Category: Admissions

Additional Administrative Reorganization Decisions Announced

For the last few months, we have focused our discussion about the reorganization of the Institute on the creation of two new graduate schools and a new dean of advising.  However, several other changes are occurring to facilitate a better flow of communications and services to our faculty, staff, students, and the external community.  In some cases these will affect supervisory responsibilities and lines of reporting.

Last September, the Office of Alumni Relations was moved into the Institutional Advancement Office.  A new Executive Director of Communications position was also established and subsequently, Jason Warburg was hired into that position.  Recently, Anne Marie Steiger, the Institute’s webmaster, has been moved, so that she now reports to Jason.

We are also combining those activities related to a student’s enrollment at the Institute.  As part of these changes, the Financial Aid Office will join with our Admissions Office and Enrollment Management Office to become the Office of Admissions, reporting to Jill Stoffers, Director of Admissions.  These moves will become effective as of March 1, 2009.

Finally, in a move designed to strengthen the services provided to students during their time at the Institute, the Dean of Advising, Careers, and Student Services will oversee three areas:  Records, Office of Student Services, and a new Academic and Career Advising Center.  The goal of this consolidation, which will become effective as of June 1, 2009, is to provide our students with enhanced services, especially those involving academic advising and career assistance, so that students engage a seamless support system during their time at the Institute.

MIIS Staff Members to Attend WeAreMedia Workshop

Next week, Kristen Byers and Rob Horgan will be attending a two-day intensive workshop on social media and non-profits sponsored by the Non-profit Technology Network in San Francisco. TLC and Recruiting have generously provided the funding for this. The conference requires that two people from an organization attend: one broader marketing staff member and one person in charge of technical implementation.

They will be keeping a blog to record their participation and implementation of a media project.

The goal of the conference is to provide participating teams with an understanding of how to craft a social media strategy and to experiment with tactical approaches. Thanks to some advice and input from Caroline Mansi, Lynn McDonald, and Bob Cole, Rob and Kristen have decided to explore the merits of using Twitter for promotion, recruitment, marketing and information sharing at MIIS. Kristen has extensive experience in new media projects and is a regular user of Twitter. Rob recently created a Twitter account for the Recruiting Department: http://www.twitter.com/miis

The workshop aims to help participants plan and effectively integrate their media project (in this case, Twitter) into their organization’s overall web communications. They hope to return to campus with some ideas for implementation.

Website Changes

Our website is the main source of information on our programs for prospective students. Recruitment for these new students starts earlier and earlier each year.  Considering that our new students in Fall 2009 will be attending MIIS under a new administrative structure, it is important that our website best represent both our current programs and the future changes.  Beginning immediately, we will replace references to specific schools and their acronyms with program references and institute references where applicable.  In most situations, this is an improvement to our site, since prospective students rarely understand our alphabet soup.

The website will retain its structure and the content will remain the same, we’re just changing some titles.  This is quick fix to a website that is in need of facelift.  A more extensive re-design is currently planned to take place during the spring and summer of 2009.

We need your help! If you are adding content to the website, please refrain from specific school references.  When updating documents or PDF’s on the website, please scan the pages for graduate school names and make changes where appropriate.

If you have any questions, please contact Lynn McDonald or Jill Stoffers.

New Media Development Specialist Joins MIIS Staff

Please join us in welcoming Kristen Byers to the MIIS staff. Kristen will be working with TLC/DMC as a new media development specialist.  Her job is to help MIIS faculty, staff and students tell their stories using digital media. In keeping with the philosophy of TLC/DMC, her role is to work with members of the community to define a project and acquire the necessary skills and tools to achieve the desired outcomes.  She’ll be working closely with the admissions staff to help us make better use of community generated digital media in our marketing efforts.

Kristen graduated from Michigan State University with a BA in professional writing, minors in French and journalism, and specializations in editing and publishing, digital design & technical writing.  She has used her exceptional digital media and design skills in a variety of jobs involving web development, communications, marketing, and online learning.

Stop in at Kade, introduce yourself to Kristen, and bring her your project ideas!  After this week, she’ll be in her own office—Morse A105.

