Thank you and Si Yu’us Maase to all our supporters who contributed during our annual G is for Giving campaign this year. We are happy to report that we surpassed our fundraising goal, and reached our largest campaign totals EVER, raising over $136,936.27 for student scholarships, research, and programs!
We are also happy to share with your our Annual Report for 2019. Please feel free to download and take a look at all the things we were up to in the past year.
Thank you and Si Yu’us Maase to all our supporters who contributed during our annual G is for Giving campaign. We are happy to report that we surpass our fundraising goal, raising over $32,000 for student scholarships, research, and programs!
Community support and generosity is critical to our success as an organization. We depend on donors like to fund the scholarships and programs that make UOG students successful. If you contributed in 2018, we extend our warmest gratitude. Stay in touch during 2019 to see what else we get up to, and we hope you will continue to be a part of our G is for Giving family.
An underutilized scholarship through the University of Guam Endowment Foundation funded an intensive ten-day training at the University of Guam and Guam Memorial Hospital for four nurses and two nurse educators from Pohnpei. The Pohnpei nurses completed their training on July 13 under the guidance of the UOG School of Nursing and Health Sciences.
“This was an amazing collaboration that will directly improve the quality of the FSM’s existing and upcoming health care workforce as well as the health of their people,” said Dr. Margaret Hattori-Uchima, Dean of UOG’s School of Nursing and Health Sciences. “And when the islands of Micronesia are strong individually, our region is stronger as a whole.”
The Charles H. Parent Scholarship was established by Dr. Charles H. Parent, a former physician at the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services who passed away in 2007. It was intended to provide funding for students from Micronesia to pursue nursing degrees at UOG starting in Fanuchånan 2017, but the UOG Nursing program did not have enough Micronesian nursing students to fully utilize the funds, with just two students from Chuuk graduating in the past year.
Dr. Hattori-Uchima approached the Endowment Foundation Board with a proposal that the scholarship funds be used to fund a 10-day training opportunity at GMH for working nurses and nurse educators in Micronesia, and the board approved it the same day.
“The Foundation reviewed the request and came to the conclusion that this training opportunity was in line with the intent of the donor,” said Melanie Mendiola, Executive Director of the UOG Endowment Foundation. “Dr. Parent was passionate about meeting the needs of the underserved — most especially, individuals from the outer islands.”
Many of the health care workers in the Federated States of Micronesia have inadequate foundational training and are trained on-site by others working in the same position, according to a cancer control plan published by the FSM Department of Health and Social Affairs.
Dr. Hattori-Uchima verified the need for training first-hand when she toured the Pohnpei State Hospital and spoke with the nursing staff there in her role as acting director of Guam/Micronesia Area Health Education Center (AHEC). The AHEC is a grant program administered by UOG’s School of Nursing and Health Sciences that is meant to improve health care in underserved communities by increasing the number and skills of health care workers.
The collaboration between UOG’s School of Nursing, the AHEC offices, Guam Memorial Hospital, and the UOG Endowment Foundation ultimately brought four nurses from Pohnpei State Hospital and two nursing educators from the College of Micronesia-FSM to Guam on July 1 for 10 days of intensive training on basic procedures and skills specific to their units.
An AHEC office at the College of Micronesia used its grant funds to pay for the participants’ travel costs.
In order to have the broadest impact on the hospital overall, the UOG School of Nursing chose nurses from four different departments of the Pohnpei hospital — labor and delivery, the emergency room, the surgical ward, and obstetrics and pediatrics. Nursing educators from the College of Micronesia were also selected to participate.
“The intent was that they needed to come to Guam with an idea of an improvement project at their hospital or school,” Dr. Hattori-Uchima said. “They did a great job. They all had really great ideas.”
In particular, the nurses wanted to improve their hospital’s abilities for triage, wound care, and infection control.
Their first day of training was at UOG. UOG School of Nursing faculty Dr. Kathryn Wood, Dr. James Finch, and Veronica Alave taught them health assessment, infection control, and delivering babies with limited resources. They engaged in simulation exercises to prepare them for GMH.
Then GMH Director of Nursing Zennia Pecina assigned the trainees to appropriate units of GMH, where they shadowed the staff and learned how to use certain equipment, like an electrocardiogram.
“Training is really a strength of GMH nurses,” Pecina said. “Most of them are UOG graduates, so they were trained well. This partnership allowed them to pass on their knowledge using the same training techniques.”
