President's New Academic Year Message to the COM-FSM Community
August 6, 2012
Dear Colleagues and Fellow Members of the COM-FSM Community,
I want to take a moment to welcome all of you to a new academic year. Many new students are arriving on campus from Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei and Yap in anticipation of student orientation, the first week of classes and immersion into a year of study, learning and personal growth. The feeling of energy and excitement on campus is palpable.
As well, please join me in welcoming our new faculty and staff joining the COM-FSM community. We are pleased that you are with us and trust you will find your experience in service to our students both meaningful and rewarding. Welcome.
To our returning faculty and staff, welcome back! I hope and trust each of you found time to rest and renew. As you make your way back to campus, whether here, or at our respective state campuses please know I am looking forward to an exceptional year. Given how well we pulled together last year, and significant improvements we were able to achieve, I believe we are poised for great things again this year.
While there are serious challenges we continue to face and confront, I am confident that together we will work to successfully address them.
This month we will continue our purposeful dialogue for continuous improvement, as faculty will meet on August 6th and 7th for workshops on student advising, assessment plan writing, and on authentic assessment for course level student learning outcomes.
On August 8th and 9th we, our students, our Board of Regents, and our external stakeholders will gather to engage in the first phase of a three-part Visioning Summit. During this first part of the summit on August 8th and 9th, we will review and assess our current mission statement, determine the fulfillment of promises made in our last strategic plan, continue to refine the communications plan building upon the work completed in May, and determine appropriate alignment with the Integrated Educational Master Plan
The college’s Five-Year Financial Plan and Five-Year Integrated Educational Master Plan which is linked to the financial plan will continue to serve us well as we continue our ongoing efforts to ensure broad-based participation in the decision-making of the college, and to inform the three phases of Visioning Summit beginning in August, and progressing through December, 2012. Your participation in the Visioning Summit is not only welcome, but essential to ensuring the college continues to fulfill its commitment to broad-based purposeful dialogue, to participatory governance, and to continuous improvement.
We must and will continue the momentum generated and sustained last year in our collective efforts to fully embrace and integrate Accreditation Standards into the fabric of the college.
Please know this responsibility is shared among us all. We must continue to strengthen the college’s culture of assessment and accountability. We have a responsibility to our stakeholders to demonstrate we are successful, we are making progress and improving, and our students are learning and are successful.
So, I would like to again share with you some of what I said on February 6, 2012, when I proudly joined COM-FSM in service as your president;
“Successfully confronting them [challenges] will require the very best of each of us working TOGETHER to marshal all of our, individual and collective intellectual and human capital and resources. Only TOGETHER, and by that I mean everyone gathered here today, and members of our community dispersed across the country, will we be successful.”
Let us be reminded that in the Commission’s July 2, 2012 Action Letter to the college they acknowledged “the recent improvements to the college communication and governance are impressive.” Yet, let us not forget the Commission further reported “at this time, the institution still has work to do in order to demonstrate it fully complies with Accreditation Standards.” Still, the Commission expressed “the institution is on a sound path toward improvement, and should be able to demonstrate full compliance and resolution of all issues by March 2013.” Please find the entire text of the July 2, 2012, ACCJC Action Letter on the college’s website.
To that end, let us stay the course on this sound path toward improvement, let us complete work to demonstrate full compliance with Accreditation Standards, and let us resolve all issues by March 2013.
I trust you share my pride in the progress we are making. We will continue to work together to strengthen this academic institution in service to our students, our citizens and our country.
It is a privilege for me to serve you as president.
Warm regards,
Joe
Joseph M. Daisy, Ed.D., President
