Adnan Al-Hammody addresses his classmates at spring commencement.

Student speaker Adnan Adel Al-Hammody (MATESOL ’13) had a request for the crowd gathered for spring commencement on Saturday: “If you would like to know more about where I am from, please don’t Google it.” Adnan’s hometown is Mosul, Iraq, and he was referring to the images of a war-torn city that would pop up in your search in place of the beautiful, ancient city that he knows well, a city where people of diverse ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds have lived in harmony for centuries.

Adnan was one of the first students to receive a scholarship from the Higher Committee for Education Development in the Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office, allowing him and two other Iraqi students to attend the Monterey Institute beginning in fall 2010. “When I learned that I had received the scholarship and been accepted to the Monterey Institute, I shouted ‘YESSSS’ into the phone and thanked Allah that my dream had come true,” said Adnan.

He said that during his nearly three years in Monterey (including an English language preparation course before he matriculated into the TESOL program), he has learned so much, not only about the field of language teaching, but also about other cultures and how important it is to share your own. “I learned that stereotypes are misleading and can ruin relationships, between people and between nations,” he says, adding that his perception of the United States has changed a lot and for the better.

He is now looking forward to returning home to Iraq, where he will start teaching English at a university as part of his scholarship agreement. “I really miss my family—my father and my four older sisters and one brother and thirteen nieces and nephews!” Professionally, he plans to seek out like-minded people in the university and be an agent of positive change: “I really believe that MIIS graduates have all the right skills and experience to ‘be the solution’ and I want to do my part.”

Spring Commencement at the Monterey Institute of International Studies on Saturday, May 18, 2013C

The sounds of joy and good cheer could be heard across downtown Monterey on Saturday May 18 as friends and family of 284 Monterey Institute students hailing from 31 countries gathered to celebrate their achievements at 2013 Spring Commencement.  The ceremony took place on the broad lawn in front of Colton Hall, the original capitol building of the state of California. 

In her address to the graduates, commencement speaker and former Monterey Institute president Dr. Clara Yu called her appearance “a very emotional homecoming for me.” Yu was president at MIIS from 2006 through 2008, playing a key role in strengthening the school and preparing it to become a graduate school of Middlebury College, where she previously served as a professor of Chinese and vice president for languages. After a warm welcome from a crowd of 1,800 students, faculty, staff, alumni and family members, Yu exhorted the graduates to be generous—with words and things, with their minds and actions, and with themselves. 

Look for more coverage of commencement, including features on student speaker Adnan Adel Al-Hammody and Alumni Achievement Award recipients William Godnick, Sylvio Baltodano, and Amaury Cooper, in the week ahead.

Spring Commencement at the Monterey Institute of International Studies on Saturday, May 18, 2013C

The sounds of joy and good cheer could be heard across downtown Monterey on Saturday May 18 as friends and family of 284 Monterey Institute students hailing from 31 countries gathered to celebrate their achievements at 2013 Spring Commencement.  The ceremony took place on the broad lawn in front of Colton Hall, the original capitol building of the state of California. 

In her address to the graduates, commencement speaker and former Monterey Institute president Dr. Clara Yu called her appearance “a very emotional homecoming for me.” Yu was president at MIIS from 2006 through 2008, playing a key role in strengthening the school and preparing it to become a graduate school of Middlebury College, where she previously served as a professor of Chinese and vice president for languages. After a warm welcome from a crowd of 1,800 students, faculty, staff, alumni and family members, Yu exhorted the graduates to be generous—with words and things, with their minds and actions, and with themselves. 

Look for more coverage of commencement, including features on student speaker Adnan Adel Al-Hammody and Alumni Achievement Award recipients William Godnick, Sylvio Baltodano, and Amaury Cooper, in the week ahead.

As some of you are aware, plans to upgrade MIIS iLearn to Moodle 2+ are well underway. This Spring a pilot of the newer  Moodle has been going well with a handful of faculty members and their courses.

We are preparing to complete the campus-wide upgrade to the Moodle 2+ in the coming weeks.  This switch is currently scheduled to take place Monday, June 3, 2013.  We do not anticipate interruption of service for current iLearn 1.9 or pilot Moodle 2+ users.  On June 3rd at roughly 8:00am, the current url for iLearn, http://ilearn.miis.edu will point directly to the upgraded version of Moodle 2+.

2011-2013 iLearn Course Archive
All courses from the past two years (academic years 2011 through Summer 2013) will reside at http://ilearn19.miis.edu after June 3.  A link to the new archive server will be visible from the main iLearn site.