Additionally, she said the exchange was beneficial for Guam’s nurses and nurse educators as well. “GMH sees a lot of patients from other islands, and the exchange has been good training in terms of cultural sensitivity with matters of health care,” Pecina said.
During a debriefing meeting at the conclusion of their training, the nurses shared how much they had learned and what they plan to implement back at their hospital.
“I learned more about patient bedside care, infection control, and new technologies they’re using,” said Wesihner John, an obstetrics and pediatrics nurse at Pohnpei State Hospital. “It’s about time for us to make changes in our hospital. What we learned here, we can go back and use to improve patient care and the settings in our workplace.”
The UOG School of Nursing wants to extend this training to other islands in Micronesia and plans to make the request to the Endowment Foundation Board again next year. Yap and the Marshall Islands have also expressed interest in training opportunities for their nurses and associate degree candidates.
“If the needs of our students are in line with the intentions of the donor, I would expect that this gift would continue benefitting our island neighbors in the way that Dr. Parent intended, whether through individual scholarships, group training opportunities, or other related activities,” Mendiola said.
The University of Guam community hosted a dedication ceremony for its highly anticipated School of Engineering building on Monday, March 19, 2018. The new facility will be located in front of the Agriculture and Life Sciences building at the university campus in Mangilao.
The new facility will help the School of Engineering as it expands to a full, four-year Bachelor of Science in Civil-Environmental Engineering program in 2019.
The 16,000-square feet building will feature:
“I can’t overemphasize what it means to have a school that is devoted to this profession,” stated President Robert A. Underwood. “Not only as we look to the impending military buildup, but just looking at the way we live and the way that we construct our lives. The way we deal with the man-made part of our environment. Engineers are at the forefront.”
The University established the School of Engineering in 2016 to address a shortage of local engineers in Guam and other islands in the Western Pacific. Currently, the School of Engineering offers a two-year Pre-Engineering program, and students then transfer elsewhere to complete their engineering degree at partner institutions such as the University of Iowa and Mapua University in the Philippines.
The School of Engineering is one of the capital improvement projects under the University’s Vision 2025 Physical Master Plan. This new facility was made possible through a USDA loan secured through the UOG Endowment Foundation.
The University of Guam community in cooperation with the Foundation raised over $20,000 for its inaugural “G is for Giving” Campaign – an annual drive for scholarships for the students of the University of Guam. This month-long campaign which kicked off on Tuesday, November 28th, 2017, and lasted until December 31st, 2017, involved students, faculty, retired faculty, alumnae, and community members from Guam and the the US mainland to raise money for each of the University of Guam’s five college units and the UOG Athletics Program.
“Si Yu’os ma’åse’ to all those who generously gave to the UOG “G is for Giving” annual giving campaign,” stated University President Robert A. Underwood. “We look forward to even more success in the coming years as we build a stronger University and stronger community.”
Gifts ranged from $2 to $2,500. The largest individual donor was a professor living in the state of Washington. In fact, retired professors made up 30% of the total amount raised which will be used to increase a scholarship fund they established in 2010. The college unit that raised the most money was the School of Business and Public Administration (SBPA).
“If we could get our students closer to completing their studies – by helping in this way, we contribute to a public good that our island and region could benefit from,” said SBPA Dean Annette Taijeron Santos. “Our students are our future. We are so fortunate to have a vibrant and caring community at SBPA with strong connections to our business and government stakeholders.”
The School of Business and Public Administration is housed in the Jesus and Maria Eugenia Leon Guerrero Building – a building donated by the founders of the Bank of Guam and a continued supporter of University of Guam. For the G is for Giving campaign, the Bank of Guam marketing team conducted a training workshop attended by students who later set up donation collection tables on Giving Tuesday. From Giving Tuesday until December 31st, donations were collected on the UOG Endowment Foundation website, www.supportuog.org, through the mail, and in person, using “UOG Green” envelopes specifically ordered for the month.
“The community came together to make this first, annual scholarship fundraising a success. We thank all of those who donated. As our student body grows, efforts like these become more and more critical to keep higher education on Guam growing along with it,” said Melanie Mendiola, Executive Director of the University of Guam Endowment Foundation.
Tomorrow kicks off the start of the UOG Endowment Foundation’s annual campaign, and we are asking for your support this holiday season. The annual campaign’s goal this year is to raise $28,000 for student scholarships, and we need your help to ensure that the next generation of UOG students have access to the education that can unlock their full potential.
