Category: Community Gatherings

UH Hilo Chancellor’s Community Vision Summit: Summary Report

Published January 12, 2012 by admin

“This first Community Vision Summit aimed to identify issues of shared concern for the future of Hawai‘i Island, along with ideas for ways the university can more effectively help us reach our common goals.” — from Summary Report of Chancellor’s Community Vision Summit, Dec. 2011.

In early December, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo Chancellor Donald Straney invited 27 leaders from the local community– representatives of education, health, technology, business, local government, and community non-profits– to convene for a Community Vision Summit.

“The discussions were lively and fruitful, focusing on the strategic directions of UH Hilo in the coming years,” said Chancellor Straney. “The group talked about their shared vision of our island’s future, and how to build two-way relationships to reach our common goals.”

Working together, Chancellor Straney said, the participants provided helpful guidance about the university’s role in strengthening our community. The importance of UH Hilo’s role in the P-20 education system was emphasized. There was a great sense of people wanting to work together to provide education and life-long learning opportunities matched to workforce development needs.

In addition, said the chancellor, emphasis was placed on undertaking research and development relevant to the people, environment, and culture of our island and state.

From the summit’s Summary Report:

The UH Hilo 2011–15 Strategic Plan makes an explicit commitment to “strengthen UH Hilo’s impact on the community, Island and state of Hawai‘i through responsive higher education, community partnerships, and knowledge and technology transfer.” On December 9, 2011, UH Hilo Chancellor Don Straney convened 27 local “thought leaders” from different sectors to engage in a conversation about strategic directions for the campus in the coming years.

This first Community Vision Summit aimed to identify issues of shared concern for the future of Hawai‘i Island, along with ideas for ways the university can more effectively help us reach our common goals.

Using the World Café meeting format, participants engaged in a series of interactive roundtables focused on three “harvest” topics informed by three pairs of questions:

1. Community Worries and Inspirations

What do you see in our community that has you worried or concerned?

What do you see in our community that inspires, energizes or excites you?

2. Realizing Bold Futures by Leveraging Opportunities

What are your hopes for our community’s future in 2020?

What opportunities can UH Hilo leverage to enable this future?

3. Achieving 2020 Impacts through Substantial Actions

If UH Hilo is fully successful in leveraging these opportunities, what impact will we see in 2020?

What substantial actions can UH Hilo take now to realize these achievements?

Through four rounds and three table changes, participants were able to share and connect ideas from multiple conversations, volunteering key ideas in each “harvest.” Over the course of a half-day of discussion, three interlocking themes emerged as areas where UH Hilo could have the biggest impact on improving the quality of life on our island:

Driving Local Economic Development

Strengthening Community Relationships

Bridging Our Island’s Multiple Sectors

The full Summary Report (PDF) of the summit is now available online.

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Chancellor Straney attends benefit for American Cancer Society

Published January 6, 2012 by admin

Sig Zane Designs

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Chancellor’s Mahalo Celebration will feature locally grown and produced foods, dessert contest

Published December 2, 2011 by admin

University of Hawai‘i at Hilo’s annual Chancellor’s Mahalo Celebration will be held on Thursday, Dec. 15, from 3:00 to 4:30 pm at the Campus Center Plaza.

Festivities will feature locally grown and produced foods. Faculty and staff also will have an opportunity to demonstrate their culinary talents through a Holiday Dessert Contest. Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

Sodexho Baker’s Tastiest Choice: $50 Sodexho meal card
Chancellor’s Most Original Choice: $50 gift certificate
Student’s Presentation Choice: $50 gift certificate from the UH Hilo Student Activity Council

There also will be hands-on activities for children to make fun things to take home!

Happy Holidays!

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Donors are introduced to scholarship recipients at the 2011 Scholarship Banquet

Published November 24, 2011 by admin

“Behind every scholarship there is an individual or a company that has a connection to UH Hilo and a desire to help our students. On behalf of the university community, I’d like to take this opportunity to express gratitude to our donors.” -Chancellor Straney

A group at the 2011 banquet gather for a photo — Retired pharmaceutical entrepreneur Alec Keith, center, is surrounded by scholarship recipients at the 2011 Scholarship Banquet. In 2004, Keith and his wife Kay pledged $2.4 million to fund scholarships at UH Hilo, which at that time was the largest private donation made to any campus in the UH system. The Alec and Kay Keith Scholarship supports students from Hawai‘i and the Pacific islands who demonstrate both academic merit and financial need. Photos by Robbyn Peck.

Attendees at their banquet tables listen to a speaker — Chancellor Straney delivers remarks at the 2011 Scholarship Banquet.

University of Hawai‘i at Hilo Chancellor Don Straney and the UH Foundation co-hosted the 2011 Scholarship Banquet held Nov. 10 on campus. The annual event is organized to thank UH Hilo’s private scholarship donors and to introduce them to the students currently benefiting from their support. About 150 people attended, including 50 private scholarship donors.

“It’s clear what a vitally important role our private donors play in ensuring the academic success of our students– scholarships support students to complete their education and contribute to their communities,” said Chancellor Straney. “Behind every scholarship there is an individual or a company that has a connection to UH Hilo and a desire to help our students. On behalf of the university community, I’d like to take this opportunity to express gratitude to our donors.”

A smiling Gladys Sonomura gets up from her banquet table — Donor Gladys Sonomura walks up to the podium to give her remarks.

Donor Gladys Sonomura said a long time ago she began to embrace the idea that UH Hilo could become Hilo’s primary economy, its industry as a college town, like the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she studied for a year.

“Astronomy, the volcanoes, the ocean and multi-culturalism are unique here,” said Sonomura. “Pharmacy and advanced nursing degrees are now entrenched here. Hilo is on an island where we even have the requisite elevations from sea level to the tops of our mountains to grow almost anything.”

