College Installs Informational Panel at National Campus

Student reading news on the new information panel.

COM-FSM's Information Technology (IT) office installed a 42 inch flat screen informational panel at the National Campus Administration Building. The information panel pilot project will be used to deliver college related information to students, faculty, staff and visitors of the campus. The panel will display news, emergency alerts, event announcements and other information from the college.

The pilot project is a move towards improving the College's communications capabilities and ability to disseminate information to its constituents. The project began by request of former President Spensin James.

The information panel is remotely controlled and its contents are simultaneously updated along with the college’s website and the myShark portal news and information sections. The pilot testing will end by summer 2011. The college hopes to deploy this technology at all its campuses.

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Interim President Accepts Resignation by Vice President

The COM-FSM Interim President, Mr Ringlen Ringlen, accepted a resignation letter from Ms Jean Thoulag as vice president for instructional affairs. Vice President Thoulag submitted her letter of resignation on April 18, 2011.

Jean Thoulag, Vice President for Instructional Affairs

In her letter, Vice President Thoulag cited personal reasons and a desire to return to the United States for some time as her reasons for resigning. She chose to alert the college of her decision ahead of time in order to provide the college and those within her department the opportunity for a smooth transition.

On behalf of the college, Interim President Ringlen thanked her for her 14 years of honorable service to the college. He acknowledged her contributions to the college especially in her former capacity as the coordinator of the Title III project, then as the director of the learning resources center, and eventually as the vice president for instructional affairs.

Ms Thoulag expressed her gratitude to the college and her interest to assist the college in the future when she returns to Micronesia. In response, Mr Ringlen invited her to consider reemployment at the college in the future.

New Metropolitan WiFi deployment pilot project at National Campus

COM-FSM's Information Technology (IT) office has deployed and is testing a new metropolitan wireless access pilot project, fittingly named COMFSMWiFi. The goal of the project is to blanket the entire national campus with wireless access. Pending the success of the pilot project, it will be replicated at all six COM-FSM campuses.

IT will be conducting an informational session on the subject on Thursday May 5, 20011 at 3:30PM at MITC. A brief review of the college's proposed Wireless Policy and a Howt-to demonstration will be presented.

Board to Request Supplemental Funding from Congress

The COM-FSM Board of Regents at their March 14-15, 2011, meeting agreed to request supplemental funding from the FSM Congress. The supplemental request is intended to cover the expenses associated with the board's reflection sessions for this fiscal year, the presidential search committee and the hiring of a consultant to help the college understand more about how college foundations work.

Students Now Have Option to Pay Only $15 during Registration

The Board of Regents acted to require student to pay only $15 during registration instead of the original $50. According to the college, the original $50 that students were required to pay during registration includes a registration fee of $15, a health fee of $15 and an activity fee of $20. Instead of requiring students to pay for the entire amount during registration, student now have the option to only pay the registration fee of $15 during registration. The health and activity fees may be paid after the student receives his or her financial aid award.

COM-FSM Signs MOU with Zhejiang Ocean University

COM-FSM hosted a dinner reception at the Village Hotel for the guests from the Zhejiang Open University

Representatives from Zhejiang Ocean University visited the College of Micronesia-FSM on April 12-13 to renew and sign a second memorandum of understanding between the two institutions. The updated memorandum of understanding for cooperation maintained the “sister institution” relationship that existed between the two higher education institutions. The delegation from ZOU was led by Vice President WU Changwen and Director of International Exchange and Cooperation Professor LU Huaqing.

Besides the relationship that the two institutions share, the MOU reinforced the commitment to cooperate in student and faculty exchange programs, and to offer full scholarships for up to 10 students to attend any ZOU bachelor or master’s degree program. Faculty may be exchanged between the ZOU and COM-FSM either as guest lecturers or longer term instructors. ZOU also offered to support a COM-FSM faculty to pursue doctoral or postdoctoral studies. A proposal to co-host a China-FSM marine biology workshop was presented.

Currently, Elijah Tarofmal of Yap, a COM-FSM marine science graduate, is attending Zhejiang Ocean University under a full scholarship program. He has completed one year of Chinese language training and is now taking his major courses in marine biology. According to Director Lu, Elijah is doing well and ZOU would like to invite more students like him.

The guests had a brief tour of the National Campus, where they met with Interim President Ringlen Ringlen, Vice President for Instructional Affairs Jean Thoulag and Vice President for Cooperative Research and Extension services Jim Currie. JICA Senior Volunteer Dr Mori Hamada gave a presentation on fisheries resources processing for the visitors. The guests also visited the sea cucumber and pearl hatchery at Nett Point and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.

An evening reception was held at the Village Hotel along with entertainment by Professor Chen’s COM-FSM Chinese I students. The Charge d’Affairs for the People’s Republic of China Embassy was also at the reception to meet the group from ZOU.

The other representatives from Zhejiang Ocean University include Vice Dean for the School of Food and Pharmacy, Professor DENG Shanggui; Vice Dean for the School of Fisheries and Shipping, Professor SONG Weihua; and Vice Dean for the School of Naval Architecture and Civil Engineering Professor, LI Qiang.

Zhejiang Ocean University is located on Zhoushan Island, off the north east coast of China in Zhejiang Province.

College Notifies Occupants of Affected Positions

Supervisors throughout the college served layoff notices to all employees whose positions were selected for elimination through the job audit and streamlining study on April 6, 2011. A total of 17 fulltime staff positions and 7 part time staff positions will be eliminated.

June 6, 2011, is the effective date for the termination of employment for all 17 employees whose positions were identified in the study. Affected employees who are on special contracts were informed that their contracts will not be renewed. All of these employees are from the National, Pohnpei and Chuuk campuses. Thirteen out of the 17 are from Pohnpei and National campuses and the other four are from Chuuk Campus.

As part of the layoff notices that were served to the affected employees, a list of nonteaching vacant positions was also provided. From April 7 to April 21, the affected employees are given the opportunity to apply for any of these positions, for which they qualify. Ad hoc committee screening of the applications by the employees will commence on April 22 and end by April 29.

The Human Resources Office is scheduling workshops on resume and job interview skills for these employees. The college is utilizing the services of Pohnpei Business Development Center in providing training on how to run small businesses.

The employees, who submitted their applications for any of the vacant positions, will be notified whether they are accepted or not. All employees who are accepted will be transferred to the new positions by June 6, 2011. The remaining employees will be presented a severance package. The severance package contains the remaining salary for the current fiscal year from June 6-September 30, 2011, plus 240 hours of accumulated leave time.