The campaign begins with #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving that falls on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. #GivingTuesday is a worldwide movement driven primarily on social media that seeks to encourage everyone to think about giving back to the nonprofits and causes they care about, after two days of getting deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, #GivingTuesday involves a collaborative effort between alumni, local businesses, and current UOG students to raise funds to support the mission.
You will see students across campus throughout the day at tables in hopes of raising money to start the campaign on the right note – look for their green shirts, and stop by to say hello! The students are also competing to see which school can raise the most money, so if you are alumni who would like to support your school with your gift, make a note on your donation form, and your gift will count towards their goal. The Bank of Guam participated by generously offering to train student volunteers in how to approach potential donors and share a story that creates connection and makes a case for their cause.
You may see a preaddressed green envelope with a donation form between now and the end of the year, making it as easy as possible for you to give to the campaign. Every contribution counts, and we hope you will join us in supporting students by making a donation during this campaign. We also invite you to share on social media why you decided to give by using the hashtag #GisforGiving to encourage others to donate as well. Together, we can empower students to learn and grow by providing the critical resources needed to access a quality education. The campaign will go through the end of the year, until December 31. As always, your gift is tax deductible, and you can give online by going to supportuog.org and clicking the “Give Now” button. We hope you will join us!
The Clotilde C. Gould and Pacific Daily News Scholarship was awarded to student Gino Datuin at the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Professional Development Room at the UOG campus on Friday, September 29, 2017. Sandy Yow, Clotilde Gould’s daughter, and Jason Sakazaki, Market Development Director for PDN, were present to congratulate the recipient at the scholarship award ceremony.
“She always opened her home to many people,” said Yow. “I’m an only child, but we always had students living with us. The house was never just me or them.”
The late Clotilde C. Gould who passed away in 2002 was the former head of Chamorro Studies at the Guam Department of Education, and as a Master Storyteller, she helped preserve the traditional Kantan Chamorrita music art form. With the Pacific Daily News, she helped create Fino’ Chamorro, a daily language lesson, and the beloved Chamorro language comic series, Juan Malimanga.
“It’s a beautiful partnership with PDN and Sandy Yow in fulfilling her mom’s legacy and carrying on her work,” said Janiece Sablan, Executive Director for UOG Endowment Foundation.
Today, the Juana Malimanga comic series is produced by students at UOG who provide both the textual content and art work. The payment for the series is now funneled into the Clotilde C. Gould and Pacific Daily News Scholarship opportunity which supports students of Art and Chamorro Studies at UOG.
“I want to thank Pacific Daily News, Ms. Sandy Yow, and the UOG Endowment Foundation,” said Gino. “I want to also thank my parents and family who have always supported me in what I did and all the choices I made. I wouldn’t be here without them.” Gino is also one of the UOG student artists who have illustrated the Juan Malimanga comic series.
“My mother would have liked the work being done by the different generations in creating these comics,” Yow stated.
Classroom number 206 at the School of Education (SOE) building at the University of Guam was named in honor of the Filipino Community of Guam (FCG) on September 9, 2017, in appreciation for their contribution to the university.
FCG had donated $50,000 to the UOG Endowment Foundation as part of UOG’s capital campaign, and a portion of their donation was used for technology upgrades and new furniture in need of replacement at SOE. A major portion of the gift will also go into an endowment fund which will allow for greater financial benefit to the University of Guam in perpetuity.
The room dedication ceremony was attended by FCG members and officers as well as faculty and staff in the UOG campus community. 40% of UOG’s student population is of Filipino descent.
The first interactive whiteboard on campus was installed in room 206 and was made possible with FCG’s support. At the room dedication ceremony, Dean Olah, Assistant Professor in SOE, conducted a presentation on how interactive whiteboards are incorporated into lesson plans and how it encourages students to interact.
Currently there are 300 interactive whiteboards being used in Guam’s public schools, and interactive whiteboards are also found in many private schools and at DODEA in Guam.
“These interactive whiteboards are going to give our future teachers a big boost as soon as they leave SOE and begin their careers,” Olah said. “They will also be able to teach others how to use the technology and so all around, it will be good for everyone.”
The interactive whiteboard is made by Promethean, and some of the features include students taking their own attendance, video links played on the board, and class discussions saved and reused for the next class.
