08.04.08: Summer Business

So far you’ve learned how the Monterey Institute’s GSIPS and GSLEL students spend their summertime. Now here’s a taste of how FGSIB students remain focused on business as usual despite the summer holidays.    

Clayton Snyder has an internship as a Senior Resource Specialist at Technicolor Home Entertainment Services, Inc. Clayton’s responsibilities include analyzing Technicolor’s worldwide energy and water consumption over the last three years; reporting worldwide CO2 emissions over the same time period; publishing bi-weekly reports for upper management on pertinent sustainability issues; and researching LEED certification potential for existing company facilities.

Naomi Arnold has an internship as a Category Management MBA Fellow at TransFair USA in Oakland, California, working in its Fair Trade Certified program. This project intends to diagnose the environmental impact story of Fair Trade, for which the label is lesser known, but equally stringent in initial producer qualifications and continuous improvements. Naomi’s responsibilities include researching environmental impact studies on Fair Trade, the impacts of organic farming, shade-grown coffee and carbon retention on Fair Trade Certified product farms as well as the environmental impacts of conventional crop production of coffee, flowers, sugar and bananas. The project’s goal is to create a gap analysis between Fair Trade and other labeling certifications, conduct an assessment of where improvements can be made to the environmental story, and create materials that communicate this effectively.

Check back in coming weeks for summer stories from MIIS students!!!

07.28.08: Fine-Tuning the Art of Teaching

Like most Monterey Institute students this summer, those from the
Graduate School of Language and Education Linguistics are out and
about exploring internship and other professional opportunities! To
learn about their experiences – where they are and how they’re
impacting the field of language teaching – read below!

Further enriching the Monterey Institute community, Claire Schadler
(MATESOL/LPA)
is Program Coordinator this year for the 6-week Summer
Intensive English Preparation for Translation & Interpretation (EPTI)
program which provides advanced language enhancement courses in
English translation and interpretation for language professionals and
students who have been admitted to the Graduate School of Translation
& Interpretation (GSTI). Jeremy Robinson (MATFL-Spanish) is teaching
two sections of a free, two-week, “mini-course” that he developed
earlier this year in which students with Beginning through
Native-Speaker proficiency levels learn reading, writing, speaking,
and listening skills in Spanish along with important skills in digital
video creation, storytelling, and micropublishing on the internet.

Venturing outside of the cradle of the Monterey Bay area this summer,
Meg MacDonald (MATFL-Chinese) is working as a Residential Advisor in
the Chinese section at the Monterey-Middlebury Language Academy, a
four-week language immersion summer camp for middle and high school
students near Burlington, Vermont. Jarred Brinkman (MATESOL) is
teaching various audiences through collaboration with Middlebury
College’s study abroad center in Chile as an intern at the Instituto
Chileno Norteamericano, the bi-national center in Santiago, Chile.
Half a world away in Hanoi, Vietnam, Natalie Cole (MATESOL) is the
first participant in a trial internship at Oxford English-UK, a
private educational institution in that provides English training to
primarily college students and young professionals. Over a period of 3
to 4 months, she will teach about 25 hours per week of
English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) to Vietnamese learners in Hanoi.

Two MATESOL/LPA candidates are assisting with the Comunidad Autónoma
de Madrid (CAM) teacher-training program being conducted in Madrid,
Spain; Monterey, California; and Burlington, Vermont this summer. In
Madrid, Greer Murphy is working with a group of in-service language
instructors as they enrich their knowledge of language, culture, and
bilingual education while Sylvia Popichak is working in Burlington
with additional educators from Spain’s bilingual programs as they
participate in academically-relevant cultural and social activities.

07.21.08 Mongolian Riots, a MIIS Perspective

Ever wonder how Monterey Institute students spend the dog days of summer??? Some by studying their languages at Middlebury College, others by interning in Monterey or Washington D.C. or Istanbul or Berlin…even Mongolia! Earlier this month, GSIPS student Molly Ammons was caught amidst the “state of emergency” declared in Mongolia. Like other MIIS students before Molly, her internship – which focuses on implementing Mongolia’s Millennium Development Goals – took her to the front lines of a political crisis. While busily completing this internship, Molly’s also conducting research on North Korean refugees and migration within Mongolia.         

Keep reading for Molly’s firsthand perspective of the Mongolian political riots:

Last night at midnight I answered a frantic call from my Mongolian co-worker. “Absolutely do not leave your apartment. Don’t come to work tomorrow morning. Don’t leave your house at all until I call to say it’s okay. Call your friends to let them know that it’s not safe for anyone to be on the streets.”

Early yesterday evening, as I blissfully hiked in the sun-soaked hills outside of Ulaanbaatar, peaceful post-election protests turned violent. Just two blocks from my apartment opposers of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party shot explosives into MPRP headquarters with Mongolia’s Prime Minister inside. He escaped unharmed, though looters, arsonists and vandals succeeded in causing mass chaos in the downtown area. Gangs of young men lit cars on fire in front of the parliament building in Suhkbatar Square, broke into the National Art Gallery and damaged works, and raided downtown shops. Early morning news reports confirmed three people dead in the violence. Over 60 others, including foreign journalists, have been injured. President Enkhbayar has declared a four day state of emergency and curfew.

