Hello! Thank you for visiting The Foghorn, a newspaper published by
and for students at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) located in Monterey, California.
The Foghorn website is now up-and-running! Hard copies of the printed version will be distributed around campus by the end of this week (December 7, 2007).
Please take a few moments to browse around and check out our new website. Below, there is a "Contents" section, which includes easy-to-use links to each story. After reading each story, you can click on the envelope button to email it to a friend.
We have NOW set up the website where readers can respond to articles by posting comments. Please take advantage of this opportunity to express your viewpoints on issues that affect the MIIS community.
You can also now check our most recently added feature, the first-ever MIIS Calendar of Events! Find out what is happening at MIIS and the Monterey community, such as events, lectures and student club meetings and activities.
As always, we would appreciate any feedback you might have about the articles in this issue, as well as suggestions for improving our website. You can email us at foghorn.miis@gmail.com.
Please also take a few moments to review the Foghorn's Terms of Use.
We hope you enjoy this issue of the Foghorn!
-The Foghorn Team
CONTENTS: Fall 2007, Vol. III, Issue 1
To view each article, click on the links below or the links in the Story Archive (to the right).
I. Recycling
II. Dean Steps Down
III. Coffee
IV. Winter in Monterey
V. Kristen's Korner
VI. Student Council Report
VII. Alumni Forum
Monday, December 10, 2007
Foghorn Home Page
MIIS Alumni Forum
The idea was thrown out to create an area where MIIS Alumni can post about what they have been doing out in "the real world." After graduating and moving on to more exciting adventures, it is difficult to find the time to maintain contact with the MIIS community.
So, we'd like to invite everyone to join in the MIIS Alumni Forum! Hip hip hooray!
All MIIS Alumni can post anything they've been up to since graduating - jobs, international experiences, volunteer work, etc. Also, current students are welcome to respond to Alumni blog posts.
The way this works is you can respond to this blog, and it will be reviewed by our editorial staff. After we approve it, we will then post your comments to the MIIS Alumni Forum.
We hope this space will allow Alumni to re-establish a connection with the MIIS community. Also, current students have the opportunity to network with MIIS Alumni regarding jobs or other professional resources.
Thank you!
-the Foghorn Staff
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Student Council Fall Semester Report
- Library hours have been extended on Fridays and Saturdays from 6pm until 10pm. This will continue through Spring Semester; Permanent change will depend on student use so please take advantage of the extra hours so everyone can benefit from longer hours in the future.
- In addition to monthly happy hours, Student Council sponsored a great Halloween Party in October. More than 300 students and guests participated. The upcoming December Graduation Happy Hour on December 14 from 5-7pm promises to be extra special and festive!
- More conference funding! Thanks to a generous donation, there is $10,000 more for student conference attendance. --Please note there are new funding guidelines: stop by Student Affairs Office for more information.
- The Student Council Conference Committee has created a forum in Moodle, "STUDENT CONFERENCE FORUM" for students to shar their conference experience with other students. This forum is open to ALL students who are encouraged to exchange ideas, contacts, resources, and information about your professional interests. As a conference fund recipient, we ask that you post a comment to the conference you attended so that other students may benefit from your experience. You may also access the website at: http://eLearning.miis.edu/course/view.php?id=278. Post your comments today!
Kristen's Korner
If you have any comments or questions about the Foghorn you can contact the Foghorn staff at:
We also have a conference on First Class called Foghorn Newspaper. We will post information for writers to this conference and you can network with other Foghorn writers. We will not be posting articles to the conference because our space allotment does not allow for it.
The Foghorn will have a website where we can post follow-up articles and articles that did not make it into the print edition. You can find us online at:
miisfoghorn.blogspot.com
I would like to thank Mark Sullivan for all of the hard work he did writing, setting up the website and just being there when I needed him.
I also want to thank Ben Hjelle, Sam Watson, Cameron Jahn, and MacKenzie Hizon for all of their support and advise.
Winter in Monterey: What's Happening and Where
December 1-23Cannery Row Santa House at the Steinbeck Plaza every Saturday and Sunday from 12 p.m.- 4 p.m.
