Ka Pe‘ahi Lono: Monthly Message for April
Date/Time sent: 04/03/2023 12:00 pmUH West Oʻahu Value Proposition
We prepare 21st Century leaders, career creators through integrated, transdisciplinary programs where learners and teachers, together, discover and innovate and engage diverse communities to create a vibrant and socially just world.
Hoʻokāhi ka ilau like ana (Wield the paddles together)
Aloha mai kākou e UH West Oʻahu ʻOhana!
In this month’s Ka Peʻahi Lono, we feature messages from Dr. Manu Meyer, Kūlana o Kapolei, and our new Vice Chancellor for Administration, Dave McDonald. Manu has written a beautiful tribute celebrating the contributions and the profound ʻike that Aunty Lynette has gifted to our UH West Oʻahu ʻohana. Aunty will be retiring this summer from the University of Hawaiʻi, having worked at the UH Mānoa’s Myron B. Thompson School of Social Work, the John A. Burns School of Medicine, and UH West Oʻahu. Dave McDonald shares his journey to Hawaiʻi and UH West Oʻahu. It’s a quick and captivating read. In fact, his story may resonate with many of you. So, the next time you see hm out-and-about walking the campus please stop and talk story!
Just in case you missed the UH systemwide message, April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). There will be informational sessions and events throughout the month. Keep an eye on the weekly bulletin and special announcements.
Mahalo nūnui to our Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Search Committee and all our community members who attended and participated in the interview and feedback sessions. Just a reminder to keep your calendars open for the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs candidates on-campus visit in May – all sessions to be held while our faculty are still on campus! Mahalo again to the nine-member search committee who represent the OVCAA, OVCSA, OVCA and Faculty Senate.
We are heading into the tail-end of our 2022-2023 academic year! It has been a wonderful school year filled with hope, recovery, resiliency, and many inspiring moments of achievement. Yes, everyone is working hard and smart! Mahalo nui! Note that these productive and positive forward-moving efforts helps us to plan our summer and academic year 2023-2024 tasks and strategies. Every baby step forward helps us to find a new way to stand, walk and run!
E ʻeleu mai ʻoukou! Step lively, let’s move together!
E mālama pono!
Maenette Benham, Chancellor
Health and Well-Being Reminder
The COVID-19 vaccines are still one of the best tools available to protect against the COVID-19 virus. The virus remains a serious health concern, especially for those in high-risk categories. Learn more about the COVID-19 bivalent booster, vaccination options for children, and vaccination sites near you.
The new booster is specifically designed to protect against original COVID-19 and Omicron sub-variants.
Keep in mind, kūkulu kaiāulu! Please strengthen our community with your passions, respect for one another, and patience! Please respect an individual’s personal choice to wear a face mask. Mahalo to everyone, for your patience and empathy, your good work and commitment to care for one another!
Important Highlights
Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM)
A message from University of Hawaiʻi President David Lassner in an email dated March 22:
Aloha mai kākou,
I am proud to announce our participation in Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) in April. This is a time for us to provide education about sexual assault, to promote respect and inclusion and build safer spaces for the communities of our 10 campuses.
To recognize SAAM, a webinar series on various topics related to combating gender-based violence and sexual assault will be held throughout the month starting on April 3. The series is hosted by our Office of Equity Assurance, in collaboration with the Title IX Offices from the 10 campuses, and the Office of the Vice President for Community Colleges System Office of Compliance, EEO/AA, and Title IX. I strongly encourage everyone to register for the webinar series. Please visit the following website for more details regarding the upcoming sessions and registration.
April 2023 will mark the 22nd anniversary of SAAM. SAAM acknowledges a need for both awareness and prevention of sexual assault, harassment, and abuse. Beginning in the early 1970s, when survivors of sexual violence came together to speak out against the atrocities they suffered, the movement grew through the early 1980s and 1990s, when advocates began coordinating activities and events during April each year, advancing the idea of a nationally recognized month for sexual violence awareness. SAAM was first observed nationally in April 2001 and in 2009, President Barack Obama officially proclaimed April as National Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
While we have made progress with respect to gender-based violence, there is still much more work to be done to ensure equity, eliminate violence, and advance the full participation of all individuals in many aspects of living, learning, and working. Please join us in raising public awareness on our campuses that sexual violence is a public health, human rights, and social justice issue, and engage in our prevention efforts to make our community safer and more inclusive for all.
David Lassner
President
March Highlights
- Research conference celebrates faculty work and dedication to students
- Honors for cybersecurity students
- UH West Oʻahu has positive impact on siblings
Hana Lawelawe: On Leadership
From Kūlana o Kapolei, Dr. Manulani Aluli Meyer
Aunty Lynette Paglinawan is retiring!
A beloved kupuna is leaving us to prepare for her next chapter
ʻIke ʻia no ka loea i ke kuahu
An expert is recognized by the altar she builds.
It is what one does and how well she does it that shows whether she is an expert.
Aunty Lynette Kahekeli Kaopuiki Paglinawan, our renowned and respected UH West Oʻahu loea hoʻoponopono, will be retiring after this Spring Semester, 2023. She has been with us here in Kapolei for seven years and has taught classes on a wide range of ʻike Hawaiʻi topics. She taught Nohona Hawaiʻi: Living the Hawaiian Way, along with her classes on Hoʻoponopono – a Hawaiian healing process through ritualized communication. Aunty’s classes included such topics as Kaumaha: Understanding Grief from a Hawaiian Perspective, and Hoʻomau: Hawaiian Resilience. Her classes were filled with both UH haumana and our beloved and dedicated community grateful and committed to the ideas she so easily shared. She brought joy and dignity to our campus!