The protests began as a reaction to the alleged vote rigging by the MPRP party heads. Official first counts awarded MPRP 41 of the available 76 parliamentary seats, which minority parties say is a sham. They state defiantly that election results have been manipulated. The Democratic Party and other minority parties are up in arms. Gold, copper, zinc, iron and uranium mining will gross billions of dollars in Mongolia in the next ten years. These parties are desperate to secure power positions in determining the spread of wealth.

I walked to work after my coworker called mid-morning to let us know it’s safe to be out in daylight. The streets are unusually quiet. Most foreign embassies and all UN employees were told to stay home from work today. The senior department head of the Mongolian Academy of Science, a fellow Russian speaker, just stopped by my desk to chat.

“There must be,” he said, “equal levels of order, adherence to law, and human rights in Mongolia. Right now, we have none of these.” The violent masses, he said, were victims of poverty gaps. Left behind after business privatization, they rise up now not because of political ideology, but because they are poor and angry. This 30% of the population lives in an extremely rich nation but will likely never enjoy a share of the wealth.

I’m beginning to think that the state of emergency is not just in Ulaanbaatar, but anywhere poverty and hopelessness are left unchecked.

07.14.08: Calling All New Students!

About to begin your Master’s degree and The Monterey Institute this fall? Still have questions about student services, the housing search, or health insurance? Follow this link to learn about the online INFO sessions offered by Student Affairs during July and August. It’s the perfect opportunity to inquire about important issues in person (through web conferencing technology!) before you relocate to Monterey!   

Cheers!
The MIIS Facebook Team

If you missed it, here’s the link one more time…
http://www.miis.edu/saffairs_new_student.html

06.30.08: From Geneva, a New MIIS YouTube Playlist!

Courtesy of Professor Jean duPreez’s interviewing prowess, a new playlist – which features several current students discussing their International Professional Service Semester(IPSS) experiences with the United Nations in Geneva – has been added to our YouTube Channel. The IPSS program provides unique, flexible, and challenging opportunities for policy students to gain six months of in-field learning in return for 12 academic credits. Learn more here.   

Or access the entire YouTube playlist here!
And if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Monterey Institute YouTube Channel and explore our additional playlists!

Stay tuned until August for more news about returning students’ IPSS field experiences!

06.23.08: A Monterey Visit Day

Interested in learning more about the Monterey Institute?

You are invited to our upcoming Visit Day on Friday, July 18th from 12:30pm to 4:00pm. It is an excellent opportunity to meet faculty and current students, get firsthand information about our world-class academic offerings, explore financing options, and learn about housing and student life. For more information about this event, please open the following link:

Information about Visit Day

Registration is required. Please RSVP to the Admissions Office via email (admit@miis.edu) or phone (831-647-4123) by Tuesday, July 15th. We would love to see you there!

06.16.08: Our Facebook Team

Meet the MIIS Facebook Team

You may take it for granted that everything is on Facebook these days but in fact you’ll find that MIIS is pretty unusual in its efforts to use Facebook and other new technology to meet its students wherever they are. It doesn’t happen by itself – we have a great group of students that helped launch our Facebook presence last year and keep improving it day by day. From the best calendar of MIIS events to the best place for incoming students to get the inside scoop these are the people who make it happen – give them a little love when you see them around!!

DongYoung Shin:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=508188022

DongYoung graduated in June with an M.A. in International Environmental Policy. She is looking for the perfect non-profit think tank. In the meantime she is making it rain grant money for the Private Reserves Network – an NGO coordinating individuals and organizations interested in private conservation founded by MIIS graduates Nat Miller, Brooks Bonner and Alan Grundy.      

 

Jane Mazur:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=510146946

Jane also graduated in June with an MA in Translation and Localization Management. She has passed both of her two Translation Professional Exams for translation from English to Russian and Russian to English – that ain’t easy! She plans to work in the San Francisco Bay Area concentrating on localization and Russian language.  
Thanks Jane and DongYoung – and good luck!
(This wouldn’t have happened without you!)

 

Becky is in her 2nd year of a MA in International Policy Studies with a specialization in conflict resolution. She has taken the torch from Jane and DongYoung and one look at the discussion boards will tell you that she’s on top of her stuff! You have Becky to thank for the awesome new group for incoming students, but you’ll have to do it on an odd schedule – she’ll be checking in from London and various points throughout the Middle East for the rest of the summer.      

Chris Krauskopf:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=849820293

Chris is in his 2nd year of an MBA at MIIS Fisher School of International Business. People (mainly Jill Stoffers and Mary Linberger) tell him that he is supposed to think of ways that MIIS can reach it’s community through emerging social networks – it’s pretty good work but mostly he likes meeting friends from all over the world – on Facebook and in person.  
If you like MIIS being on Facebook then let us know – we’ll do our best to make it better and we’re happy to put you to work!!!      

– The MIIS Facebook Team