Connecting Learning, Life and Aloha
‘O ka ‘imi na‘auao, ke ola a me ke aloha kā kākou e huliāmahi ai

Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Policies Concerning the Ph.D. in Hawaiian and Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization (HILCR)

On this page:

1. Conflict of Interest Policy Rules

  1. Any new policies concerning the Ph.D. program in the College of Hawaiian Language (CHL)/Ka Haka ʻUla o Keʻelikōlani are to be presented to the college's senate (which consists of all tenured and tenure-track faculty) for discussion, but only those with the doctorate are entitled to vote. Policies endorsed by the college senate will be given to the Graduate Council for review. After taking action, the Graduate Council will send such policies forward for campus-wide faculty review under processes approved by the Chancellor; these processes lead to the VCAA for approval or rejection.
  2. Faculty members currently enrolled in the doctoral program may not sit on the college or University-wide personnel committees.
  3. For faculty who are doctoral students in the program, evaluation of the comprehensive exams (given before the formation of the dissertation committee) will be carried out by the doctoral faculty with the assistance of professors from outside the program (one for each exam). The outside professors will be asked to provide written evaluations, in order to maintain a written record.
  4. At least twelve credits of the graduate courses taken by doctoral candidates who are faculty members of the college shall be taken from professors outside the regular program faculty-either courses offered at UH Hilo by professors from outside the regular faculty or courses taken at outside institutions for transfer to UH Hilo.
  5. Faculty members currently enrolled in the doctoral program may not teach any course that is part of the doctoral program (i.e., they may not teach any 700-level course, nor any of the four courses that are used as pre-requisites for the 794 doctoral seminars, KED 660 , KED 662 , KIND 601 , KIND 602 ). (See also 2c. below)

2. Dissertation Committee Rules

  1. For every doctoral dissertation committee, there shall be a committee member (institutional representative) appointed from the UH from a related field, outside the candidate's graduate program, both to provide additional academic direction to the student and to guarantee to the University that proper standards are being upheld. The institutional representative shall be proposed by the student, with the advice of his primary adviser. Final approval rests with the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (VCAA).
  2. All members of the committee must approve the dissertation for it to pass. Therefore, all members should be given an early draft of the dissertation so they may request changes. If a candidate feels that a committee member is being unreasonable, he or she may appeal to the VCAA to replace that member.
  3. For candidates who are faculty of the college, there shall be an outside expert committee member appointed from outside the program appointed for his/her expertise relative to the dissertation topic.

(The outside expert can also be the institutional representative if drawn from the UH. The outside expert is part of the dissertation committee at the beginning and different from the outside examiner, who is appointed by the VCAA just before the dissertation defense.) Therefore, there shall be three committee members at a minimum, normally two from the program and one UH institutional representative from outside the program. For candidates who are faculty members, there will be four committee members at a minimum if the outside expert is from outside the UH (three if the institutional representative is also the outside expert).

3. Language of the Dissertation

  1. The dissertation may be written in either of the two official languages of the State of Hawaiʻi - English or Hawaiian - as chosen by the candidate.
  2. For dissertations written in Hawaiian At least three members of the dissertation committee must be able to read Hawaiian at a level sufficient to examine the dissertation and provide feedback.
    • A chapter-by-chapter summary shall be written in English.
    • If the institutional representative and/or the outside expert committee members are unable to read Hawaiian at a level sufficient to examine the dissertation and provide feedback, they will first be provided with the chapter-by-chapter English summary.
      • Additional information shall be provided through discussion with the candidate and/or translation of selected portions of the dissertation into English until the committee members are satisfied with their understanding of the dissertation.
    • An external examiner must be chosen who is both expert in the topic and able to read the language of the dissertation at a level appropriate to examine it.
  3. For dissertations written in English that focus on Hawaiians or another indigenous people, a chapter-by-chapter summary shall be written in the indigenous language of that people.

Summary:

Language of Dissertation Language of Chapter Summaries
Hawaiian English
English Hawaiian if concerns Hawaiian people; If the dissertation concerns another indigenous people, then the relevant indigenous language
  1. The chapter summaries written in the second language shall become a part of the dissertation submitted to ProQuest/UMI for publication, as well as an abstract written in English.

4. Dissertation Proposal

  • a literature review shall be required as part of the dissertation proposal (If the candidate's proposal already has been approved before this requirement was passed, then the literature review should be the first task completed, before other research and writing are carried out.)

Effective 7.9.2009