Revised MIIS website

The Monterey Institute has a bit of a new look.  Anne Marie Steiger and Lynn McDonald have been working over the summer on making our website easier to navigate and a better experience for our prospective students.  This should be visually more pleasing but there have also been some changes made to help our web users find what they are looking for faster.

Main Changes:

New homepage design:

  • A flash file of revolving pictures with the five curricular focus areas of the Monterey Way 2.0 highlighted
  • Academics – where you can find everything to do with academics – faculty, library, calendar, course descriptions, Moodle, TLC, DMC, ect
  • Offices and Services – A place to find links to all the offices and services on campus, links go to homepages or just pages with contact information (please contact Anne Marie if you’d like your office to have its own page or be added to this list)
  • Language Programs & Language Teacher Education – these were once one button but now the degree programs have been separated from the language programs so that their site is easier to navigate and our language programs highlighted
  • Explore – this section is a place where we can highlight exciting things on our website.  These will change so start to build up your website and send Lynn McDonald an email if you’d like to be highlighted in the explore section.  We hope to showcase departments that are truly doing exciting things online.
  • Quick Links – some common links that people just need quickly like emergency contacts, directions, ESL, events
  • What’s New – A place to put news but also a place to highlight new programs or interesting events.  This should change regularly so please contact Lynn McDonald with any “What’s New” items.
  • Be The Solution – Our great new tagline!
  • Online Directory, site map and banner web can now be found in the footer.

Admissions:

  • New Organization – Six easy to navigate categories
  • Language Requirements – All the information on languages in the graduate programs can now be found here, rather than each school having its own language information.
  • Student Life – a section for the student voice to be highlighted.  This section will hopefully soon include more digital media

If you see any mistakes in the website, PLEASE let your departmental web editor know.  There are bound to be some mistakes so we’d love to take care of them quickly.  Also, double check any URLs that you send out in mass emails or letters – they may have changed with this re-organization.

Lynn and Anne Marie will soon be offering a web training for anyone who writes for the web (including workstudy students).  Please stay tuned for more information.

Traveling? Connect with MIIS Alums and Prospective Students

Traveling for work this semester?  Interested in spending an evening with fascinating people?  If so, please contact Leah Gowron, Director of Alumni Relations, or Jill Stoffers, Director of Admissions, regarding your travel schedule!  You can make a tremendous contribution to our recruiting and alumni affairs efforts with a very small invstment of your time.

The Alumni Office regularly coordinates alumni reception and happy hours in conjunction with faculty and staff travel.  Fred Wehling (Vienna), Ed Laurance (New York), Laura Burian (Beijing) and Lynn Goldstein (Portland & Seattle) helped host events over the summer, and  there are many more events planned for Fall 2008.  We are particularly interested in adding European cities, locales in the Middle East, and Korea to our Fall event schedule.

Hosting a reception is easy, and only takes two hours of your time.  All arrangements will be managed by the Alumni Office; your role is to “host”, communicate the many exciting changes and activities on campus to the attending alumni, and collect business cards/contact info. Occasionally supplemental travel support can be provided if scheduling a reception requires an additional night’s stay.

Current alumni events can be viewed here.

The recruiting staff can also use your help recruiting future classes for MIIS. There are several ways you can help:

  • • Meet with prospective students for drinks or coffee. With enough notice, we can set this up in your hotel.
  • • Take MIIS recruiting material to your contacts. Let us know and we’ll give you a small supply before you leave!
  • • Give a substantive presentation on a topic in your area of expertise or information session about MIIS. In some cities, we have concentrations of students who would love to learn more from you.

Depending upon the location, the Recruiting Office may be able to help with some of your expenses. Please notify contact Jill Stoffers or work directly with an Enrollment Manger. Thanks for thinking of ways to help!
–from the Alumni Affairs and Admissions Offices

Fall Enrollment the Largest Ever

At last count (day 3), our fall FTE of 791 surpassed the most recent record (728), reflecting a large entering class and excellent retention of continuing students. Congratulations to our enrollment managers and admissions staff, and all those students, faculty, staff and alumni who helped to tell our story to the world.