Ka Pe‘ahi Lono: Monthly Message for August 2024
Date/Time sent: 08/19/2024 1:00 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!
Aloha and welcome back to another academic year, 2024-2025! I hope you had wonderfully productive and restorative summer adventures! I saw many faculty, staff, and students this summer on campus teaching summer bridge programs as well as working with community-based organizations – there were a lot of campus functions! I traveled to South Korea with our Global Engagement Director, Tim Park, and met our pre-nursing students in our first summer exchange program! This summer was also a good time for our UH West Oʻahu Executive Team, which completed their full academic year together, to reflect and re-vision their work for this coming academic year. You will hear all about our objectives and strategies at the upcoming Fall Convocation this Thursday, Aug. 22. Iʻll see you there!
Fall 2024 In-Person Faculty and Staff Convocation
Thursday, Aug. 22, 8:30 a.m. to noon
8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Check-in & Tabling
9:30 to 11 a.m. Convocation Program
11 a.m. Lunch Bentos
Tabling Information:
- OPDAS & IRES will team up and provide essential information regarding professional development opportunities as well as extramural funding efforts. Your hosts: Dr. Camonia Graham-Tutt and Dr. Lea Kinikini
- ʻUpena Moananuiākea is a Title III program that has been working with faculty and students to introduce approaches to using new digital media to strengthen and build impactful learning. Your hosts: Gabby Navalta, Stephan Bradley, and Kureha Pambid
- Human Resources: If you would like to better understand personnel processes at UH West Oʻahu this is a table you must visit. Your hosts include Celia Remillard, Clinton Nishida, and Rona Yogi (and their team members).
- IT Security is perhaps one of the most important challenges that effect both your professional and personal safety. Take the time to refresh and to learn new ways to protect youself. Your host: Therese Nakadomari (and team)
- Global and Local Engagement: Key growth areas for enrollment, philanthropic giving, and faculty/staff professional development is our (1) Global/International Programs, (2) Career HUB/ Early College initiatives, Office of Distance Education and Learning (ODEL), and Student & Career Development. Your hosts include Tim Park, Garry Roy, David San Jose, and Loea Akiona.
- Student Learning and Success is the core/the “why” of what we do at UH West Oʻahu. Visit our student services table to learn more about how dynamically they support our students. Your hosts include the Nāulu Center + Noʻeau Center + Enrollment Management Services teams.
- Yes, we do have a lot of land! And, yes, we are working to develop these lands. Stop by and visit with our Campus Planning and Design team to see what we have planned. Your host: Bonnie Arakawa
- Since 2017, our philanthropic giving has increased steadily. These resources support student scholarships, faculty programming, and so much more. Learn more about how you can become involved and visit your hosts from the University of Hawaiʻi Foundation.
Please scroll through Ka Peʻahi Lono, from the Important Highlights through to the Hoʻomanaʻo Mai sections. You will learn more about our collective efforts to strengthen our educational ʻauwai (from K-12 to university to career), special events that introduced us to communities and cultures far and wide.
Wishing you all a dynamic and fun beginning to the Fall 2024 Semester!
E ʻeleu mai ʻoukou!” Step lively, let’s move together!
E mālama pono!
Maenette Benham, Chancellor
Health and Well-Being Reminder
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
Here are our Summer (June through July) highlights you might have missed:
- Amazon selects UH as education partner for training, upskilling
- Studying abroad in Japan a meaningful experience for students
- Turning pain into purpose
- ‘Ulu‘ulu part of national project to preserve historic public TV programs
- UH West O‘ahu student making a difference as Miss Hawai‘i Teen Volunteer
- $1.6M to advance ‘computational thinking’ and respond to emerging technology
In case you have not seen it, President Lassner was featured in the latest issue of Hawaiʻi Business magazine –
Hawaii Business News: David Lassner on Challenges, Finances, TMT and Calm at UH.
The Kūlana o Kapolei Newsletter for Summer 2024
Hana Lawelawe
Connecting to Our ʻOhana Across the Pacific
In June, the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture came to Hawaiʻi. UH West Oʻahu hosted two evenings of cultural performances for our West and Central Oʻahu communities. Close to 1,000 community members attended, including our own faculty, staff, and students! According to its website, FestPAC is the world’s largest celebration of indigenous Pacific Islanders. Indeed! From the awe-inspiring opening night at the SimpliFi Arena to a diversity of workshop/symposiums and a remarkable “village” a the convention center to the breathtaking ecumenical service that highlighed choral singing to a moving closing ceremony – the theme of “Hoʻoulu Lāhui” – Regenerating Oceania resounded. Mahalo to all our UH West Oʻahu faculty, staff, and students for your support. And, to Dr. Aaron Salā, Director for ʻUpena Moananuiakea who was the Executive Director for the Festival.
Global Engagement
Now that we’re able to travel and the world economy is slowly recovering, our global/international program team led by Tim Park have increased their efforts. Every month, and sometimes several times a month, we welcome visitors from an international high school or college to our campus. This past summer Tim and I visited South Korea, renewing and establishing new partnerships. I was able to welcome our first group of pre-nursing exchange students to Jinju Health College with their faculty members Nicole Akana and Dr. Becca Romine.
Student Engagement – INBRE
This summer a group of UH West Oʻahu and Leeward Community College students participated in the INBRE Student Research Experience Program. Led by Dr. Megan Ross and Dr. Olivia George, students worked with their faculty mentors on topics that ranged from isolating and characterizing of a pectobacterium isolate from a daikon radish to the effect of physical exercise on university students as well as analyzing gene expression of normal and cancerous cell types to the Waiawa Quadrat and so much more!! “Hoʻomaikaʻi nā haumana!” Excellent work!
