The Monterey Institute of International Studies
Strategic Plan
Executive Summary
October 16, 2006

Background

The Monterey Institute of International Studies was founded in 1955 to teach languages in a cultural context. Over 50 years later, that mission has expanded to include four professional graduate schools—focusing on language and educational linguistics, translation and interpretation, international policy, and international business—and world-class research initiatives, including the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The Monterey Institute develops professionals who, through their knowledge, research, language proficiency, deep cultural understanding, and concrete professional skills, are prepared to manage, lead, and inspire others to address today's global challenges.

The Institute currently enrolls 750 degree-seeking students annually, representing over 50 countries, and attracts hundreds of additional learners each year for specialized training. Institute alumni, totaling over 7800, live in 122 countries, forming a strong global network. Institute-connected people make significant contributions in such critical areas as nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, international trade and development, language education, and communication across cultures.

Throughout its history, the Monterey Institute has been defined by its small-scale, unusual degree of personal connection, niche expertise, and entrepreneurial energy. While being small in scale has been a strength, it has also been a challenge, eroding protection against hard financial times and fluctuating enrollments.

In 2003, the Institute sought a partner to ensure greater global impact and visibility, program breadth, and resource stability. In December 2005, the Institute affiliated with Middlebury College, a 200-year-old liberal arts institution in Vermont, known worldwide for the teaching of languages, international studies, and the environment, among other broad-based strengths.

This is a historic moment of transformation for the Monterey Institute. Now affiliated with one of the top-ranked liberal arts colleges in the United States, the strategic planning team reaffirms the Institute's core purpose and values. Leveraging unique strengths, the Institute strives to offer an exceptional education that is accessible to the world. The Institute's academic excellence will be defined by the outstanding faculty we recruit, nurture, and retain; the brilliant and diverse learners who come from around the world; the deep relevance of the curriculum; and the significant and measurable impact of Institute people.

The Planning Process

This strategic plan initiates a process to reinvent and differentiate the Monterey Institute, focusing on the intersection of three vital areas: what the world needs; what the Monterey Institute, with Middlebury, does with the greatest effectiveness and passion; and what will best ensure sustained financial vitality.

The planning process has broadly engaged the Monterey Institute community. In January 2006, the Institute President appointed a strategic planning team. (See Appendix I: Strategic Planning Team Members.) The team solicited input from stakeholders, conducted Institute-wide open forums, held informal meetings, interviewed members of the community, and reported regularly on progress made. Overall, thousands of hours of cumulative effort have been contributed to create and refine the plan. The Board of International Advisors added their perspective, meeting jointly with the Board of Trustees in April 2006. Student-led interviews of students, faculty, and staff, based on the Appreciative Inquiry methodology, also produced key insights. In addition, the Board of Trustees met with the planning team for a two-day retreat in early August 2006 to review the initial draft plan and offer valuable feedback.

This strategic plan describes where the Institute is heading, how to get there, and how fast to travel. While the specific timeline for the plan runs through 2010, the strategic planning—especially at this moment of transformation and reinvention for the Monterey Institute—must be a continually dynamic endeavor. Creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit are crucial to the Institute's success, and all must remain alert to emerging opportunities and needs. The strategic planning team embraces the possibility that the strategic plan may shift over the next four years to include new initiatives or even a different short-term objective if conditions change.

The working assumption has been that the Institute will remain an affiliate of Middlebury College through 2010, but will work towards full integration with the College during this period of time. While Middlebury has not been formally represented on the planning team, its institutional values and vision, as set forth in "Knowledge Without Boundaries: The Middlebury College Strategic Plan" have informed the team's thinking from the beginning. The strategic planning team acknowledges the countless hours that Middlebury colleagues have spent coordinating on all aspects of the plan. As a result, the Institute's strategic plan reflects many intersecting goals and priorities with Middlebury College, both in terms of objectives and ground-level tactics. The unyielding commitment that is shared with Middlebury to international education, language proficiency, cultural understanding, interdisciplinary teaching, and informed global citizenry is made concrete in the plan.

Assumptions, Resource Needs, and Revenue Generation

Many unknowns may change the implementation of the plan, but for planning purposes, we have made certain basic assumptions, identifying financial resources needed to implement the plan and projecting revenues.