The most precious gift of our human experience is the opportunity to feel the joyful exhilaration that comes from fulfilling our responsibility to share in the care of life.
–Aunty Lynette Paglinawan
UH West Oʻahu ʻOhana will always feel her tender embrace! Mahalo nūnui e Aunty Lynette!
From Vice Chancellor for Administration, Dave McDonald
My path to the University of Hawaiʻi–West Oʻahu is similar to the college path of many students. I am the first member of my family to graduate college. My father started college but had to leave after one year to take care of the family farm and then to serve in the Army. My mother immigrated from Japan to America after she married my father.
I know that my success as a student was due in large part to my family and to the many people who mentored me, gave me an occasional home-cooked meal, or helped me to find my way to being a college graduate. I will never be able to adequately repay my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins for their guidance and support. The care packages of cookies I received from my aunt during mid-terms helped me study, make friends in the dorms, and remember that I was loved.
My journey to Hawaiʻi included earning my undergraduate degree in Business from the University of Oregon and then my Masters Degree in Public Administration from the University of Washington. Like many students, I worked many jobs as I attended college. Little did I know that when I was hired as a student employee by the Student Affairs Office that my higher education career began. My career path has followed many turns but never strayed from the goal of helping to make sure that students receive the same opportunities to grow, learn and succeed as I did.
I have worked at large research universities (University of California Irvine and University of California San Diego) system offices (Oregon University System) and a regional teaching intensive university (Western Oregon University). These different settings allowed me to gain a broad perspective and diverse set of skills that I look forward to using to help UH West O’ahu fulfill its mission of promoting student success in a supportive environment for all students.
In my various roles I have worked in nearly every area within a university and doing so has continually made it clear that higher education is a critical part of a successful and vibrant community. The UH West Oʻahu strong focus on student success along with the incredible potential for this newer university to make a generational difference to students and the families was compelling to me when I chose to accept the opportunity to join as the Vice Chancellor for Administration. My short time here has confirmed my initial belief that this was a special place with a unique opportunity to serve communities throughout the state in meaningful ways.
I am excited to be able to contribute to the university’s success and I look forward to working with faculty, staff and students to find additional ways to help support student success.
Contact information:
Email: davidamc@hawaii.edu
Phone: 808-689-2513
Hoʻomanaʻo Mai
Institute for Research and Engaged Scholarship Presents
Transdisciplinary Workshops:
1. Engaged Undergraduate Learning and Research
Monday, April 10, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 14, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.
2. Pacific and Indigenous Methodologies for Community Engaged Research and Teaching Innovation
Monday, April 24, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Thursday, April 27, 3:30-4:30 p.m.
3. Talk Story with TIG – NSF TCUP Undergraduate Research Program Development
Thursday, April 27, Time TBD
HYBRID LOCATIONS: TBA- A-101/
Zoom Option: https://hawaii.zoom.us/j/5454740554 / Meeting ID: 545 474 0554
UH West Oʻahu’s Pueo Protocol
Recently, I was asked about our campus efforts to protect the Pueo (Asio flammeus sandwichensis) endemic to Hawaiʻi. We thought it a good time to remind you of our efforts and our Pueo Protocol. Upon my arrival to the UH West Oʻahu campus, January 2017, I was apprised of the concern by members of the Neighborhood Board regarding pueo sightings on UH/UHWO makai lands. Results of UH West Oʻahu (UHWO) actions include:
- UHWO participated in the Pueo Project Study, 2017-2018. In brief, during the year-long study there were two sightings of pueo on UH/UHWO agricultural lands. However, there was no evidence of nesting in large part due to the “the high level of threats that this species faces in Hawai’i” (Pueo Project Final Report), i.e., predators (mongoose and feral cats), housing and other development.
- UHWO hosted ʻAha Pueo, April 16, 2018, co-hosted by Kanani Wood from the Kapolei Neighborhood Board. UHWO’s Dr. Manu Aluli Meyer, Konohiki Kūlana o Kapolei, and Aunty Lynette Paglinawan, Kupuna in Residence, opened and facilitated the ʻaha. Students provided historical information and moʻolelo of the pueo in Honouliuli, Bishop Museum provided information, and the Pueo Project Report was presented and discussed. Neighborhood Board Chair, Keoni Dudley, was in attendance.
- UHWO strengthened our Pueo Protocol and has been vigilant in the execution and surveillance of our ʻāina. We post our Pueo Protocol in all of our classrooms and public areas. In addition, prior to construction grubbing and grading activities, a botanist consultant performs a walking survey, visually scanning for the endangered red ʻilima plant (koʻoloaula) and bird ground nests. The construction contractor is notified of the Pueo Protocol at the pre-construction meeting and provided with the educational poster for their jobsite trailers.
- Prior to COVID, UHWO regularly messaged the Pueo Protocol through our weekly campus newsletter. Post-COVID we are returning to regular reminders of our Pueo Protocol, annual reminders to our ground crews, and on-boarding new faculty and staff to the Pueo Protocol.
Should you have any questions about the Pueo Protocol please reach out to VCA Dave McDonald at davidamc@hawaii.edu or 808-689-2513.