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Dear Senate members:
As the beginning of the new year and the new semester kicks off, I would like to send you all wishes for a Happy and prosperous new year. To start off this semester, there are several pressing issues that we must address as members of senate. Let me provide an update for you all of what I shared with the faculty here at the National campus on Jan. 3rd and we can then move forward from there.
1. Regular Meeting time: There is a need to establish a meeting time when we can all meet (physically and electronically) to discuss and make decisions. Please send me two options of days/times when you are available to meet this semester so we can decide on the best time for meetings. If I can get your time availability by next week WEDNESDAY Jan 17th, I can be able to determine a time that will work for all of us.
2. The senate is tasked with the assignment to appoint 4 faculty/staff members to the college's Strategic Planning Working Group (SPWG) who will be working closely with the VPs, Campus directors, office directors, Committee chairs, IRPO and others from the FSM DOE in developing FSM Education Priorities and Resources. We need to come up with a process for selection and we need to recommend 4 members ASAP so that all this critical planning does not happen without the input of the faculty and staff.
3. Rafael Pulmano is putting together past minutes and treasurers' reports for the current senate so that we can all be informed of what the senate has done in the past. Once we decide on a meeting time, he can disseminate this information to all. We need to update and revise our by-laws--this will be one of the fist items of action for us so please read the by-laws and be thinking of how it can be improved.
4. Rafael and I will be working with the IT department to set up a wiki for the senate so that we can also all do on-line discussions of issues of importance. We will try to get it up and started within the next two weeks.
5. Some of the issues that have been brought up that you can share with members of your campuses and perhaps bring back feedback to the senate are as follows: Tuition waiver changes in policy (there was some concern that the changes occurred without many knowing about what these changes would entail and how it would directly affect employees and whether there can be some changes/exceptions to the policy), 67% completion rate that is part of new federal regulations for PELL and how this may affect teaching, Loanability amount from retirement funds to increase from the current 50% to 80%. If there are other issues that have been brought up at your campuses, please share with other members of the senate.
6. Our senate email is: senate@comfsm.fm ---let other members of your campuses know that they can email us all directly to voice their concerns and then we can meet for discussions and how to address such issues.
Right now I think the first two items are most pressing while the others will be on-going.
There has already been suggestions on who we should appoint to the SPWG: 1. ) Ross Perkins (who is the current Planning and Resource committee chairperson)--he has also communicated to me personally that he is willing and would like to be on this working group 2.) Kathy Hayes--Chairperson of the Curriculum and Assessment committee. Would nominations from each of us and an electronic vote be a workable process for us to apply to this situation? Then once we have selected people, we can inform them and ask if they are willing to serve and if yes, we can send our recommendation to the President and to the working group? Let me all know what you think.
Please respond to this email via the senate email so that we are all informed about input from everyone.
Thank you for your willingness to serve,
Resida Samson Keller
College of Micronesia-FSM
NOTE:
This message was originally sent to Senate Faculty/Staff Representatives via email
Date: January 13, 2012 2:11:31 PM GMT+11:00
Subject: Updates and pressing issues