Sonomura’s friends were invited to accompany Pierre and Pam Omidyar when they received the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in New York last month. Noting that Andrew Carnegie was quoted as having said, “To die rich is to die in disgrace,” Sonomura commented, “I like to think that if I had access to such wealth, I would not die in disgrace. UH Hilo would receive the greater part of it, and I would also support Hawai‘i Community College.”

Scholarship recipient Elina Fred was born and raised on the island of Kosrae in the Federated States of Micronesia. She is due to graduate from UH Hilo in December with a double major in accounting and communications. Her goal is to become a CPA. Fred thanked her donor, Alec Keith, “for having given me a 23-year head start on where I want to go” because 23 years is how long she calculated that she would have had to work with only a high school diploma in Micronesia in order to earn sufficient funds to attend a university in the U.S.

“Tonight is the first time I’m meeting you,” she said to Keith, “but you’ve already made a big impact on my life.”

Fred hopes one day to start a scholarship fund for students from her island.

Scholarship recipient Cheryl Lopez was born and raised in a Filipino-American family on Maui. She is the first in her in her family to earn an undergraduate degree and is now in the third year of pharmacy school. She, too, hopes one day to provide scholarship support to students.

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Facts about Financial Aid at UH Hilo

70% of UH Hilo’s 4,000+ students depend upon some form of financial aid to fund the cost of attending university. For first year students at UH Hilo, the percentage is even higher: 75% of freshmen are receiving financial aid.
UH Hilo has the highest percentage of students receiving aid of any of the ten campuses in the University of Hawai‘i System.
Almost 42% of UH Hilo students qualify for Pell grants, the federal aid which reserved for students with the highest financial need. This academic year, for the first time in history, the maximum Pell grant failed to meet the full cost of resident tuition at UH Hilo.
The UH Hilo Financial Aid office receives almost 7,000 applications for financial aid and awards over $42 million in support to students annually. Private scholarships account for about 1% of this aid, or $440,000.
In FY11, generous donors enabled UH Hilo to raise the largest number of private scholarship dollars in history: $1,618,148. Between 2000 and 2011, UH Hilo’s scholarship endowment grew from $942,000 to $3.4 million.

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Photos by Robbyn Peck.

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UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College jointly sponsor faculty and staff leadership summit

Published November 23, 2011 by admin

The Leadership Summit held this past weekend gave faculty, staff and students a chance to boost their skills as leaders in higher education within a cultural context.

A group of people in kīhei walking — At the kipaepae at the leadership summit. Photos courtesy of Hawaiʻi Community College I Ola Haloa.

The University of Hawai‘i at Hilo and Hawai‘i Community College (HawCC) are working together on professional development programs to increase faculty and staff knowledge and awareness of Hawaiian perspectives. The two campuses jointly sponsored this past weekend’s retreat designed to boost faculty and staff skills as leaders in higher education within a cultural context. This type of professional development strengthens the ability of both campuses to fully support Native Hawaiian students as they complete their higher education.

Saturday was Wahipana: Sacred Geographies of Hilo. The purpose was to have UH Hilo and HawCC faculty, staff, and students collectively develop a personal relationship to the Hilo community amongst sacred geographies. Some of the sites visited included:

Wakaomāui (Canoe of Maui)
Waiānuenue (Rainbow Falls) that includes Keanaohina (Cave of Hina), and Waiokuna (Water of Kuna)
Peʻepeʻe (Boiling Pots)
Puʻuōpeʻapeʻa (Bat Hill), Puʻuhālaʻi (Hill of Tranquil Breath) and Puʻuhonu (Turtle Hill)

People don their kīhei before the ceremony — David Lonborg (at right), UH President MRC Greenwoodʻs executive assistant, and David Olwell (left), American Council on Education Fellow, put on their kīhei to get ready for the kipaepae ceremony. Photo by Cam Muir.

At Sunday’s ʻAhaʻaha Leadership Summit the discussion was about Leadership through Traditional Rites of Passage.

The participant numbers for the weekend were as follows: Saturday’s Wahipana O Hilo, 122 participants; Sunday’s ʻAhaʻaha Leadership Summit, 78 participants. On Saturday, David Lonborg, UH President MRC Greenwoodʻs executive assistant, and David Olwell, American Council on Education Fellow, both flew over from Honolulu to participate.

Some scenes from the summit:

a group in kīhei attend the kīpaepae — Faculty, staff and student participants gather at Sunday’s leadership summit while Pele Kaio, center, a UH Hilo student majoring in geography and unuolehua hula student, chants the group onto Ka Pakapaka Malae ceremonial grounds.

A woman teaches making hei string art — At right, Jubilee Kuewa, interim director at UH Hilo’s Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action office, learns how to make hei (string figures) with Wahineaukai Mercado, a UH Hilo pre-nursing major and unuolehua kumu hula trainee.

A woman holds up her string art — Marianne Takamiya, UH Hilo assistant professor of astronomy, makes hei (string figures like “cat’s cradle”).

A man uses a wood block to apply a pattern to a kīhei — Randy Hirokawa, dean of UH Hilo’s College of Arts and Sciences, prints his kīhei, a shoulder wrap used for special ceremonies.

A group gathers to hear a man speaking — On Saturday, the group listens to Taupōuri Tangarō, PhD, assistant professor and department chair of Hawaiian life styles and humanities at Hawai‘i Community College, during a visit to Waiānuenue (Rainbow Falls), which includes Keanaohina (Cave of Hina) and Waiokuna (Water of Kuna).

A group huddled under umbrellas gathers in the rain at Boiling Pots park — One of the sites visited on Saturday was Peʻepeʻe (Boiling Pots).

Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy of Hawaiʻi Community College I Ola Haloa. Mahalo to all photographers!

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