Goal 3: Strengthen Our Commitment to Kākou, Our Campus ʻOhana
Goal Vision
UH Hilo has grown to a new level of organizational health including operational and financial maturity, and enjoys a culture of positivity, collaboration, and alignment. As a result, the university has realized significant progress in stretching toward its aspirational values and vision.
Core & Aspirational Values
Our Values
We value diversity and strive to be student-focused and relationship-oriented. We seek to become more collaborative, intentional, and innovative. We believe that UH Hilo’s diversity offers strength, but it is only meaningful if we focus on equity by removing barriers to opportunity, fair treatment, and access for all.
Goal
Our greatest asset is the people of UH Hilo — they are purpose-driven and want to make a difference. Student growth and success was identified as a high-point moment for faculty and staff, more than any other response to any inquiry throughout the entire listening tour. When we invest more in the people of UH Hilo, they can effectively go about fulfilling our purpose and working toward our shared vision for the future. We can push away barriers by offering strategic professional development opportunities, robust leadership training, and strong mentorship. Onboarding should be integrated into the UH Hilo experience, as not only a one-session event, but rather, an ongoing effort to align new employees with UH Hilo’s values, purpose, vision, and priorities. We strive to be an organization where every member of the community is supported and can advance to personal and professional success.
UH Hilo’s purpose is to empower leaders who will cultivate opportunity in our communities. While we provide our students with impactful community-based experiences, we cannot send them out into the community without making a larger institutional commitment to place. Both community engagement and community-based research are valuable to our students, faculty, research partners, and our island. UH Hilo is the university of Hawaiʻi Island and the island needs us to engage, now more than ever.
We seek to create a welcoming campus environment. A campus where interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts among programs, colleges, and units are commonplace and valued. A place where the boundaries of the campus melt away, and people of UH Hilo actively participate in the community. An environment where there is an understanding that student success and equity is the job of all UH Hilo employees. And one where members of our leadership express gratitude for a job well done and we all celebrate successes in large and small ways across campus.
Strong stewardship and growth of university resources are vital to bring about success while supporting the goal areas detailed in this plan. Our two resource foci are people and funding.
As we move through challenging times, we must develop a stronger and future-focused organizational infrastructure with people and funding sources at the center. Strategic use of data-informed decision making, along with increased access to institutional data and benchmarking tools is critical. Ultimately, it is this thematic goal that will make it easier to move the needle on all of our goals. The people must be prepared and ready to work together, the funding must be adequate, and the environment must be productive, collaborative, and healthy.