As we work to build a cohesive community of professionals collaborating to achieve common goals, effective communication to and among faculty and staff is an indispensible ingredient for success.

This summer, Beth McDermott and Amy McGill convened a focus group of MIIS employees to learn more about how people perceive communications on campus, and how communications might be improved.

MIIS@work* grew out of that conversation.

Because we know that most MIIS employees are too busy to check a blog for news on a regular basis, we plan to email all faculty and staff a linked list of the latest stories once a week.

The blog also includes a list of links to online resources useful to MIIS employees, including the blogs published by student services and the library.

Because we learned from the focus group that there is a strong need for more information about Middlebury, and its evolving relationship with MIIS, we have included links to several Middlebury blogs, including those of the president and provost.

Communication, though, is more than just information transmission.  We need to hear your voices.  Anyone is welcome to become a contributor. Your contributions don’t all have to be traditional “news items.”  Do you have ideas about how we can strengthen the Institute and make it a more vibrant and innovative place to work?  Is there a special person or achievement you would like us all to celebrate? Your colleagues want to hear your stories!

If you want to learn how to post directly to the blog, just let us know.  If you would rather email your contributions to Amy , she’ll make sure they get posted.  You can comment on any existing post by clicking the “comments” link below the title of the post.

* Thanks to Devin Lueddeke for naming our blog!