December 6 & 8
“Christmas in the Adobes” Monterey's historic adobes are open to the public during the evenings on Thursday, Dec. 6 and Saturday, Dec. 8.
December 7
Lighting of the Christmas Tree at City Hall
December 16
Monterey Community Band: “Holiday Celebrations” concert in the Music Hall at Monterey Peninsula College. 2pm. Admission is Free.
Lighted Boat Parade: Parade route will normally run from the Monterey Harbor area, up to the Lovers Point and end with a two-lap tour of the outer harbor. Complimentary hot soup, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate are provided to help warm you up. The parade begins at 5:30 PM starting from just outside the Harbor area.
December 22
“Santa arriving in Old Monterey on a horse drawn carriage” on Alvarado Street Saturday, Dec. 22, 12:00 pm. Santa will be on hand for horse-drawn carriage rides through Old Monterey. Free horse drawn carriage rides will be available to the public noon to 2:00 p.m.
December 24
Big Sur Harvest & Craft Fair, 10am-5pm. Big Sur Grange Hall, Highway 1, Big Sur.
December 31
First Night Monterey: Celebration of New Year's Eve through the arts: Music, dance, poetry, special installations and exhibits in historic Downtown Monterey. 2pm to midnight.
January 8
Garrison Keillor performs at Golden State Theatre
NPR's creator and host of "A Prairie Home Companion" makes his second live performance to a Monterey crowd. Tickets $45
Useful Links:
Can I get a Cup of Joe
Every MIIS student loves a cup of coffee in the morning or afternoon. It’s how we stay focused and tackle those papers and projects. But what happens when we can’t get our coffee when we want it? The answer: A bunch of tired, frustrated, unhappy students.
Ever since new management came in this year and revamped the coffee area into a full-on Java Bar students have become disgruntled that they are no longer able to serve themselves to a nice warm cup of joe.
The biggest issue for students is that it is oftentimes frustrating to wait for coffee when they have to rush off to class. I spoke with a Samson “regular” who told me one brisk Friday afternoon, “One time I stood there for 5 minutes to wait for coffee. The new set-up is not working out.”
International students are also frustrated with the new coffee bar. A student from Japan, Hiroki, told me, “One problem is that it’s too slow. And during breaks, it is impossible to get coffee.”
The Samson cafeteria employees are also dissatisfied with the new coffee set-up because they are already short of staff. One employee said that it is difficult for him to manage the front counter and also the coffee area at the same time. For him, it’s easier to just let students get their own coffee and pay for it.
“This is not good here,” referring to the counter blocking students off from serving themselves coffee. “Before [last year] it was easy to get coffee and soda.”
A customer (Mark) happy to get his coffee. The Samson Cafeteria may also be losing business because of the new coffee bar. There are other options close by for students who prefer not to wait in line to get the Samson coffee. One MIIS staff member said, “I don't want to be bothered with the counter. I actually don't buy coffee there. I either bring it or buy it from the vending machine.”
The new management was unavailable for comment.
GSLEL Dean Moves on to More Exciting Adventures
By Mark Sullivan
There is sad (but exciting) news in the GSLEL Department. Dean Ruth Larimer is stepping down from her position to become the Peace Corps Country Director for Fiji. Renee Jourdenais, currently a Professor in the TESOL program, will serve as acting Dean of GSLEL.
When asked what she would miss the most at MIIS, she responded, “The students and their interesting and varied international experience.” She also enjoyed working with dedicated colleagues and professors and staff in the TESOL and TFL programs.
Dean Larimer, herself a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) in Iran from 1969-71, is looking forward to another international experience, learning a new culture, visiting small villages and meeting interesting people.
Though the faculty and students have expressed their “shock” and “sadness” that she is leaving ,we are all excited that Dean Larimer is moving on to more exciting adventures.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Random Run-in with the Recycling Guru
One chilly Friday afternoon, I walked out of Samson Center and right as I was about to take a bite of my veggie bagel sandwich, I ran into my good friend Max Perelman, an IEP student at MIIS. He looked at my sandwich and said to me, “Man, I’m starving, I haven’t eaten all day. You wanna go on a field trip?”
Five minutes later, Max, Kuni Takahashi (another IEP student from Japan), David Neidel (IEP Professor) and I were on the road to Monterey City Disposal (MCD), located off Highway 68 at Ryan Ranch.
