“We all loved him for his wit, insightfulness, and kindness, and we marveled at his immense knowledge and exquisite vision,” shares Professor Peter Shaw. Leo authored several notable books in the field of language learning, served as editor-in-chief of The Modern Language Journal and on the editorial boards of a number of different journals. Before joining the Monterey Institute in 1986, Leo taught at the University of Northern Iowa and in Britain, Peru, Mexico, Scandinavia and the Netherlands.

“Leo was one of the most creative thinkers in our profession in recent years,” says Professor Kathleen (Kathi) Bailey. “His research and writing influenced language teaching worldwide. In particular, his ideas about second language acquisition, oral proficiency interviewing, action research, chaos theory, ecological linguistics influenced the ways in which the profession has developed since the publication of his first book in 1988.”

Leo is remembered as “a great human being” and for his “unique combination of intellectual brilliance and empathetic compassion.” “I liked to think of Leo as our resident ‘modelologist,’” adds Kathi, “since he so often thought by drawing figures that represented concepts. Often in a TESOL-TFL faculty meeting when we were trying to hash out a complex issue, Leo would sit quietly and listen to the discussion while he sketched. Then he would show us what he had drawn and how the relationship among the issues we were debating could be better understood. He was a great scholar and a wonderful friend, and I miss him.”

Leo is survived by his wife, Aida Walqui, and his sons, Jantje and Marcus. You may honor his memory by making a donation to the Leo van Lier Lecture Series Fund.  Visit go.miis.edu/leovanlier for more information.

“Carl had an impact on so many lives during his almost forty years at the Institute and in the community,” says Dean Reneé Jourdanais of the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation and Language Education. “You really have no sense as to how far a person reaches until you see the outpouring of messages and thoughts that have come in from around the world.”

Carl’s colleague and former student Professor Barry Slaughter Olsen (MACI ’99) adds: “Carl was a pillar of the translation program. He was more passionate about translation and language than any person that I have ever met. He shared that passion for decades with his students and colleagues and has shaped the professional practice of translators and interpreters.” It is evident that Carl leaves behind a lasting legacy in every way at the Monterey Institute. As Barry says: “To say that he will be missed does not even begin to explain how his friends, family and students feel.”

“In addition to her teaching, Lydia loved to pursue three things above all: intellectual inquiry, social justice and time with friends and family,” says Professor Jacolyn Harmer (MAHS ’00), her former colleague and good friend. Jacolyn remembers her many conversations with Lydia fondly and remarks: “it was extraordinary: one would always leave a discussion with Lydia having discovered something new, often about oneself…”

Lydia is greatly missed by her many friends at MIIS. “Lydia was a natural ecologist, ahead of the times in the way she led her life, needing very little and leaving only the lightest of footprints” says Jacolyn, “and yet she left an indelible mark in the hearts of those who were lucky enough to get to know her well.”

Noel was chosen out of a large pool of applicants to receive a Fulbright scholarship for study in the United States, and the Monterey Institute’s degree program in International Environmental Policy was recommended to him as a source of practical training and skills to help him devise innovative solutions to complex problems. “I am really impressed with the diversity of classes, and the curriculum oriented towards finding solutions,” Noel says, adding that he really appreciates the strong relationship with faculty facilitated by the small class sizes.

“I did not expect to find such a strong sense of community,” he says with his warm smile, speaking of the unique Monterey Institute community. “That has been a really pleasant surprise.”

GSIPM Professor William Arrocha was invited to analyze the 2012 U.S. elections on the air on UNIVISION 67, a Spanish-language station whose coverage extends from San Jose to Santa Barbara and caters to the largest Hispanic population in Central California. Professor Arrocha makes frequent appearances on UNIVISION 67, and just a few weeks before election day, he moderated—with the assistance of translation and interpretation students Lauren Ames (MATI ’13), Jennifer Clowery (MATI ’13), Joshua Cristantiello (XXX ’##), and Caitlin Jones (MATI ’13) —the first formal Community Dialogue between the Salinas Police Chief, community leaders and over 220 Salinas residents.

Thanks to Eva Gross (MATLM ’10) for keeping us informed about the activities of alumnus Jon Ritzdorf (MATI ’01), who recently launched a new Web service called Geek2Geek, hosted by Acclaro (www.acclaro.com) and described as “Your direct line to Jon Ritzdorf, our in-house localization geek who wields the double-edged sword of language and computer smarts.” Jon also sometimes teaches Computer-Assisted Translation classes in our Translation and Interpretation Short Programs.

