In Brief: Fall 2016

Sightings

›› The Institute welcomed Dr. Elaine Korzak as the new head of the Cyber Initiative as of July 1. Designed to provide an interdisciplinary platform to assess the policy impact of cyber issues on security, peace, and communications in international affairs, the Cyber Initiative was launched in spring 2013. Postdoctoral Fellow Korzak arrived fresh from fellowships with the Hoover Institution and the Center for International Security and Cooperation, both at Stanford University. She earned her PhD from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London in 2014. “When I started my PhD, there were only a handful of people working on cyber,” she says. “There is still a shortage of trained professionals, and I think anybody who comes out of graduate school wanting to shape cyber policy can have tremendous impact.”

›› Professors Laura Burian MATI ’98 and Barry Slaughter Olsen MACI ’99 led an all-MIIS team of interpreters supporting a high-level meeting of energy ministers from around the world in San Francisco in June. Described as an effort to “scale up clean energy and drive implementation of the Paris Agreement,” the meeting featured Burian and Olsen as leaders of a team interpreting between English and Chinese, French, Korean, Japanese, and Spanish. All interpreters at the meeting were either faculty or graduates of the Institute, or both.

›› A July 15 article in the New York Times highlighted the conclusion of a team of analysts from the Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) that said images the Russian government published as part of its investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine two years ago had been “significantly modified or altered.” Jeffrey Lewis, Melissa Hanham, Catherine Dill MANPTS ’13, and Dave Schmerler MANPTS ’15 of CNS analyzed the images using Tungstene, a suite of forensic software to detect alterations to images, which was provided by an anonymous donor.

›› Environmental policy alumnus Cameron Walker MAIEP ’10 wrote to tell us about his new position working in Yellowstone National Park as park operator Xanterra’s sustainability program manager. Walker is responsible for reducing the impact of 3,000 staff and 4.5 million annual park visitors by leading projects addressing energy and water efficiency, renewable energy, recycling and waste management, hazardous materials, fuel tank management, LEED construction, green procurement, and sustainable food. (In the last case, Walker is working with Idaho’s Bounty Cooperative, whose operations manager is classmate Mike Seaman MAIEP ’10.) Walker says, “It’s nice to be working in the place I am trying to protect,” and adds, “It’s been fun following (2010 MAIEP alumnus) Alan Lovewell’s (community-supported fishery) Real Good Fish.”

›› Professor Wallace Chen MATI ’95 shared the news that two of his former students—Cindy Tao MACI ’12 and Teresa Wang MAT ’10—and former classmate Pearl Lin MATI ’95 each played an important role as interpreters between Tsai Ing-Wen, the first female president of Taiwan, and various foreign dignitaries attending her inauguration in May.

 

Presentations

›› Veteran Russian journalist and author Vladimir Pozner offered a candid assessment of U.S.–Russian relations to students, faculty, staff, and community members in a September 7 public lecture in Irvine Auditorium. The host of the top-rated weekly current affairs program on Channel One, Russia’s largest television network, Pozner is a regular commentator on Russia and the history of the Cold War in Western media. He visited Monterey as a guest of the Institute’s Graduate Initiative in Russian Studies, led by Professor Anna Vassilieva, giving two lectures to students in Russian in addition to his public lecture in English.

›› An enthusiastic crowd of students, alumni, faculty, and staff members welcomed Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet at a September breakfast on campus, among them Congressman Sam Farr, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and Summer Intensive Language Program alumnus. Hessler-Radelet traveled to Monterey to meet with the Institute’s large community of Peace Corps volunteers, fellows, and Master’s International students. (Among the many deep ties between the two institutions: Professor Beryl Levinger, Development Practice and Policy program chair, founded the Peace Corps Fellows program.) Said Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Institute Jeff Dayton-Johnson, “It’s hard to imagine an organization whose mission and values are more closely aligned with the Institute’s than the Peace Corps.”

›› May was an especially busy month for CNS founding director, Dr. William Potter, who began the month by participating in a two-week Open Ended Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament in Geneva, moderating a discussion on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at a dinner hosted by Japan in honor of Dr. Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. Soon after that, Potter co-chaired a high-level task force on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and chaired the Third Annual Diplomatic Workshop hosted by the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, with guests including Yukiya Amano, International Atomic Energy Agency director general, and Nabil Fahmy, former Egyptian foreign minister. Finally, at the end of May, Potter participated in a high-level meeting in Moscow on the proposed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Free Zone in the Middle East, organized by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Center for Energy and Security Studies.

›› June found Nonproliferation Studies Professor Philipp Bleek traveling to Beijing as part of an American delegation led by former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair for the Track 1.5 China–U.S. Dialogue on Strategic Nuclear Dynamics, the highest-level dialogue the two countries currently have about the implications of nuclear weapons for their relationship. This was Bleek’s second time participating in that dialogue. Earlier in June, while visiting family, he gave a talk at a Toronto, Canada, public school, saying it was “really fun to engage a much younger audience!”

Awards and Achievements

›› Patricia Sours MATESOL ’94 recently received the Global Legal Skills Award in Verona, Italy, in recognition of her contributions to the field of Legal English. Sours and fellow professor Alison Riley were honored at the 2016 Global Legal Skills Conference for their years of dedicated teaching and the publication of two coauthored books, Legal English and the Common Law, and Common Law English and Grammar: A Contextual Approach. After over 20 years in Italy, Sours still uses tips and reminders shared by Professors Leo van Lier and Peter Shaw, and has fond memories of her time as a student in Monterey.

