When: Saturday, May 18, 1:00 – 3:00PM
Where: Lawn of Colton Hall, 570 Pacific St Monterey, CA 93940
Come support and celebrate graduates of the spring 2013 semester.
Archive for category MIIS Update
Spring 2013 Commencement
May 13
One of the best crops of the spring for Monterey Institute students and their many faculty and staff supporters on campus is the thick envelopes announcing awards for fellowships and scholarships that arrive in the mail this time of year. The yield for 2013 was remarkable!
Three Monterey Institute students will be continuing research in their chosen fields on the highly competitive and prestigious Fulbright scholarships:
* Annie Rouse (MAIEP ’13) will work on hemp-related issues in Canada.
* Sam Fielding (MAIEP ’13) will study Chinese and environmental issues in China.
* Tina Rose Novaro (MPA ’11) will be conducting research in the Philippines based on work she started with Team Peru.
MIIS graduate Amanda Sackett (MAIEP ’12) was among thirteen 2013 California Sea Grant Fellows in marine policy and resource management, a very prestigious honor. Amanda will work at the Ocean Protection Council. Each State Fellow receives a stipend of $3,300 per month for up to a year.
Ronald Craft (MANPTS ’13) was awarded a much-sought-after Presidential Management Fellowship, providing two years of employment as part of a highly selective leadership development program for potential government leaders.
Two Monterey Institute students were also awarded Boren Fellowships, providing up to $30,000 to U.S. graduate students to add an important international and language component to their education through specialization in area study, language study, or increased language proficiency. Sarah E. Norris (MANPTS ’14) will be going to Russia and Morgan Tucker (MPA ’14) to Brazil. Two other MIIS students were chosen as alternates: Carmen Paraison (MAIPS ’14) and Kay Park (MANPTS ’13).
Another four MIIS students will receive Critical Language Scholarships from the U.S. State Department, providing fully funded summer language institutes for U.S. university students. Gabriella Abrego (MAIPS ’14) and Heather Frank (MAIEM ’14) will study Chinese in China, Shane Mason (MANPTS ’14) will study Urdu in India, and Jennifer Tribble (MANPTS ’14) will be going to Oman to study Arabic.
Master Plan Town Hall Video
May 10
This Town Hall, led by Provost Amy Sands and Executive Director of Finance, Business Services, and Administration Jai Shankar, provides the MIIS community an update on efforts to develop a new Master Plan for the MIIS campus and seek feedback, ideas, and input from members of our community concerning the “MIIS campus of the future.”
As President Ramaswamy said in his email kicking off this initiative: “The development of a Master Plan is a momentous task for the Institute. It will provide the physical parameters within which we shape our future, and thus must reflect our vision of what we want to become as a graduate professional school offering globally focused education and training radiating from an iconic central presence in Monterey.”
The following Monterey Institute of International Studies students have been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to study critical needs languages during the summer of 2013:
Gabriella Abrego (Chinese)
Heather Frank (Chinese)
Shane Mason (Urdu)
Jennifer Tribble (Arabic)
These students are among the approximately 610 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students (elected from 5000 applicants) who received a scholarship to spend seven to ten weeks in intensive language institutes this summer in one of 13 countries to study Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, or Urdu.
Monterey Institute student Jessica “Jessy” Bradish (MAIEP/MBA ’13) received the 2013 Student Innovator Award at the Monterey Bay Regional Business Plan Competition last Friday. ”Winning the Student Innovator Award was a wonderful culmination of my joint Masters in International Environmental Policy and Business Administration,” says Jessy.
The award winning business plan is for ShowerPonic Produce, offering organically-grown produce and fish through environmentally friendly aquaponic procedures. Jessy’s award did not surprise the many friends and supporters who have followed her idea since inception as she developed it and presented at MiddCORE@Monterey and the student-led Inn(ovation) Inc(ubator) she co-founded with Celena Aponte (MBA ’13) and Nate Shephens (MPA ’13). “We wanted to send a business idea through a competition as part of the Incubator initiative,” says Jessy, who managed to surprise herself. “I never thought I would win going into this semester, and now I am motivated and funded to move forward with my idea!”
The competition started in February with workshops throughout Monterey County, with final judging coming on Friday, May 3 after finalists presented their business plans at the Monterey Institute. Congressman Sam Farr announced the winners of the competition in the Irvine Auditorium.
Jessy is graduating this month and will use the $1,000 prize money and the multiple local business connections she has made through this process to add a spring to her career launch.
“Forever” is the answer we receive when we ask how long professor Kathi Bailey has graced the Monterey Institute with her intelligence, warmth, and undying passion for the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program. Since 1981 Kathi has shown exceptional dedication to her students, who many years later talk about the care packages she sent when they were off on their Peace Corps assignments, or how she still, years after graduation, “traipses around” in the heads of her former students when they are editing, writing grants or creating assessment tasks. Her many students as well as her colleagues at MIIS were happy to learn today that Kathi is the recipient of the 2013 Leslie Eliason Excellence in Teaching Award.
