Supporting Your MIIS Experience

From: Office of the Institute VP <VPMIIS@middlebury.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2025 12:01 PM
To: MIIS Students <MIISStudents@middlebury.edu>
Subject: Supporting Your MIIS Experience 

Dear students,

We are approaching the September 15 add/drop date, at which point you may be making decisions about your future at MIIS. Given that, I wanted to address some questions that have arisen about the levels of support for your student experience over the remainder of your time at MIIS.

First, all of the channels of institutional support, financial and logistical, that augment and complement your core classroom experience will remain in place during the next two academic years. That includes, but is not limited to:

• Immersive learning grants
• Conflict Transformation Initiative awards
• Funding for conference travel
• Support for clubs and student organizations (with the help of your elected representatives from the Student Advocacy Council)
• Monterey-based career counseling and preparation from the Center for Advising and Career Services
• J-Term and Spring Semester Global Courses
• Professional Service Semester and Program Practicum experiences for course credit
• Fellowships and research assistant positions in MIIS’s research centers and initiatives
• Campus employment

If you have questions about how to access these resources and opportunities, please reach out to Associate Deans Ashley Arrocha, Gael Meraud, or Toni Thomas; any of them can answer your questions or connect you with other colleagues who can help.

Second, we are committed to maintaining the activities listed above at levels commensurate, and where possible, higher, than those provided the cohorts of MIIS students that preceded you. In fact, we are looking into events and activities that we have not mounted in recent years. One example: gatherings to bring together our alumni and current students and to celebrate the global MIIS community in these final two years of most of our degree offerings. And on-going community building activities will continue this and next year, on campus and online, for students, staff and faculty alike. 

Third, we will honor the scholarship commitments that we made to you at the time of your decision all the way through your degree completion at MIIS.  There will be no changes to the level of scholarship support. 

This year and next, a key priority for me is to embrace this educational community while we are still fortunate to live, work and study in its midst in its current form. And you are at the core of this community.

With best regards,

Jeff Dayton-Johnson