›› The Mike Mansfield Fellowship Program—named for the former U.S. Ambassador to Japan—was created to build a corps of U.S. government officials with substantial Japanese expertise and to carry out person-to-person exchanges between the U.S. and Japanese governments. Ben Foster MAIEP ’09, an energy industry analyst at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Policy and Innovation, was one of 10 U.S. officials chosen this spring to participate in the yearlong program. Foster left for Japan on July 1 for a seven-week training program in Ishikawa Prefecture, after which he began a 10-month work rotation in Tokyo at Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources.

 

Collaborations

›› A collaborative summer practicum course offered students at both the Institute and Middlebury College what participant Annathea Cook MAIPS ’16 described as “unprecedented access to industry leaders, policy makers, and trade associations” in China during a monthlong in-country immersive learning experience in June. The Engaging China through Field Research course was codeveloped and cotaught by Professor Wei Liang of the Institute with Professors Jessica Teets and Orion Lewis of the College. Classes on both campuses conducted policy debates and simulations and developed research projects in preparation for the group’s field research trip to China. A total of 22 students participated, 12 from Monterey and 10 from Middlebury.

›› The Institute welcomed foreign language faculty from all over the U.S. in June when the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL) brought its twice-yearly Summer Seminar to Monterey. The three-day, MIIS-hosted, Modern Language Association-sponsored conference offered the chairs of ADFL member departments the opportunity to share information and consult about issues facing their departments and the field of language instruction. Institute Board of Overseers Vice Chair Karen Stolley, a professor of Spanish at Emory University, is a trustee and 2016 president of the ADFL.

›› Graduate School of International Policy and Management Dean Kent Glenzer received a project award from the City of Monterey to complete a “Broad Based Asset Inventory” for the city. Covering human and knowledge capital, physical capital, financial capital, social capital, and natural capital, the inventory is considered to be one of the key elements of a future strategic and investment readiness plan for Monterey. The Institute is partnering with the Institute of Innovation and Economic Development at California State University Monterey Bay on the nine-month project, and this fall, a cohort of MIIS students is being trained to do participatory asset mapping.

›› The Institute’s International Trade and Economic Diplomacy degree program now offers a dual degree with the School of International Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China. Students in the dual degree program study both in Monterey and Beijing and earn master’s degrees from both schools.

 

Publications

›› The essay of student Anthony Musa MANPTS ’17 titled “It’s time to revitalize U.S.–Russian nuclear security cooperation” was published by Russia Direct in September, while Musa was in New York for a CNS internship at the United Nations.

›› Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, Haaretz, published an op-ed piece by Professor Avner Cohen titled “Nuclear Secrets and Lies: Petition Seeks to Move Israel’s Atomic Policy Out of the Shadows.” Cohen and Laura Rockwood, Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation executive director, both contributed to a set of analyses by U.S. and foreign experts of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (i.e., the Iran nuclear agreement) published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

›› In July, Professors Tsuneo Akaha and Anna Vassilieva coauthored an essay for the East Asia Forum titled “Cause for optimism in Russia–Japan relations?” Professor Akaha also authored a chapter in a book published to coincide with the Abe-Putin summit in Vladivostok this fall. The book was distributed to the Russian and Japanese delegations at the September summit.

›› Professor Robert Rogowsky, co-chair of the International Trade and Economic Diplomacy program, published an article in the Brown Journal of World Affairs on “Intellectual Property and the Trans-Pacific Partnership” and coauthored an article with Professor Li Juan Zhang MACD ’99 called “Challenges for the WTO in the New Global Trade Arena” in the University of International Business and Economics Journal.

›› The U.S. Department of State’s International Security Advisory Board published the report of a study group chaired by Executive Director for Research Centers and Initiatives Amy Sands titled “Report on International Security and Foreign Policy Implications of Overseas Disease Outbreaks.” The International Security Advisory Board was established to provide the State Department with independent insight and advice on various aspects of arms control, disarmament, international security, and nonproliferation.

›› Professor Netta Avineri coauthored two articles published in Anthropology News: “Interdisciplinary Collaborations around Language and Social Justice” in July, and “An Anthropolitical Critique of the ‘Language Gap’” in August. Avineri is a member of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology’s Committee on Language and Social Justice.

 

Passages

›› Longtime Institute faculty member and administrator Jon Strolle passed away on August 17. Strolle enjoyed a 25-year career at the Institute between 1985 and 2010, and prior to that served as the dean of the Spanish School at Middlebury College from 1976–1980. His long association with MIIS included many years as a professor of Spanish, as well as stints as associate provost, director of the Summer Intensive Language Program, and dean of the Graduate School of Language and Educational Linguistics. Prior to coming to Monterey, Strolle held administrative and teaching positions at Middlebury College, the State University of New York, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1968 after graduating magna cum laude from Oberlin College. Strolle was an accomplished and widely published scholar of language teaching and learning with a broad range of interests in related fields like distance learning and language policy. He will be missed by his many friends, colleagues, and former students in Monterey and around the world.