Executive Summary
American Samoa Community College (ASCC) is the primary postsecondary institution serving the population of the Territory of American Samoa. Located in the Southern Hemisphere, approximately 2,500 miles from the nearest American university in Hawai’i, ASCC is a critical anchor point for the young people and economy of the island territory. With a population of about 50,000 people, American Samoa is not only home to an almost entirely Pacific Islander population, but also the ancestral cradle of the ancient Samoan culture. As such, ASCC’s responsibility extends through its students, its community, and to the understanding, preservation, and growth of a Samoan society–Fa'a Samoa–that has been in existence for millennia.
ASCC is an-open admissions, co-educational Land Grant institution that provides two-year transfer programs in general education, vocational programs and a B.Ed teacher education program, as well as Samoan and Pacific Studies, Adult Education and several grant-funded special projects. The college is listed as a Minority Serving Institution (MSI) by the National Broadband Availability Map. ASCC is the only designated MSI in American Samoa; in fact, it stands as the only such institution located in Earth’s Southern Hemisphere.
Perhaps not surprisingly, both the college and its student population have significant needs, and those needs have only been magnified under the strain of the global pandemic. Due to its remoteness and lack of access to critical resources including capital, the territory’s economy has always been one of the most strained of all American possessions. Prior to COVID, more than half of the territory’s population struggled with significant poverty, and wages have stagnated for over a decade with the slowdown of local industries, especially fisheries and agriculture. The territory itself has begun to lose population as a result--down over 10 percent from 2010 to 2020, with significant impacts upon the availability of trained professionals and career paths for talented young people.
The impact of the pandemic has been to gravely exacerbate these conditions. The territory imposed a near-total lockdown for more than twelve months, and travel to and from American Samoa continues to be severely restricted as of the time of this proposal. This experience has served to isolate the territory even further from the rest of the United States; while other regions and municipalities have shifted their government services and businesses online, American Samoa has largely lacked the capacity to do so. For ASCC, the impact has included a large number of students struggling with a lack of connectivity at home and on campus, limited or no access to computer equipment, and the inability to access remote classes and course materials.
In response to these challenges, college leadership, in conjunction with a broader effort from the American Samoa Government and its partners at the federal level (including the US NTIA, EDA, and several other agencies,) has identified a plan to modernize both the way it delivers education as well as the curricula it offers–all with the goal of better preparing its students for an information-driven, fully-connected, post-COVID world. The planning effort has culminated in the A?oa?oga Aso Nei Initiative.
A?oa?oga Aso Nei, a Samoan phrase that translates (roughly) to the English “Education of Today,” represents the most ambitious attempt ever undertaken by American Samoa to reposition post-K12 education for the modern global economy. While A’oa’oga Aso Nei Initiative will deliver a direct major improvement in digital access and equity for the students of the college, this improvement is intended to extend far beyond technology access. Through the Initiative ASCC will modernize its entire mechanism of postsecondary pedagogy, acknowledging that many of the learning resources its student needs will not exist within the territory and must be obtained through online resources. Interacting with online courses and remote instruction must transition from being an afterthought into core aspects of the college’s service delivery approach. While remote learning might be a transitory phase for most of the United States, in American Samoa it must become a way of life.
To achieve the goals of the initiative, AAN will execute several sub-projects aimed at quick and cost-effective results:
- The campus connection to the internet will be upgraded to a Gigabit-speed connection, as is recommended and advocated for by a number of postsecondary organizations including the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition.
- An equipment lending program will be set up for all students who cannot afford laptops or home connections to the internet, leveling the learning playing field for students in need.
- A curriculum modernization project will deliver both a plan for the coming decade as well as a working pilot adding ICT and/or computer science classes for both postsecondary and adult learners, leveraging the college’s new capabilities to get students online and connected to the outside world.
- Finally, training will be provided to existing ASCC Information Technology Staff to better support and improve educational service delivery in the context of a significantly altered technical environment delivered by A’oa’oga Aso Nei.