As we pulled into the Ryan Ranch site, we met up with another IEP student, Kelly Rector. She took us into the office, which was empty, except for a basket of leftover Halloween candy. A few minutes later in walked in a tall burly man with a hat. This was Jaime Gomez, the Recycling Supervisor.
As we walked around the site, he answered our questions and told us all about his operation. MCD is a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) that collects all recycle bins in the city of Monterey. After they are delivered to MCD they are sorted into recyclables and non-recyclables. Then they are processed in a number of machines and packaged into large cubes.
From there they are sent off by ship to China and Taiwan, where they are sold to recycling companies. They are “broken down” again, and then re-made into new products. Jaime noted that the whole process is a “cycle” because the end-products made in China or Taiwan are usually sent back to the United States.
Jaime has a staff of 14 workers and most come from Salinas. They work long hours, sometimes until 7 at night, and sometimes even on Saturday if they are behind. Jaime leads by example by waking up at 5 in the morning everyday to answer phone calls coming in from his buyers in China and Taiwan. He treats his employees well by providing them opportunities to develop upward – from produce pickers out in Salinas, to recycling sorter, to recycling truck driver. Furthermore, Jaime has learned to speak Spanish so he can talk with the employees and develop a better working relationship.
Workers hand-sort out the recyclable materials into separate bins. Each worker is assigned a different material (e.g. plastics), and grabs it off of the assembly line and tosses it behind them into a trash can. It’s a tough job and requires quick hands.Max Perelman had nothing but good things to say about Jaime’s recycling operation: “The facility represents sustainability in all of its three parts - people, planet and profits. Jamie is a real entrepreneur who builds his own custom equipment and has eyes on expanding in the region. He really believes in what he's doing and tries to recycle everything he gets, whether he makes money on it or not. That has enabled him to achieve a 97% recycling rate while still providing a quality product to buyers.”
There are a number of recycling practices that would make Jaime’s and his workers life a little easier:
1 Put plastic bags and wrappers in a larger bag and tie it
2 Don’t include Styrofoam – it contaminates the other recyclable material
3 Make your recyclables as clean as possible (otherwise, the hand-sorters in the photo above have to clean the nasty guacamole out of your Trader Joe’s guacamole container)
4 When in doubt, recycle it!
Kuni noted that he was motivated to participate in this field trip because there are close to 30 different recycling bins on the MIIS campus. In truth, students just don’t know where to put their recyclable material. We agreed on our field trip that there needs to be more integration among the Greening Initiatives on campus. Groups such as the Environmental Task Force and The President’s Task Force need to work together to provide more uniform recycle bins that make it convenient to recycle.
Max will continue to raise awareness about the importance of recycling by leading field trips to MCD with students from Robert Louis Stevenson High School. In addition, he is adamant about banning styrofoam in Monterey. He notes, “When you get your jumbo smoothie at Jamba Juice, ask why they use Styrofoam. Try to bring your own mug and have them fill that instead - if the coffee shops allow it so should Jamba Juice.”
As for me, I was simply amazed to see students taking action and educating themselves about local environmental issues. Admittedly, the trip was a “kick in the butt” because oftentimes I am too lazy to recycle my empty Diet Coke cans. It was also a great learning experience to finally know that when I choose to recycle my Diet Coke can it will actually be recycled, broken down, sorted, processed, packaged, shipped to China, broken down again into smaller pieces, and then manufactured into another Diet Coke can.
After we finished up our tour of the MCD facility, I drank the last drop of my Vitamin Water. Standing at the edge of a large pile of recyclables, I asked Jaime, “Can I throw this bottle in there?” He nodded ‘yes,’ and I tossed it in there feeling 100% confident that the bottle would be recycled.
Staring at the large pile of recyclables that have yet to be sorted and processed. My Vitamin Water is in there somewhere.
To learn more about Monterey City Disposal, or to schedule a visit, please contact:
Jaime Gomez
Recycle Supervisor
10 Ryan Ranch Rd.
Monterey, CA 93940
(831) 372-7977
Jaime@montereydisposal.com
Website: www.montereydisposal.com