Faculty in the Field

A professor and several students discuss sustainability issues along the shoreline at a beach in Monterey Bay.

In addition to their academic expertise, our faculty have professional experience in major organizations around the world. They bring a genuine commitment to the success of our students as mentors and colleagues.

Meet some of the faculty whose experience in the field comes to life in the classroom:

Jeffrey Langholz discusses sustainability. Play

Jeff Langholz

Professor, International Environmental Policy
As a young Peace Corps volunteer, Langholz learned a lifelong lesson about sustainable practices.

My name’s Jeff Langholz, and I’m a professor here at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey. And when I was in my 20s, I was serving as a US Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. I was living in a little village in the middle of the jungle with about 30 families living in mud huts.

And it came time to grow crops. And so the villagers went out and they started cutting down the rainforest with their machetes and then burning it. And I tried to stop them. I said, wait, don’t burn down the rainforest, it’s so beautiful. These are the lungs of the planet.

Look at all the monkeys and parrots and wildlife. How can you do this?

And the villagers politely ignoring me while the forest went up in smoke. A short while later, a time of year came that they called the hungry season, when there wasn’t enough food to go around. And during this time people were dying, especially the very old and the very young who were weakest. And one day, a mother and father brought their son to me, a little two-year old boy who was almost dead. They handed him to me and asked if I could save their two-yea-old son who is dying of malnourishment.

And I looked at this boy, and he was so weak he couldn’t speak, but his eyes were looking at me as if to say, please help me. I know I’m dying, can you do something, please? And that boy died right there in my arms. And the next time it came to go out to cut the rainforest to grow food, I was leading the charge.

Instead of saying don’t cut the rainforest, I was out there with a machete cutting down as much forest as I could. We’re gonna cut down forests, we’re gonna grow so much food. Nobody’s dying on my watch, especially no little kids dying in my arms. And since that day, I’ve realized that we need to figure out how to sustainably on the earth.

How can we have it all? How can we have our human needs for food, clothing, shelter, economic development but also take care of these natural resources that sustain us? And I’ve been on a quest for sustainability ever since. And that’s what we do at Monterey every day.

Laura Burian discusses how studying language changed the course of her career and academic future. Play

Laura Burian

Professor, Translation and Interpretation
When Burian decided to study language on a whim, it changed the course of her career and academic future.

My name is Laura Burian, I’m a professor of Chinese and English Translation and Interpretation here at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. I started studying Chinese in college pretty much on a whim because I was curious to learn about something that was completely different. And I really had no idea what I was gonna do if I mastered it with Chinese language skills.

I was living and working in Taiwan for a couple years after college, and I saw a sign with an advertisement for the institute. And I decided, lets give this a try, lets see if this is a good way to professionalize my language skills, and I had no idea what a wonderful and exciting career path it would take me on.

I ended up with opportunities as a freelance translator interpreter to learn about all kinds of different fields, to work with people ranging from CEOs of major corporations to the leaders in the government, leaders in the private industry, leaders in the film industry. Things of that sort that I definitely would not have predicted as a student.

And for me, coming back here to teach has been wonderful. It’s been great for me to be able to share my experiences with students and help them to see what they can do with the skills that they’re picking up here. And it’s also wonderful for me to see where the students actually take them.

For me when a student will call me up, and ask for mid career advice, and let me know everything that he or she has done, it’s very humbling, and it’s an honor to see that this time at the institute has started them on career paths. Whether they’re working as interpreters for major international organizations or as translators for really important documentation, it really is wonderful to see that they are making a difference and that they are excited about their careers.

So for me as a teacher, it doesn’t get better than that.

Anna Vassilieva discusses seeing potential in her students taching in a village school near Leningrad. Play

Anna Vassilieva

Professor, Russian Studies
As a young but demanding teacher in a village school near Leningrad, Vassilieva saw something remarkable in her students.

My name is Anna Vassilieva, and I’m a professor of Russian studies here at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. I began teaching at the age of 21, and my first year of teaching was at a small school not far from Leningrad. I was a demanding young teacher, I wanted my students to be able to recite Shakespeare sonnets by heart.

