programs.”  We will work to identify the synergies between some of these programs and, where appropriate, strengthen opportunities for collaboration.

Organizing the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation, and Language Education around degrees offers a greater challenge given the multiple tracks available to students studying in our T&I program, as well as the supporting role played by the language program for both policy and business students.  To ensure external recognition of our key T&I degrees while also indicating the importance of our language studies curriculum, we developed a substructure for GSTILE that will consist of the following five programs:

Program in TESOL/TFL (MATESOL/MATFL)
Program in Translation and Interpretation (MATI)
Program in Conference Interpretation (CI)
Program in Translation and Localization Management (MAT/MATLM)
Program in Language Studies

Like GSIPM, GSTILE has several non-degree activities and programs, including CLS, SILP/WILP, ESL, and TI non-degree short programs (such as those run for U.S. or foreign governments or groups) which will be pulled together under “Special Programs.”  Eventually, there may be a more extensive consolidation of these non-degree efforts into a single center to ensure effective coordination and collaboration.

The next step in the assembly of the new schools’ structures will be the appointment of program chairs for each of the above degree programs.  These chairs will work with the two academic deans, faculty and staff to develop, enhance and promote the individual programs going forward.

The un book club met to discuss My Stroke of Insight by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Dr. Taylor is a brain scientist who went through a stroke that impaired much of the left hemisphere of her brain.  Her story of the stroke and complete recovery was rich in detail and provided us with much to discuss.  The left brain is often considered the more rational, organized and responsible part with the right typified as its creative, unpredictable counterpart.

Dr. Taylor provided an in-depth analysis of the different yet complimentary functions of the brain as she took the reader through her healing process – an amazing and uplifting story. Any one reading this will be relieved to know that even as we get older our brains, thanks to neuroplasticity, continue to learn and fire new neurons or make new connections every day.   The point that we all took away from the discussion was that we have to be mindful or deliberate in using both hemispheres of the brain.    Feeling that we were heavy on left brain usage, the group considered ways to recognize and honor right brain functionality as well as achieve greater balance between the two.

The next book for the un book club is The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.  The next meeting is on March 9, 2009 from 12:00 to 1:00 in Kade.  Remember, it’s not necessary to read the whole book to participate. Here is a TED Talk by the same author.