Clara Yu of Middlebury College will assume presidency of the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) on December 31, 2005. Administrators of two renowned institutions in international education, language teaching and cultural studies, Middlebury College and the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), signed an agreement on Friday, Dec. 2, that makes Monterey an affiliate of Middlebury.
Monterey's four graduate schools will be able to take advantage of the Middlebury Schools Abroad to expand and deepen the two institutions' international programs, and draw on Middlebury's strong network of undergraduate and graduate institutions, both in the United States and abroad. Together, Middlebury and Monterey will occupy a major place in the nation's study of language and culture. Located in Vermont, Middlebury College is one of the leading liberal arts colleges in the nation. It enrolls 2,350 undergraduate students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries. The college also enrolls 1,300 students at its nine intensive summer language schools, 550 at the Bread Loaf School of English, and 300 at its seven Middlebury Schools Abroad. Each year, Middlebury awards an average of 250 graduate degrees in foreign languages and English. The college is particularly noted for excellence in international studies, languages, writing and literary studies, and environmental studies. The Monterey Institute of International Studies, located in California, enrolls some 750 students from 46 countries. The institute includes the Graduate School of International Policy Studies, the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, the Fisher Graduate School of International Business, the Graduate School of Language and Educational Linguistics, the internationally renowned Center for Nonproliferation Studies and the Center for East Asian Studies.
Yu, born in China and reared in Taiwan, received B.A. in English from National Taiwan University (1971), M.A. in Comparative Literature, University of Illinois (1973), and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, University of Illinois (1978). She is a member of the Middlebury faculty since 1987, a former vice president of languages and director of the Middlebury Language Schools. Yu, an internationally known leader in the use of technology in higher education, is the founder of the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE), a consortium of 81 liberal arts colleges, the largest virtual network in United States higher education devoted to this work. Supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Institute has brought information literacy, Geographic Information Systems, bioinformatics, social network and game design programs to its participant institutions.