Category: Achievements

Achievements, awards received by faculty, staff, students, alums

Tsuneo Akaha Shares Experiences in Japan

MIIS welcomes back GSIPS professor Tsuneo Akaha, who has been teaching in Japan for the summer and fall semester.  We thought you would all be interested in his activities:

  • Tsuneo taught an MA seminar at Waseda University in Tokyo in the fall of 2008.  The topic was Asian Regional Integration, a very hot topic in the region.  His experience in the seminar included serving not only as the instructor but also as an interpreter for two of the students.  One was a Nepalese student with fairly advanced English language skills (despite the fact that he never used English until he enrolled at Waseda) but little or no Japanese language, and the other was a Chinese student with highly developed Japanese language proficiency but very limited spoken English.  Hence, when either of them gave their presentations or spoke up in class, Tsuneo served as their interpreter.

    • (more…)

Moodle Gets A Makeover

Moodle, the Institute’s eLearning site, recently received its first official makeover. Visual and functional improvements were made in order to enhance the Moodle experience. In addition, since some content currently contained within FirstClass may eventually be moved to Moodle, we hope that these improvements will encourage faculty, staff, and students to use Moodle on a regular basis.

The new features include the following:

  • Color scheme
  • Dropdown navigation menus
    As you roll over the main navigation menu, you will notice that additional links appear in the form of a dropdown menu. These links will help Moodle visitors locate other important resources.
  • Social media icons

    Moodle now serves as a portal to the MIIS website, iTunes U, Flickr, YouTube, and FirstClass. By including these links we hope to strengthen the connection between the Institute’s numerous web presences.
  • Improvements to the Course Request Form
    The revised Course Request Form now guides users through the process of requesting a new Moodle space by providing specific examples. These changes will streamline the course request process and cut down on the time it takes to create new Moodle courses.

If you have any suggestions for future Moodle renovations, please comment and let us know!

MIIS Approved for iTunes U Public Presence

The Monterey Institute of International Studies was recently approved by Apple for inclusion in the public portion of iTunes U. This means that MIIS will now show up when people search for the Institute through the iTunes Store. iTunes U can be used to distribute media content to faculty, staff, students, and the general public in the form of podcasts. Audio and video podcasts are available to download free of cost, and can then be watched on a computer or portable device whenever, wherever.

Our iTunes U presence will serve as a valuable recruitment tool, offering an inexpensive way to explain the benefits MIIS has to offer potential students. With the help of the Digital Media Commons, we hope to create an army of podcasters across the globe. Visit MIIS on iTunes U and help MIIS gain recognition as we reach out and share our stories with the world.

Clara Yu Honored by City of Monterey and MIIS Colleagues

On Tuesday, December 16, the City of Monterey City Council honored MIIS President Clara Yu for her accomplishments over the past three years.  Later, at the annual faculty and staff holiday party, colleagues paid tribute to Clara and wished Clara and John a fond and regretful farewell.  Thanks, Clara, for everything, from all of us!

Beryl Levinger Visits Banda Aceh

IPS Distinguished Professor Beryl Levinger went to Banda Aceh for two weeks in October 2008 to work w/ Pete LaRaus, MPA ’04, deputy director of Save the Children in Banda Aceh.  The assignment was to help Save the Children develop a three-year strategic plan.  The primary challenge Save the Children faces is how to redirect the organization away from post-tsunami relief toward longer-term development programs that serve conflict-affected populations.  There was a long war for independence that has claimed many lives in the Banda Aceh region.

Beryl has been a consultant for Save the Children since 1977.  Notable among her numerous assignments is the annual State of the World’s Mothers Report.  The Report is a standard resource used by the US government and international organizations in setting policy and aid budgets for programs serving families in developing nations.  Beryl includes students and former students in her work on this major initiative.

Beryl says the biggest thrill of this latest project was the opportunity to work with Pete, her former student.  Prior to his current assignment, Pete was country director for Save the Children in Nicaragua.  Beryl  was also excited about two new collaborative technologies that she uses in her teaching, ZohoWiki and ZohoProject.  The assignment gave her the opportunity to bring to Indonesia tools and approaches she is teaching on campus and to bring back to campus real stories about how these technologies make a difference in the world of professional development practice.

What’s all the yammering about?

Yammer?  What’s that?  Sounds like nonsense…

Yammer is a new tool that is currently being used by some staff, faculty and students to stay more connected.  It’s a website, just for folks with a miis.edu email account, that asks you to answer the question “What are you working on?”.  This is a simple and quick way to share what you’re doing, send out interesting articles/resources or ask questions of the MIIS community.  It can be compared to twitter or the status update from facebook, but just for the MIIS community.  Yammer started as an experiment initiated by the TLC and has now grown to include 56 members and 297 messages. 

Interesting…how do I sign up?

Simply go to www.yammer.com and put in your miis.edu email address.  You will be sent a confirmation email and redirected to our miis.edu yammer site. 

Then what?

Once on the site, please post messages to the community!  You can tag your messages, follow certain people or tags, and make work groups on specific topics.  You can also download yammer for your desktop so you don’t have to use it only on the web or install a yammer application for your iphone or blackberry.  It is simple to use and they provide a clear guide to help you learn the ropes.

See you on yammer! 

Graduate Writing Center Receives Grant

The MIIS Graduate Writing Center has received a $50,000 grant from the Monterey Peninsula Foundation to expand and improve its services.

The center offers writing workshops to students to prepare them for academic and professional assignments, such as cover letters, resumes, CVs, policy memos, and op-eds..

With increased funding, the center will be able to:
•    Support French, Spanish, and Arabic tutoring sessions that began this fall;
•    Offer workshops on giving and receiving effective peer feedback;
•    Provide professional development opportunities for its tutors;
•    Develop print and online resources for students seeking help from the center.

The center is directed by Kelley Calvert.

New Students Build Community

New Student Orientation was a great success. We revamped the NSO week to include two new sessions focusing on community building, planned and delivered by students Bree Bacon and Wrenn Yennie, faculty member Peter Shaw, and several dozen highly competent student, faculty and staff facilitators.

The new students were organized into groups selected to ensure diversity of program, homeland and language.  One group activity involved expressing a common identity through the creation of group logos. Students also participated in a treasure hunt that helped to familiarize them with the campus and its people and services.

The feedback from new students, facilitators and the MIIS community has been quite positive.  Many thanks to everyone who helped make this happen!

–from the Student Services Office