I wanted them to read Hemingway, and Steinbeck, and Jack London, and Goldsworthy. And they were wonderful, but at some point I had to go visit them at home in the class which I supervised. And it was a shock to me, it was a real culture shock because I assumed that everyone of those kids grew up like I grew up.

With libraries, and caring loving parents, and what I saw in many cases, were huts where my students had to share space with hens, roosters, or pigs. Many of them had drunken fathers, I knew that they were alcoholics. The environment that I couldn’t even imagine would help them study and be good students, yet every day they were coming prepared.

I’ve been teaching in the United States here at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey for 25 year now. And that first year of teacher at that small village school has stayed with me as an inspiration. Because I want my American students, graduate students here to be as inquisitive, and as passionate about learning as those kids in the small Soviet village were.

And they are, I’m very proud of my students. And when I enter the classroom, when I work with them, I always think that my story, my life story serves in a way an inspiration to them. And the way they perceive and take it, and what they do with that, is an inspiration to me.

Philipp Bleek talks about the importance of negotiation and communication skills when overcoming barriers. Play

Philipp Bleek

Professor, Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies
Bleek learned firsthand the importance of negotiation and communication skills when overcoming barriers.

My name is Philipp Bleek, and I’m a Professor in the Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies program here in Monterey at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. In 2012-13, I had a really remarkable opportunity to take a leave from Monterey to go serve in the federal government in Washington D.C.

Maybe the most important thing that I did while I was in government was to staff an interagency group focused on Syrian chemical weapons. Doing that effectively required overcoming a lot of barriers. There were barriers within the Pentagon, where I worked. There were barriers between the Pentagon and other agencies, including the State Department.

And maybe, most critically, there were barriers between the US government and other governments, most crucially, the Russia Federation, with whose officials I had a chance to negotiate as part of a White House delegation. And in all those cases, overcoming barriers hinged on empathy, and respect and camaraderie at least as much as it hinged on cold headed calculations of shared interests.

That experience has been hugely relevant for my teaching, for my research, and, also, for the policy work that I do now that I’m back here in Monterey. So I try to remind my students that grad school is, not only a chance to build skills and expertise, but it’s a chance to learn to play well with others.

That sounds warm and fuzzy, but that turned out to be a really crucial factor in our ability to deal with the threat of Syrian chemical weapons effectively. The world can be a pretty ugly and dysfunctional place. But the way in which individual human beings are able to find ways to overcome barriers and to work together on the Syrian chemical weapons issue is something that gives me hope.

Glenzer discusses his role as a development professional. Play

Kent Glenzer

Professor, MBA, MPA, and International Policy and Development 
Glenzer learned from one of the best to be an exemplary development professional.

Hi, my name is Kent Glenzer and I’m the Dean of the Graduate School of International Policy and Management here at the Middlebury Institute. And I want to tell a story from my past that shaped my career as a development professional and who I am as a teacher.

It was back in the 80s, I was just out of a Peace Corp and my wife just got got a job back in Mali with USAID. And so the first couple of weeks there, I pounded the pavement for a local hire job. And finally secured a position as executive assistant with Sandy Lomark, the country director of CARE International in Bamako.

Over 18 months, Sandy introduced me to the business of international development. I worked a bit in procurement, in finance, in donor relations, in programming, in communications, even going out to the field to manage sub-offices. As a mentor, Sandy was unyielding in her perfectionism toward me, but also exhibiting a lot of compassion and encouragement.

She invited me to engage with her as an equal and then was very precise and specific at the moments where I wasn’t quite up to that task yet. That single relationship made my career, 30 years of working on questions of poverty, social justice, and human rights largely in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Four years ago I changed careers and came to the Institute and I think of Sandy a lot. Because Sandy’s job with me, wasn’t to replicate herself through me, but to make me a better development professional than she had ever been. That’s my job in the classroom here, to make every student that comes into the classroom a better development professional than I ever was.

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Our professors are regularly sought after by leading news outlets for their insights on current affairs. Read more In the News.