In her office at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, MIIS president Dr. Clara Yu relates a story about Mahatma Gandhi. She says that the east Indian spiritual and political leader was once approached by a mother and daughter who traveled far across the country seeking Gandhi’s assistance. The mother hoped the revered figure could advise how to make her daughter quit eating sugar. Gandhi replied that the duo would have to return in two weeks.

When the two made the return trip, Gandhi simply told the daughter to quit eating sugar. Angered, the mother asked why she had to travel all the way back for such simple advice when he could have said that to them on their previous trip. Gandhi replied that he was still eating sugar at the time of the family’s last visit.

Yu uses the anecdote to illustrate how she has had to examine her own practices while strengthening MIIS in five areas: world peace and security, multilingual and multicultural communication, international trade and business, development and sustainability. It is the latter that caused Yu to trade her Mercedes for a Prius and stick to a diet of local foods.

“Here at the university, I will not ask people to do things that I don’t do myself,” she says.

Yu has been trying to change more than just the school while MIIS president. During her tenure, MIIS has begun offering events with an academic twist featuring heavyweight speakers that are open to the public. Previous programs have included media mogul Ted Turner discussing global issues, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei talking about nuclear proliferation threats.

Yu also has been meeting with the presidents of other local learning institutions, including California State University Monterey Bay, University of California at Santa Cruz, Defense Language Institute, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey Peninsula College and Monterey College of Law in an attempt to find ways to showcase this area’s overlooked intellectual resources.

“If we work together, we could become a true international, intellectual destination,” Yu says.

One step in that direction was this past January’s conference on global education called ConnectED, which was hosted by MIIS at the Monterey Conference Center. The three-day event featured presentations by author and Atlantic Monthly correspondent Robert D. Kaplan and Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy.

“We want to effect change,” Yu says of ConnectED. “We don’t want to just talk. We want to effect policy changes. We need well-informed educational policy makers to unleash the ingenuity in our system.”

Yu hopes ConnectED can some day be as big as another international gathering that recently moved from Monterey to Long Beach: the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference.

“I want this to replace TED and put us back on the international cutting edge,” Yu says.

Yu will step down as MIIS president at the end of the year and move home to Florida. While it will be interesting to see how long Yu will be able to stay away from academia, the MIIS president concedes her first goal in retirement is decidedly non-academic.

“I’m just going to put my feet up for a month,” she says.

For more information about the Monterey Institute of International Studies, visit www.miis.edu.