THE University of Guam has announced the appointment of Dr. Frankie Santos Laanan as the new dean of the University of Guam School of Education. Laanan will begin his term on Aug. 1.
Prior to his appointment with UOG, Laanan worked as a tenured full professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Iowa State University. Previously, he held faculty positions at the University of North Texas and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
UOG President Dr. Robert A. Underwood commended Laanan’s exceptional background as an administrator and educator.
“We are very pleased to welcome Dr. Laanan to UOG and back to Guam,” he stated.
Laanan attended St. Anthony Catholic School and John F. Kennedy High School. He has a B.A. in Political Science, an M.A. in Higher Education, and a Ph.D. in Higher Education and Organizational Change from the University of California in Los Angeles.
“I am very honored to have been selected as the new dean of the School of Education at the University of Guam,” Laanan said.
Laanan added he looks forward to “working with the faculty, staff and students to address critical issues facing Guam’s K-12 schools including pre-service and in-service teacher education, professional development, and student achievement and success.”
He is also planning “to build a strong relationship with the Guam Department of Education and to focus on research.”
Education Task Force Chairman Vince Leon Guerrero congratulated Laanan on his appointment. He said he looks forward to working with Laanan and the School of Education.
“We’ve got to make sure that a focus on student achievement starts before students ever enter the classroom with strong teachers who have had the right training and education from UOG,” Leon Guerrero stated.
Comments
There is, however, only one outstanding question and that is this: Will the new hires hold others, especially local-native folks accountable? We know that local-native folks do hold accountable the local-stateside folks, the local-FAS folks, the local-Filipino folks and the local-Asians-Other-Than-Filipino folks, and that much is a given. Until such time the deadweights within the system, be it in any agency can be removed with due process, there is really no moving forward in improving educational outcomes, health-care outcomes, GPD and GFD outcomes, etc. (For example, do the police give local-native women/girls preferential treatment as compared to local-FAS persons for the same perceived offense? Or, in other words, is there profiling going on, on a massive scale?)
Linked with this question is the self-determination question and the lack of interest therein for the sign-up for the so-called plebiscite. Why? Natives already have their own government, pretty much, and have achieved economic self-determination. Hence the lethargy for political self-determination.
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