Community-Based Engagement
On Wednesday, Aug. 7, UH West Oʻahu and our Academy for Creative Media hosted the Kosasa Foundation’s first gathering of their Community-Based Environmental Stewardship Grantees. Twenty-six organizations from Kauaʻi, Molokaʻi, Maui, Hawaiʻi Island, and Oʻahu shared both their accomplishments and challenges in their area of environmental stewardship practices. And they collectively discussed practices for community engagement and trifecta collaboration in environmental stewardship. Before leaving they learned how dynamically data could be presented by our staff in CreateX Indigenous Visualization Hub.
Hoʻomanaʻo Mai
UPDATE on Title IX
From ED REVIEW, A bi-weekly update on U.S. Department of Education activities relevant to Intergovernmental and Corporate communities and other stakeholders.
On Aug. 1, the Department’s 2024 Title IX regulations went into effect in states across the country. These regulations restore and strengthen vital protections, while clarifying longstanding provisions to help schools better fulfill Title IX’s promise that no person experiences sex discrimination — including sex-based harassment or sexual violence — in federally funded education. In addition, the regulations offer schools appropriate discretion and flexibility to meet the needs of their unique educational community, while reaffirming the Department’s core commitment to fundamental fairness for all parties, the rights of parents and guardians to support their minor children, and respect for complainants’ autonomy.
To support schools implementing the amended regulations, the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has released several resources, including:
2024 Title IX Regulations: Pointers for Implementation; Brief Overview of Key Provisions of the Department of Education’s 2024 Title IX Final Rule; Resource for Drafting Nondiscrimination Policies, Notices of Nondiscrimination, and Grievance Procedures with accompanying video, designed to help schools draft policies and procedures that comply with the regulations; and Small Entity Compliance Guide.
Despite the amended regulations alignment with Title IX’s nondiscrimination mandate and responsiveness to extensive stakeholder feedback, discrete provisions of the 2024 final rule have been challenged in multiple lawsuits. As of July 31, 2024, pursuant to federal court orders, the Department is enjoined from enforcing the 2024 regulations in the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming, as well as these schools. Pending further court orders, the Title IX regulations, as amended in 2020, remain in effect in these states and schools.
Visit OCR’s Title IX landing page for the latest information.
GRANTS SUPPORT
Are you interested in grants to support your teaching and scholarship from the U.S. Department of Education? Be sure to review the Fiscal Year 2024 Grants Forecast, which lists virtually all programs and competitions under which the Department has invited or expects to invite applications for new awards and provides actual or estimated dates for the transmittal of applications under programs. The lists are in the form of charts — organized according to the Department’s principal program offices — and will be updated regularly through the end of the month. (This document is advisory only and not an official application notice of the U.S. Department of Education.)
SAVE THE DATE
Grants Administration Training & Refresher Course for
Principal Investigators (PI) And Other Interested Researcher/Scholars
Friday, Sept. 6, Rooms TBA
9 to 11 a.m.: Overview of Extramural Procurement (Part 1)
- Roles/Responsibilities
- Important offices to know
- Resource materials
- General procurement guidelines/rules
- Methods of procurement
Friday, Sept. 20, Rooms TBA
9 to 9:15 a.m.: Events/Facility Use
9:15 to 11 a.m.: Overview of Extramural Procurement (Part 2)
- Procurement requirements
- Process flow
- Payment process
- Purchase order change forms
Friday, Oct. 11, Rooms TBA
9 to 10:30 a.m.: Equipment, Reimbursements, Interdepartmental Orders, Purchasing Card Transactions
Friday, Oct. 25, Rooms TBA
9 to 10:30 a.m.: RCUH Travel
Friday, Nov. 1, Rooms TBA
9 to 10:30 a.m.: Subawards/Service Agreements
Friday, Nov. 22, Rooms TBA
9 to 10:30 a.m.: Non-Employee Payments, Stipends + Employee Overloads, Stipends, Buyouts
Friday, Dec. 6, Rooms TBA
9 to 11 a.m.: Monthly Budget Status Reports
For more information contact:
Lea Lani Kinikini, Director of Institute for Research & Engaged Scholarship (IRES)
Email: kinikini@hawaii.edu
Camonia R. Graham-Tutt, OPDAS Coordinator
Email: camonia@hawaii.edu
IMPORTANT FALL DATES (Please Calendar)
Check the Weekly Bulletin for:
- Fall māla activities: Weekly Harvest/Volunteer Days, Saturday Community Workdays, and workshops
- Fall @uhwosports activities: Yoga, Gaming Night, Field Day, and other activities
- Noʻeau Center’s West & Welaxation Days
- Winter break closures
August
Aug. 15: Lā Pūnua orientation for first-year, first-time students
Aug. 26: First day of instruction
September
Sept. 2: HOLIDAY: Labor Day
Sept. 17: Constitution Day Event
Sept. 27: UH West O‘ahu and UH Foundation He Lei Mahalo
October
Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Oct. 9-10: UH West O‘ahu Career & Internship Fair
Oct. 14: Launch Healthy Minds Survey
Oct. 24-25: Kapolei Chamber of Commerce’s West O‘ahu Student Career Expo
Oct. 30-Nov. 1: JED Foundation Site Visit
November
Nov. 11: HOLIDAY: Veterans’ Day
Nov. 20: Fall Student Research and Creative Works Symposium 2024
Nov. 28: HOLIDAY: Thanksgiving Day
December
Dec. 5: Fall Pueo Awards Ceremony and Reception
Dec. 6: Last day of instruction
Dec. 7-13 Final Exams
Dec. 9-11: Transforming Hawai‘i’s Food Systems Together – Hawai‘i Food System Summit
Dec. 14: Mid-Year Commencement Ceremony @ UH West Oʻahu
Dec. 25: HOLIDAY: Christmas