Category: News

The Order of the Eastern Star Hawai‘i Chapter No. 1 Scholarship Endowment donated $27,000 to create a scholarship endowment that will support future generations of students at UH Hilo.

MEDIA RELEASE– The Order of the Eastern Star Hawai‘i Chapter No. 1 Scholarship Endowment recently donated $27,000 to create a scholarship endowment that will support future generations of students at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. The scholarship will support students enrolled full-time who meet a 3.5 GPA or better and are pursuing any area of study at UH Hilo. Preference will be given to those who self-identify and describe an affiliation with a Masonic Group. Funds will be used for costs associated with attendance, including tuition, books and fees.

“We are pleased with the timing of this scholarship, it’s the first scholarship to be announced immediately after the increased tuition rates were approved by the Board of Regents,” said Chancellor Don Straney.

The dollar-for-dollar matching opportunity was made possible by a $1.5 Million anonymous gift to UH Hilo in the spring of 2009, of which $1 million was earmarked for financial assistance. Matching scholarship packages were designed to leverage private giving in the community and efforts have met with great success. Since the program was launched, more than a dozen new scholarship endowments have been created.

“The cost of higher education continues to increase, and we are grateful for the opportunity to make a contribution to help students achieve their goals and to positively impact our community,” said OES Trustee Martha Bell.

The Order of the Eastern Star Chapter No.1 is a social order affiliated with numerous Masonic groups, including the Shriners and Freemasons. It is the largest fraternal organization that both men women and men may join. OES Hawaii Chapter No. 1 was instituted in 1899 and was the first chapter located outside the continental U.S, followed by five registered Masonic lodges across the state in the early 1900’s. Several prominent Hawaiian leaders and individuals with royal Hawaiian lineage were Freemasons, including King David Kalakaua, John Dominis (Queen Liliʻuokalani’s husband), Prince David Kawananakoa, and many more.

Lifetime member and trustee Elizabeth Frendo said the decision to establish the fund stemmed from one of the group’s founding members.

“This endowment also honors Mrs. Mabel Hitchcock Schoen, a devout chapter member. I know she would be fully pleased to know that the educational seeds she planted years ago will flourish into an educational legacy for years to come,” Frendo said.

This year, UH Hilo students are benefiting from the largest amount of private scholarship support in the history of the institution. In fiscal year 2011, UH Hilo raised $1,618,148, the largest number of private scholarship dollars in history. Between 2000 and 2011, UH Hilo’s scholarship endowment grew from $942,000 to $3.4 million.

Chancellor Donald Straney and University of Hawaiʻi President MRC Greenwood attended the Royal Ball held Saturday night at ʻIolani Palace.

The Renaissance Ball was hosted by the Friends of ʻIolani Palace to raise funds for operations and special projects. In the style of the lavish balls held by the Hawaiian Monarchy, guests were wowed by musicians, dancers and acrobats and had tons of fun dancing to a live band.

This video explains more about the history and purpose of the event:

Governor Neil Abercrombie and University of Hawai‘i President MRC Greenwood hosted a reception on Nov. 11 at Washington Place, Honolulu, for officials and community leaders associated with the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope. Among the guests were TMT officials, representatives from Big Island and astronomy communities; federal, state and UH officials; and benefactors. UH Hilo Chancellor Donald Straney attended.

Photos from Richard Ha originally published on his blog. Thanks, Richard!

Brian P. Schmidt was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae. 

Brian P. Schmidt, one of three scientists awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, spoke to an overflow crowd of more than 600 people at University of Hawai‘i at Hilo last night.

Schmidt, along with two fellow researchers, was awarded the prize for the discovery that the Universe is accelerating as it expands.

Schmidt is in Hilo as part of his work with the Gemini Observatory. The lecture was co-sponsored by Gemini Observatory, UH Hilo, and the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center.

Media Release from the Official Website of the Nobel Prize:

4 October 2011

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2011 with one half to

Saul Perlmutter
The Supernova Cosmology Project
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California,
Berkeley, CA, USA

and the other half jointly to

Brian P. Schmidt
The High-z Supernova Search Team
Australian National University,
Weston Creek, Australia

and

Adam G. Riess
The High-z Supernova Search Team
Johns Hopkins University and Space Telescope Science Institute,
Baltimore, MD, USA

“for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae”

Written in the stars

“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice…”

What will be the final destiny of the Universe? Probably it will end in ice, if we are to believe this year’s Nobel Laureates in Physics. They have studied several dozen exploding stars, called supernovae, and discovered that the Universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. The discovery came as a complete surprise even to the Laureates themselves.

In 1998, cosmology was shaken at its foundations as two research teams presented their findings. Headed by Saul Perlmutter, one of the teams had set to work in 1988. Brian Schmidt headed another team, launched at the end of 1994, where Adam Riess was to play a crucial role.

The research teams raced to map the Universe by locating the most distant supernovae. More sophisticated telescopes on the ground and in space, as well as more powerful computers and new digital imaging sensors (CCD, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009), opened the possibility in the 1990s to add more pieces to the cosmological puzzle.

The teams used a particular kind of supernova, called type Ia supernova. It is an explosion of an old compact star that is as heavy as the Sun but as small as the Earth. A single such supernova can emit as much light as a whole galaxy. All in all, the two research teams found over 50 distant supernovae whose light was weaker than expected – this was a sign that the expansion of the Universe was accelerating. The potential pitfalls had been numerous, and the scientists found reassurance in the fact that both groups had reached the same astonishing conclusion.

For almost a century, the Universe has been known to be expanding as a consequence of the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. However, the discovery that this expansion is accelerating is astounding. If the expansion will continue to speed up the Universe will end in ice.

The acceleration is thought to be driven by dark energy, but what that dark energy is remains an enigma – perhaps the greatest in physics today. What is known is that dark energy constitutes about three quarters of the Universe. Therefore the findings of the 2011 Nobel Laureates in Physics have helped to unveil a Universe that to a large extent is unknown to science. And everything is possible again.