Ka Pe‘ahi Lono: Monthly Message for October

Date/Time sent: 10/04/2021 8:00 am

Aloha mai kākou e UH West Oʻahu ʻohana!

Instead of a gratitude quote, I offer you an opportunity to celebrate! Acknowledging all that you give every day to learning & teaching, discovery & enlightenment! It’s time to “Dance on the Ceiling!”

On September 30 we closed two (2) very impactful Title III Grants (1) PIKO and (2) Building Bridges. The positive impact that both have had on our campus is immeasurable, but as we must do for all grants and contracts a final reporting is currently underway. I just want to take a brief moment to mahalo the faculty, staff, and students who have worked on both grants! Kudos to Planning and Facilities, to Student Affairs and Student Life, to our Business & Human Resources Offices, and to faculty who championed both academic programming and co-curricular programing. A very special mahalo to all those involved in the PIKO grant, which has literally changed the footprint of our campus! Look around at the new facilities the grant funded to include the SIM-Lab in E-Building, our hale in the Student Organic Garden, the Nāulu Center and work-out/gym space, and our newly renovated plaza in front of C Building with our outdoor learning venue. There is so much more that the grant supported to include student-focused programs and, more importantly, student college going and graduation! Here is a special “Mahalo” video created by student Abbie Reed, to thank PIKO for all these gifts.

Preparing our campus for a safe return to on-campus learning

There is much we are learning about how to return to on-campus learning from our HIDOE partners (who are fully in-person) and our peers on the U.S. continent. Many of our competitor universities have transitioned to more on-campus courses with a healthy blend of hybridity and online options, e.g., Cal State University System campuses returned this fall 2021. In addition, the CDC’s guidance is that Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) where all students, faculty, and staff are fully vaccinated can return to full capacity in-person learning. Effective January 2022, UH System campuses will be at full vaccination. See the CDC Guidance for Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs).

So, lessons learned from these vanguard institutions to return to the dynamics of in-person learning and teaching coupled with our efforts this fall 2021 semester (our transition semester) and our vaccination policies for spring 2022 affords us a high level of confidence that we will be able to host more on-campus classes as well as revive our on-campus student life activities. This is certainly not a return to pre-March 2020/COVID-19. Instead, this will be a transformative opportunity to live into our value proposition by participating in orchestrating a new balance of course delivery methods where we can meet the needs of a broader community of learners.

What’s in this month’s Ka Peʻahi Lono?

In this month’s Ka Peʻahi Lono the OVCAA, see Hana Lawelawe: On Leadership, provides an overview of our return to campus Spring 2022. I highlight some exciting accomplishments and we hear from our Kūlana o Kapolei, Dr. Manu Meyer. Please READ-ON!

Section divider made up of two canoe paddles.

HANA LAWELAWE: ON LEADERSHIP

Contribution from the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs
Written by AVCAA Alan Rosenfeld.

A Call To Action!

While past OVCAA contributions to Ka Pe‘ahi Lono have rightly hailed campus success stories (despite the challenges of COVID), this month’s iteration comes with a more sober tone and a call to action. As you know, the UH System recently broadcasted the enforcement of a vaccination mandate, effective January 2022, for any student wishing to take an in-person or hybrid course this spring. This announcement is part of a larger initiative to increase the volume of on-campus (including hybrid) course offerings and reinvigorate student life and the overall student experience as we move into the Spring 2022 semester.

These past 18 months have been a trying time for all of us, on many levels. As an institution, UH West O‘ahu did a phenomenal job transitioning into emergency remote instruction in 2020, thanks in large part to the efforts of our Information Technology unit, Office of Distance Learning, instructional faculty and countless others (e.g., academic advisors, librarians). The fact that the Fall 2020 semester saw UH West O‘ahu achieve record student headcount enrollment, near-record fall-to-fall student retention, and a record number of fall graduates was a truly remarkable achievement. Unfortunately, the tide has rolled away from us in 2021. Our Fall 2021 enrollment — while still above 3,000 students — dipped to its lowest point in five years while fall-to-fall retention of FTFT (first-time, full-time) students suddenly cascaded downward to a seven-year low. In this respect, UH West O‘ahu managed to delay rather than avoid a larger national trend. U.S. colleges experienced a dramatic drop in student enrollments in Spring 2021, which was coupled with a significant (nationwide) decline in financial aid applications from high school graduates. Clearly students are struggling with a fully online learning environment that deprives them of opportunities to develop meaningful peer relationships/friendships or generate rewarding interactions with their instructors.