The first annual Grothe Peace Hike took place on November 4. Honoring the life and values of Dr. Peter Grothe, longtime Institute staff member and adjunct professor, a group of 12 hikers carried “Grothe Peace Stones” to place along the trail with a special wish for peace at Garzas Creek Trail in Carmel Valley. Hikers ranged in age from eight to 80 and included a student, a visiting scholar, a faculty member, an emeritus faculty member, a staff member, an alumnus, and President Sunder Ramaswamy and his wife Varna and son Srivats. The Grothe Peace Hike will be an annual event dedicated to global understanding, compassion and tolerance. International students will be especially encouraged to join the hike to celebrate the natural beauty of the Monterey Peninsula that Peter so appreciated.

Interesting fact we learned recently: almost half of the current staff of the translation and interpretation group at Honda R&D is made up of MIIS students and alumni! Better yet, Honda is one of the few employers to take full advantage of the entire range of skills we teach in our translation and localization management programs, from interpretation to computer-assisted translation to terminology work to post-editing of machine translation. (Thanks for the tip, Professor Uwe Muegge (MAT’98)!)

David Savignac (BA Language & Civilization – Russian ’66, MA Russian ’69) recently retired as the senior director of lexicography for SDL/Language Weaver, a world leader in the field of language technologies. While at Language Weaver, he specialized in providing machine translation lexicons for less commonly taught languages such as Hausa, Pashto, Dari, Bengali, Estonian, Slovak, Latvian, and Albanian. Five years earlier he retired from U.S. government service at the National Security Agency, at which time he was awarded the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal for his work as an internationally recognized expert in Soviet weaponry and for his role as the founder, director, and senior lexicographer at the Center for Applied Machine Translation.  “Dr. Dave” was the Institute’s student body president in 1965-1966 and taught an accelerated Latin course in his final years at the Institute. In his retirement he will be working on a translation of a medieval chronicle written in the Russian town of Pskov.

Michelle Mitchell (MBA ’95) and her husband Jonathan opened their Beverly Hills home in September to MIIS and Middlebury alumni and friends interested in learning more about the Frontier Market Scouts program. Forty people attended the event, which featured former Scouts Ravi Kurani (MBA ’11) and Megan Christenson (MBA ’12) describing their experiences working in India and Ecuador, respectively, followed by International Leadership Council member Amit Sharma (MBA ’02, MAIEP ’03), who described the Frontier Fund, a student-run impact investment fund.

TESOL-TFL Professor Peter DeCosta received an honor from the American Educational Research Association (AERA)—his doctoral dissertation, “The Power of Language Ideologies:  Designer Immigrants Learning English in Singapore,” was chosen as the dissertation of the year by the Second Language Special Interest Group of AERA. As a result, Professor DeCosta will be a featured presenter at AERA’s April meeting in San Francisco.

Professor Michel Gueldry and student James Knuckles (MBA ’12) spent last year working on a Directed Study of French and Sustainability Studies.  They wrote a joint paper entitled “Promoting Products Sustainability through Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)” which was published in the September issue of VertigO, a French language journal focusing on science and the environment from the University of Quebec. “In this article,” explains Professor Gueldry, “we propose a way to analyze the impact of a product’s life cycle on the triple bottom line (social, environmental, and economic).”

Sarah DeMola (MATESOL ’12) and Maggie Steingraeber (MATESOL ’12) spent three and a half months last summer and fall in India, successfully developing and implementing English language learning and teacher training programs at S.K. University as well as at the Ahmedabad Management Association. They were also involved in several community outreach programs as a component of their service learning projects. Writing back to their “beloved” TESOL professors, Sarah and Maggie reported that “We have met and developed wonderful relationships with students and faculty alike from the colleges we worked at… we have grown tremendously personally, linguistically, and professionally. We incorporate much of your teachings into our everyday lives and you are all part of our thoughts… thank you again for everything you have taught us.” The internships Sarah and Maggie undertook were established by MIIS alumna Tarana Patel (MATESOL ’02), whose grandparents founded S.K. University.

Jennifer Clowery (MATI ’13) was awarded the American Translators Association’s JTG Scholarship, one of the most prestigious student awards recognizing excellence in scientific and technical translation or interpretation.