While these assumptions are not meant to be exhaustive, they illustrate the planning team's considerations:

• The Monterey Institute must be transformed to thrive.
• The Monterey Institute will continue to be headquartered at its current location, in Monterey, California.
• The Monterey Institute will greatly extend its geographic reach, deploying academic programs and services beyond its current campus to other U.S. and international sites, and delivering programs virtually via the Internet and emerging technologies.
• The Monterey Institute will work closely with Middlebury College throughout the plan period, moving towards the goal of becoming an autonomous but integrated part of the College.

The plan calls for an investment of up to $5 million in fiscal years 2007-2009 to fund the proposed actions. This investment will be incremental to the Institute's regular budget.

As a result of this investment, we project generation of a surplus net revenue of $7-10 million, achieved through the combined impact of significant enrollment growth, new programs, and accelerated fundraising.

Core Purpose, Values, and Long-Term Aspirations

Because of the urgent need to accelerate change at the Institute, a tight timeframe has been set for concrete action, through June 2010. Yet the vision extends beyond that immediate horizon. The planning is guided by the Institute's core purpose, values, and long-term aspirations. (See Appendix II: Glossary of Key Terms.)

The Institute's core purpose is to educate and empower individuals to address the world's challenges.

The Institute's core values are based upon:

• excellence achieved through continuous improvement and innovation;
• a multicultural community with a global reach;
• the belief that each person can make a difference; and
• the belief that knowledge of language and culture is essential.

In the long term, the Monterey Institute will be widely recognized as the preeminent provider of language learning and services, the institution that unites visionaries and pragmatists, builds bridges across cultural and national boundaries, and changes the world through networked global professionals.

The Institute will build upon its historical focus on language and culture. It will foster new thinking among its students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends. It will transform learning experiences, on both its physical and virtual campuses, by using emerging technologies in innovative and effective ways.

Top-ranked students from all parts of the globe will be drawn to the Institute. The passion and enthusiasm of these students will fuse with the energy of the Institute's world-class faculty and researchers to create a community known for designing effective, sustainable solutions to the world's problems.

Professional competence, creativity, commitment, language proficiency, and deep cultural understanding will be the hallmarks of the Institute's graduates. Its alumni will influence government, businesses, international organizations, and educational institutions. They will form a powerful leadership group through professional and social networks and virtual communities.

The Plan

In the following pages, four graphic representations of the Monterey Institute's strategic direction are offered. The graphic below shows our Four-Year Objective and three Key Result Areas (KRAs) that will lead to the realization of that objective. We then provide summaries and a graphic for each Key Result Area.

We also show the next level of planning strategies, tactics, and action items for achieving the Four-Year Objective and Key Result Areas. After the lists of concrete actions, there are tables that delineate positions/offices responsible for each action, and a timeline for implementation of each action.

Executive Summary

Key Result Area 1: Academic Excellence that Produces Enrollment Growth

The Monterey Institute will transform its traditional approach to global education—integrating language skills, subject knowledge, professional skills, and cultural awareness—into the signature Monterey Way. This will be accomplished by timely needs assessments identifying the requisite set of skills and knowledge for effective global careers. Mechanisms will be established to ensure ongoing innovation through continuous academic redesign, adaptation of existing high impact programs to deliver to new audiences, and the launch of new niche programs that generate a sustained revenue stream.

The Institute will transform its human and capital resources to support innovative and dynamic learning environments. It will employ new technology and create the capacity to recruit and retain high quality faculty dedicated to excellence in teaching and research. Innovation of the Institute's curriculum, programs, and delivery will attract new and broader audiences to its global educational network. Enrollment will rise through a recruiting strategy that targets wider markets, increases scholarships for students from underrepresented geographic areas, and fully engages faculty, students, and alumni in attracting new students and promoting the visibility of the Institute.

Key Result Area 2: Sustainable Financial Vitality

The Monterey Institute must be on solid financial ground if it is to accomplish its mission of educating and empowering individuals to address the world's challenges. A financially vital educational institution provides excellent academic programs to its students, offers competitive salaries and benefits to its employees, provides its faculty and staff with opportunities for professional development, maintains its information technology and physical plant infrastructure, and attracts a reliable flow of support from funders who want to invest in a top academic institution.