We therefore ask you to join us as part of a 10-campus effort to reenergize on-campus learning and co-curricular life this spring. Indeed, students and community members have been increasingly vocal in expressing their desire to see a resurgence in face-to-face activity on UH campuses. Furthermore, the Veterans Affairs (VA) Office announced that the COVID-19 emergency exemption of the standard residency requirements for its beneficiaries will expire on December 31, meaning that our VA students will once again require in-person (or hybrid) classes in order to receive their housing allowances and other benefits. If we pull together, we can do this safely. A system-wide survey in June revealed extremely high vaccination rates among UH students and employees alike, even before the aforementioned vaccination mandate that goes into effect in January. UH instructors also now have the ability to access the vaccination status of their on-campus students via class lists available on a special instructor support app on the STAR platform.

There is no mandate for individual instructors to teach their classes on campus. Let that be clear. Even before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, half of UH West O‘ahu’s courses were offered in distance education formats. However, we are looking to increase our on-campus opportunities in the spring, including hybrid and blended formats. As of September 23, 19.6% of our anticipated Spring classes were planning for an in-person or hybrid component, and our goal is to increase that figure beyond 30%. Chancellor Benham will be returning classrooms to their pre-COVID capacities. New class modalities such as HOT Hybrid Rotating Group provide the instructors with the flexibility to increase or decrease the volume of face-to-face class time in response to changes in the public health situation. Finally, UH West O‘ahu instructors have access to amazing technology tools such as the Owl Labs video capture device and the Vibe interactive whiteboard to support blended classroom arrangements that bridge online and in-person students in “real time.” If you are ready to participate in this mission-critical effort, please reach out to your division chair right away and get ready for a Spring 2022 semester in which students can connect with the campus, one another, and all of you once more. We can never return to February 2020, but we can create a more vibrant February 2022!

Pūpūkahi i Holomua (Unite to Move Forward)!

A CELEBRATION OF GOOD WORKS: KŪLIA I KA NUʻU (REACH FOR THE SUMMIT!)

HOW DOES THAT WORK? Messages From Across Our Campus

FAQs from the September 3, Faculty Senate Meeting. See attached, with useful links.

From our Kūlana O Kapolei, Dr. Manulani Aluli Meyer

Here are some events you may be interested in for your students and for your ʻohana:

Food Bank Distribution on Saturday, Oct. 9, and Saturday, Nov. 6
Nā Mea Makahiki on Friday, Nov. 19
A paper from the World Virtual Indigenous Circle on Open Science and the Decolonization of Knowledge (Canadian Commission for UNESCO & United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). If youʻre interested in the paper, please contact Dr. Manulani Aluli Meyer at manulani@hawaii.edu.

Quote used in the report from Dr. Manulani Aluli Meyer:

Leroy, I remember a talk you gave where I said something
Stupid like, “Land is a metaphor for our mother.” And you scolded me and said, “Land is not a metaphor for our mother, land is our mother.” That changed everything for me. Indigenous epistemology is about continuity. And in that center of continuity is love. We call it aloha here in Hawaiʻi. And it’s not a commodity. It is and energetic field of purpose, shared meaning, passion and commitment to the love of land and the service of people.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Aloha United Way campaign is underway, and I highly encourage your participation in this worthy cause. The Aloha United Way helps to support numerous agencies that provide services in areas ranging from education to poverty prevention. The campaign runs from through October 8, 2021. For more than 100 years, AUW has raised funds for local nonprofit organizations in areas including education, poverty prevention, and safety-net services.

This year, UH West Oʻahu is serving as a pilot program for a new donation platform called Philanthropy Cloud. To show your support of AUW, please visit https://www.philanthropycloud.com/ and enter in your primary UH email address. You will then be prompted to create a password. You may also obtain a form-fillable pledge form or a paper pledge form from our campus coordinators, Ryan Perreira (rperreir@hawaii.edu) or Christine Neves (cabralch@hawaii.edu). If you have any questions, please visit the AUW FAQ for Philanthropy Cloud.

Thank you for supporting Aloha United Way!