GSIPM Dean Yuwei Shi is one of the 20 “Pathfinders” featured on iOnPoverty.tv, a website dedicated to helping young people “find your own path to a career with a conscience.” The Pathfinders are a diverse group of change leaders whose on-camera advice for aspiring social change agents is being shared across 35 channel distribution partners; the videos are viewed by 6,000 visitors monthly

Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program (MonTREP) Director Russell Howard (MBA ’74)—whose appointment was noted in the last issue of Communiqué—had an op-ed piece published in the Washington Times on November 5. In the piece, Brig. Gen. (ret) Howard argues that Islamist terrorist groups remain a real danger to the U.S

While in Seattle attending POD Network Conference, Digital Learning Commons Director Bob Cole (MATESOL ’96) and GSTILE Professor Peter Shaw took advantage of the opportunity to catch up with local alumni Jason Beloso (MAIEP ’03), Amy Burge (MATESOL ’01) and Jennifer Russell (MATESOL ’00). It was quite a web of connections in the room: Jen and Bob ran a pre-conference workshop together, Amy and Jason are a “MIIS Match” who met in Monterey, and Bob, Amy and Jen were all part of the TESOL program at the same time!

In the realm of publications, GSIPM Assistant Professor Maha Baimyrzaeva‘s book Institutional Reforms in the Public Sector: What Did We Learn? was issued in November.  The Army War College published GSIPM Associate Professor and MonTREP Senior Researcher Jeffrey M. Bale’s 160-page monograph, Jihadist Cells and “IED” Capabilities in Europe: Assessing the Present and Future Threat to the West, in its Strategic Studies Institute monograph series. Professor Wei Liang celebrated the publication of her book China and East Asia’s Post-Crisis Community: A Region in Flux with Faizullah Khilji (Lexington, 2012). And in January, CNS Senior Fellow Ward Wilson debuted his myth-busting tome Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013).

In November, reporter Joseph Audette of consumer-oriented financial news site Nerdwallet spotlighted the Fisher International MBA program and the Frontier Market Scouts program as examples of innovative leadership programs at MBA schools, calling it “[o]ne of the most unique and innovative programs I came across.” The Fisher program is also a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society, and inducts the top 15% of graduates by cumulative GPA each spring to membership in this society. This past spring, the MBA program achieved 100 percent membership acceptance, meaning that the MIIS chapter is considered a Premier Chapter by BGS.

In addition to his collaboration with David Vielhaber (MANPTS’11) (see article on p. #), Professor Philipp Bleek also recently co-authored an article in Insight Turkey (“Turkish-Iranian Relations: From ‘Friends with Benefits’ to ‘It’s Complicated’”) with Aaron Stein (MAIPS ’10). Finally, Professor Bleek sent in a great photo of himself at the Milken Institute’s annual conference, serving on a very distinguished panel with (left to right) Gen. (ret) Peter Chiarelli, former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army; Jamie Rubin, former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs; Gen. (ret) Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO; and Matt Spence, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East. Professor Bleek is second from left in the photo (smiling, as he should be!).

On November 29, Director of the National Ocean Economics Program Judith Kildow and CBE Director Jason Scorse co-authored a New York Times op-ed piece (“End Federal Flood Insurance”) advocating radical reform of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and rethinking of coastal development in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Their essay sparked a lively debate running over 475 comments, addressing issues that were discussed widely once again when additional funding for the NFIP became a point of contention in the U.S. House of Representatives in early January.

Just a week later on December 6, Fortune magazine was the platform for a provocative opinion piece authored by Professor Scorse (“Cheap Gas Hurts the Middle Class”). His essay argues that the relatively low gas tax in the U.S. actually hurts the middle class, by reducing federal revenue available to support social safety net programs that are common in Europe, such as universal healthcare, low-cost daycare, and free or low-cost university education. In between, on November 30, Professor Scorse was a guest on CBS news radio WPHT in Philadelphia, discussing coastal management.

November also saw publication of a highly-anticipated report on ocean management in New Zealand authored by Professor Michael McGinnis of the International Environmental Policy program. Professor McGinnis’ report, “Ocean Governance: The New Zealand Dimension Full Report,” was funded by the Emerging Issues Programme overseen by the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Its primary goal was to provide the public and policymakers with an overview and description of the types of principles, planning tools and policy instruments that can be used to strengthen and improve marine governance in New Zealand. The summary report released in May received wide media attention in New Zealand.

Before a packed audience in Irvine Auditorium, Ban called on governments and citizens alike to address the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. To that end, Ban noted the role played by the Insitute and its James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) in promoting nonproliferation education.

“The world needs you skills and commitment, especially in advancing disarmament and nonproliferation,” he said, encouraging the students in the room to take up what he called “great causes” that are “part of my own personal and professional DNA.” Ban, the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations, has often talked about how growing up during a time of war on the Korean peninsula led him to a career in international diplomacy.

“The world is over-armed. Peace is under-funded,” said Ban, sounding a theme that permeated his remarks, which were framed around an update to his five-point plan on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. “The world spends more on the military in one month than it does on development all year.”