The Institute's financial history has been rocky, however, particularly from 2001 to 2003 when the institution generated $19 million of deficit, resulting in substantial debt that must eventually be repaid beginning in 2011. "Business as usual" is not enough to generate the funds needed to undergird the financially vital institution described above. The Institute must have sustained funding to maximize the potential of faculty, staff, students, and alumni. It must make cost-effectiveness and efficiency priorities in all areas. Finally, it must invest in marketing and communications to increase enrollment and raise visibility. The four priority areas for achieving sustainable financial vitality are: get the Institute structure right; support people to do their best work; accelerate revenue to build world-class education; and market the right programs to the right people.

Key Result Area 3: Preeminence in Language Learning and Services

In this Key Result Area, the reputation and strengths of the Monterey Institute and Middlebury College are leveraged to produce the greatest global impact. Together, Monterey and Middlebury are uniquely positioned to capture a leadership position in designing and offering individualized, outcome-oriented, technology-enhanced language learning programs and services to meet the needs of learners and clients—wherever they are, whatever their goal.

Successful implementation of the strategies in this Key Result Area will enhance the Institute's reputation and international visibility, create pipelines to existing academic programs, and expand the Institute's revenue base.

A global network of language specialists, technologists, and entrepreneurial businesses and organizations will also be created to ensure that the Institute will always be at the leading edge in providing language programs and services, and in advancing cross-cultural communication.

Appendix I: Strategic Planning Team Members

Clara Yu
President

Chuanyun Bao
Dean, Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation

Barbara Burke
Executive Assistant to the President

Kenley Butler
Executive Officer, Center for Nonproliferation Studies

Leah Gowron
Director of Career Development
Graduate School of International Policy Studies

Ann Jones-Weinstock
Vice President for Institutional Advancement

Ruth Larimer
Dean, Graduate School of Language and Educational Linguistics

Ed Laurance
Dean, Graduate School of International Policy Studies

Steve Mangelsen
Vice President of Finance and Administration and CFO

Marshall Perry
Outside Facilitator

Moyara Ruehsen
Associate Professor, Graduate School of International Policy Studies

Amy Sands
Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs

Ernie Scalberg
Dean, Fisher Graduate School of International Business

Nikolas Strong-Cvetich
2007 MA Candidate, International Policy Studies

Appendix II: Glossary of Key Terms

4+1: A program for students who have finished many of the prerequisite courses at the undergraduate level, resulting in advanced entry to the Monterey Institute and completion of a master's degree within 12 months.

Accountability: Individual(s) responsible for implementing a specific action.

Action: An action is a how-to for the tactic it serves. Actions are very tangible and usually include responsible individuals and timelines for accomplishment.

Appreciate Inquiry (AI): An innovative management approach to organizational change

and renewal. AI assumes that positive dialogue transforms organizations in significant

and meaningful ways. The commitment to positive dialogue as a means of engendering

change can be summarized by building on the following guiding principles: constructionist,

anticipatory, simultaneity, positive and open-book. By building on these guiding principles,

organizations are able to identify and focus on what works, rather than spending time and

resources fixing what does not.

Core Purpose: An organization's reason for being. It never changes. The core purpose is supported by core values.

Core Values: Fundamental beliefs and shared tenets.

Dashboard Indicators: Key performance measures that are continually updated and easily accessible.

Excellence (at the Monterey Institute): The outstanding faculty we recruit, nurture, and retain; the brilliant and diverse learners who come from around the world; the deep relevancy of our curriculum; and the significant and measurable impact of Institute people.

Fiscal Year: The Institute's fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30.

High Impact Program: An Institute program that, because of its high quality, is capable of quickly increasing revenue, reaching new audiences, and increasing the Institute's visibility.

Key Result Area (KRA): An area of focused attention selected for its significant ability to impact the short-term objective.

Monterey Way: Integration of professional skills, language proficiency, subject knowledge, and cross-cultural awareness into graduate programs.

Semester Away: Offering students from other educational institutions the opportunity to study at the Monterey Institute for one semester for credit.

Short-Term Objective: The primary outcome to be achieved within the period of the strategic plan, in this case, 2010.

Strategy: A specific plan for achieving the KRA's objective. The strategy is a higher-level concept and is often thought of as "the direction we should take." Several strategies usually combine to ensure success for a KRA.

Tactic: A how-to for accomplishing a strategy. A tactic is a more tangible step than the strategy it serves.

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