In her announcement, Provost Amy Sands wrote that “Professor Bailey has a record of excellence in teaching and an ongoing, inspiring commitment to providing our students the highest quality education possible. She has worked with countless students to ensure their success in both their academic and career objectives, and dedicated herself to building a strong community of excellence at MIIS.”
Professor Bailey embodies much of what Professor Eliason also dedicated her teaching efforts towards according to Provost Sands and the selection committee. “Leslie Eliason was a strong woman, dynamic and passionate about her chosen profession of teaching. She pursued her responsibilities as a teacher and mentor with great warmth and care for her students and colleagues, reflecting her intelligence, integrity, good humor, and commitment to quality in all of her endeavors.”
“Similarly,” says provost Sands, “Professor Bailey has dedicated her career at MIIS to building a world class TESOL/TFL program that delivers the highest quality education and prepares our students for their future careers in this field.” In addition to her impressive record in teaching, Kathi Bailey is also recognized widely “as a professional and expert in her field, working with colleagues at MIIS and in various organizations to enhance the programs and career opportunities in this area.”
Congratulations to Professor Kathi Bailey, who will also be the December 2013 commencement speaker.
The Committee also selected Professor Julie Johnson as the recipient of the Honorable Mention Award. Professor Johnson will receive a Certificate for Outstanding and Dedicated Teaching as well as a small cash award as way of recognizing her efforts.
Congratulations are in order to our ESL team for successfully becoming accredited by the Commission on English Language Program Accreditation (CEA)! The favorable decision is the culmination of over 2 years of effort and is a reflection of the quality language program that we have had on campus for over 40 years.
Thanks to everyone who in someway contributed to this success, whether it be by participating on a committee, writing sections of the report, providing input, working with the site reviewers, or simply providing us with emotional support needed through the process.
Special thanks to our wonderful team both at ESL and in GSTILE Language & Professional Programs for their significant work toward this accomplishment.
The Monterey Institute of International Studies and its James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) were pleased to learn recently that the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has awarded a grant of $118,900 to support a research project on “Nuclear Norms in Global Governance” to be co-led by Professor Avner Cohen of the Institute’s Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies program faculty and Professor Maria Rost Rublee, a senior lecturer at the Australian National University.
The project will examine the role of norms in global interactions and suggest a framework for employing them to help both understand and shape international policies related to nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear energy. The two-year project is expected to culminate in the publication of a book of scholarly articles on the topic co-edited by Professor Cohen and Professor Rublee, as well as a series of briefings for policy-makers in Washington, D.C; Vienna, Austria, and Canberra, Australia.
Also a senior fellow and education program director with CNS, Professor Cohen is best known for his work on nonproliferation issues in the Middle East, and more specifically Israel’s nuclear policy, about which he has written two highly regarded books (Israel and the Bomb in 1998 and The Worst Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb in 2010). Professor Cohen twice won the research and writing award of the MacArthur Foundation and was also twice a senior fellow at the USIP.
“My project co-director Maria Rublee and I are tremendously grateful to the U.S. Institute of Peace for supporting this important project,” commented Professor Cohen. “Our hope is that our work will ultimately offer new avenues for dialogue and research-based strategies for enhancing the international nonproliferation regime.”
When the world woke up Friday morning to the news that the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were from Chechnya, reporters were sent scrambling for experts on both terrorism and the Caucasus region. And that search quickly led them to the experts—and students—associated with Monterey Institute’s unique Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies (NPTS) program.
A story on Central Coast-area NBC/ABC affiliate KSBW featured interviews with Professor Sharad Joshi and a student who, by coincidence, had submitted a thesis proposal just a week before the incident in Boston suggesting that U.S. authorities should pay greater attention to Chechnya and the Caucasus region as potential sources of terrorism.
NBC Bay Area (KNTV) also sent a reporter and cameraperson down from San Jose to interview Professor Joshi, resulting in a story that highlighted very effectively the value and relevance of the NPTS program.
The Institute continues to be a primary source for local, national, and international media when events call for the unique expertise of faculty and staff; on the same day the above stories broke, Professor Ray Zilinskas was quoted in an Associated Press story about the letters containing ricin that were sent to President Obama and other government officials. The AP story was then republished by more than 200 outlets nationwide.
It’s National Library Week, and MIIS is celebrating in all sorts of unique ways!
- Bring your cup to enjoy hot coffee or tea in the library
- Stop by the circulation desk to participate in a “count the candy” contest
- Use your language skills to write your favorite poem celebrating National Poetry Month. Poems will be posted in the front lobby of the library. You can also post your poem on the library’s Facebook page
- Enjoy the Enso string quartet concert on the second floor of the William Tell Coleman library on Thursday, April 25th, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m, hosted by the Chamber Music Monterey Bay and the MIIS Library.