Tuesday, May 21 Server Maintenance
Please note that in preparation for the integration of centralized authentication services on the Moodle 2 pilot, the current Moodle 2 pilot will be briefly offline for maintenance on Tuesday, May 21st, from 9am – 11am.

Rollover Requests for Fall 2013
Additionally, we have implemented an improved iLearn Course Rollover Request page. We are now accepting Fall 2013 requests and expect to begin fulfilling these requests by July 1st, if not sooner!

Future iLearn Bulletins
Our team will continue to keep you updated and informed in future bulletins on some of the following topics:

• new features available in iLearn Moodle 2+
• handling of Fall 2013 course rollover requests
• Face-to-Face and web-based information sessions to get you acquainted with the upgrade

Some features to look forward to in iLearn 2+ include:

• Drag and drop file upload
• Drag and drop resource and block editing
• Simplified resource adding interface
• Support for viewing via mobile devices
• More robust internal course navigation and the “awesomebar”

Thanks for your support, and have a great summer!

MIIS Helpdesk & the DLC

The new CNS Building at 499 Van Buren Street on the Monterey Institute campus.

The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) formally celebrated the opening of its new headquarters at 499 Van Buren Street in Monterey at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 14. The 10,500 square-foot building was acquired by Middlebury College on behalf of the Monterey Institute from the law firm of Horan, Lloyd, Karachale, Dyer, Schwartz, Law and Cook, and has undergone significant renovations. It occupies the northeast corner of Van Buren and Jefferson Streets, just down the block from the Samson Student Center at the center of the campus.

CNS is the largest nongovernmental organization in the United States devoted exclusively to research and training on nonproliferation issues. Its reputation and operations have grown steadily since 1989 when MIIS professor Dr. William Potter founded CNS with a handful of students. Today CNS has offices in Monterey, Washington D.C. and Vienna, Austria, and had long since outgrown its old offices at 400 Pacific Street. Happy CNS staff members showed guests at the opening around the new headquarters, including spacious offices, a large seminar room, and a dedicated videoconference facility.

The new CNS Building at 499 Van Buren Street on the Monterey Institute campus.

The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) formally celebrated the opening of its new headquarters at 499 Van Buren Street in Monterey at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 14. The 10,500 square-foot building was acquired by Middlebury College on behalf of the Monterey Institute from the law firm of Horan, Lloyd, Karachale, Dyer, Schwartz, Law and Cook, and has undergone significant renovations. It occupies the northeast corner of Van Buren and Jefferson Streets, just down the block from the Samson Student Center at the center of the campus.

CNS is the largest nongovernmental organization in the United States devoted exclusively to research and training on nonproliferation issues. Its reputation and operations have grown steadily since 1989 when MIIS professor Dr. William Potter founded CNS with a handful of students. Today CNS has offices in Monterey, Washington D.C. and Vienna, Austria, and had long since outgrown its old offices at 400 Pacific Street. Happy CNS staff members showed guests at the opening around the new headquarters, including spacious offices, a large seminar room, and a dedicated videoconference facility.

The second presentation was for the members of the Indian American Muslim Council. The webinar was attended by over 50 members all over the US and was titled Gandhi’s Gujarat or Modi’s Gujarat?: Reflections from the Field. Four students and Prof. Iyer presented at this webinar.

Also in March, Prof. Iyer and a student spoke on Gujarat in a KPFA radio show. (Segment begins at minute 38.)

The Office of Student Services and the Animal Friends Rescue Project (AFRP) in Pacific Grove recently collaborated to bring foster dogs to the Monterey Institute campus for that very purpose. On Thursday, May 9th, Student Services hosted the on-campus “Puppy” Room, taking part in a national trend happening at schools across the country. The AFRP brought nine dogs to campus for a two-hour period to help students relax and de-stress.

Animal therapy is a growing trend at many academic institutions as studies have shown the positive benefits to interacting with four-legged friends range from stress relief to improved concentration. Megan Joyce, Assistant Director for Student Life Activities, organized the event and said, “We had a great response from students for the event; it gave people an opportunity to do something fun and get away from finals stress for a few moments.”

The volunteers from the AFRP, including MIIS student Kayla Gilchrest, commented that this is their most successful event to date! Over 150 students came to the Holland Center to play, hug, and visit with the dogs. Student response to the dogs was positive with comments ranging from a relieved “thank you,” to “this is great!”

The “Puppy” Room was the finale to a week of stress reduction events organized for students by Student Services and the Student Council that included free massages, coffee in the library, and a stretching and relaxation workshop.