Delivering a stern warning to Syria regarding its chemical weapons, he called the possible use of such weapons “an outrageous crime with dire consequences.” On Iran, Ban stated that “I am deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear program… Iran must fully comply with relevant Security Council resolutions.”

Underscoring the significance of nonproliferation education, Ban stressed that “Education can help the world to build a global culture of peace that rejects all weapons of mass destruction as illegitimate and immoral,” and specifically cited the Institute’s “innovative teaching methods,” which rely heavily on simulations and role-playing.

At the conclusion of his address, the Secretary-General engaged in a question and answer session, responding to queries from the audience about tensions on the Korean peninsula, the US military’s use of military drones, and his advice for MIIS students who want to make a difference on nonproliferation issues. The proceedings were interpreted by Monterey Institute conference interpretation students in Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Korean.

Before his address, the Secretary-General met privately with President Sunder Ramaswamy and CNS Founding Director Dr. William Potter and posed for a photo with students in the Institute’s Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies program. Ban also extended a formal welcome to the Institute on its joining the United Nations Academic Impact initiative, which calls on institutions of higher education to join the UN in actively supporting 10 universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, literacy, sustainability, and conflict resolution.

In his public welcome for the Secretary-General, Ramaswamy noted the Institute’s “long history of close collaboration with the United Nations,” adding that it is “difficult to walk the halls of the UN for any length of time without becoming acquainted with one of our alumni,” including interpreters, translators, diplomats, nonproliferation experts, NGO representatives and others. The Institute counts more than 150 alumni currently working for the United Nations and associated agencies.

In November 2009, the Institute signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN making the Institute’s translation and interpretation program one of nine in the world—and the only one in the Western Hemisphere—that the UN has chosen to partner with to promote the development of future translation and interpretation professionals.

The Secretary-General’s visit earned wide attention in the local media and on social media, with the UN tweeting a series of quotes and links to its 1.2 million followers. The speech was also live-streamed to thousands of viewers, and remains viewable online at go.miis.edu/unsg.

Among the 2013 offerings was the ever popular “Chile Practicum: Transitional Injustice and Chile’s Vulnerable Populations” led by Professor Jan Black with Judge Juan Guzman, best known as the prosecutor of Chile’s General Pinochet.  In another course, Professor Pushpa Iyer led a group of students through an exploration of the cultural, social and political history of her home state of Gujarat, India.

Students could also choose to participate in real-life development projects as part of the well-established Team Peru, founded and run by MIIS alumni Aaron Ebner (MPA ’11) and Adam Stieglitz (MPA ’11). Team El Salvador offered Hanna Muegge (MAIEP ’14) “a new adventure every day.” She recommends the experience for all MIIS students and says she was “positively surprised by the Salvadoran kindness, natural beauty, and emotional history.”

The Monterey campus was also bustling this January with students taking professional training courses such as the Development Project Management Institute and the Frontier Market Scouts training, as well as those participating in the inaugural MiddCORE@Monterey (see photo on p. #).

A new offering this year is the Ocean Leadership Practicum led by Professor Jeffrey Langholz for M.A.R.I.N.E., a collaboration of seven Monterey Bay academic campuses. As Professor Langholz describes the groundbreaking course, “Twenty students, seven schools, 11 trainers, and 14 skills that ocean champions said were most critical to their success. This sets a whole new standard for marine education.” In a clear statement of support for the quality of education offered in the practicum, Stanford has committed to fund and implement “big ideas” that students developed during the course.

The photo shows MiddCORE@Monterey students with MIIS professors Kent Glenzer and Alfredo Ortiz and Catherine Collins, associate director of MiddCORE.

In Andrea’s own words: “I teach the science of the body and the science of place. Perception is at the core: the ways we perceive shapes who we are and what we think is real.” We could also call that teaching us to go back to our roots—our body, the core of who we are—before setting out to “be the solution.”  Andrea says both Middlebury and Monterey Institute students are what she calls “doers”—people who intend to have an impact on the world, take on roles of leadership and use what they learn to drive change.  Her “embodiment” work offers skills aimed directly toward fulfilling those goals.

Andrea herself takes on challenges with a positive attitude and determination that is nearly impossible to resist. In January she brought the Dance Company of Middlebury to Monterey for two performances that were part of their 30th anniversary California tour, including an outdoor performance of Compass: an original Site Work in the Samson Student Center courtyard. She is also confident enough to arrive in Monterey with the same open mind she is known for on the Vermont campus, willing to be guided by her students’ interests.  Her teachings revolve around what connects us as humans, rather than what separates us, and she starts with our own bodies, pointing out that “the body is our first language; communication is a whole-body event.” At the Monterey Institute we are looking forward, with our minds open, to an exciting spring semester.