ACUI Reflections

Rosannah and I were happy to have been selected to attend the ACUI Regional Conference this year, which took place in Reno, Nevada. For me, not only was I going to be able to take what I learned and apply it to Ke Kalahea, I was going to learn skills that aren’t being taught to me in my current majors that I needed for a future career in- well, anything. Not everyone is a natural-born leader, and even then, natural-born leaders are not always the most progressive.

I think that’s what surprised me most; the level of inclusivity at this conference was completely unexpected but wholeheartedly welcome. I come from a really conservative town, and moving to Hawaiʻi separated me, literally and figuratively, from issues that I deeply care about. These were at the forefront of everyone’s minds at the conference. It felt like that though we are all here to improve ourselves and our schools, the work we are doing and the community we are building are going towards constructing a better world.

The conference was held at the University of Nevada Reno, which gave Rosannah and I the opportunity to connect with their student newspaper, the Nevada Sagebrush. Meeting them certainly gave me a different perspective on my own work with the paper. They publish at the beginning of each week, and though their stories tend to be shorter, they cover a wide variety of topics. Their campus is highly active in social and political discourse- a side effect of the fact that Nevada is a swing state- so the Sagebrush editors have a lot on their plate in terms of what’s covered.

Another striking difference was their school of journalism. Journalism isn’t even offered as a major at UH Hilo, so to see their building that is solely dedicated to various types of media reporting was a unique occurrence for me. The editor even remarked that journalism was one of the smallest majors at UNR, which meant that they got one of the smallest buildings. That was pretty funny to me, seeing as the “smallest” building on their campus was roughly the size of STB.

All in all, it was a truly inspirational experience. I got to know a lot of deeply interesting people, and become closer with the UH Hilo traveling group; and I think we all learned how we can better ourselves, the school, and the community. It feels small, especially starting at the individual level- but in the end, the continuous progress leads to a better world.