Ka Pe‘ahi Lono: Monthly Message for January 2025
Date/Time sent: 01/06/2025 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)
See you at Spring Convocation and Professional Development Day
Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025
8 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. Multi-purpose Room (C-208)
Aloha mai kākou e UH West Oʻahu ʻOhana! Hauʻoli Lono i ka Makahiki! Hauʻoli Makahiki hou!
To mark the start of 2025, I would like to bring forward our important he momi naʻauao (pearl of wisdom) that continues to guide our work:
He maka au, he upena kākou (I am an eye, we are a net).
What makes our campus unique is that every day we live and learn to live into this he momi. The student, the learner is the piko of our net. And we, faculty and staff, our programs, our services, our resources are linked together – like a net – to ensure that that core is strong, nourished, and cared for. Our work at UH West Oʻahu is essential to the vitality of communities and families we serve. Indeed, we are stewards and kumu to the generations yet to walk this paeʻāina, this earthly home.
What we are charged to do – through the learning, teaching, and inquiry process – is to generate educated citizens who are self-actualized. Through this process of exploration and discovery, students can reason on their own, see differences not as a threat but as an invitation to understand, and innovate and transform to ensure choice, quality of life, joy, happiness, and abundance.
By engaging our intellectual assets, the heart of our ʻike kupuna/the knowledge well of ancestral wisdom and story, AND the pragmatic “can do’s” of working with our hands – by engaging with and in community settings – our students and therefore, our graduates, have the tools to contribute boldly to the transformation and the betterment of their families and their communities.
Dr. Manu Meyer, our Kūlana o Kapolei at UH West Oʻahu, reminds us that we are living in a time of Hoʻoulu. This is a time of growth when transformation is possible.
So, here is the kāhea to us all for 2025.
As an anchor institution located on the Westside of Oʻahu, we serve the largest population of Native Hawaiians, Filipinos, and Pacific Islanders – all who bring the brilliance of their rich ancestral stories and skills to our little corner of Honouliuli. Indeed, we know that our actions today will have long-lasting effect on our students, their families, and communities. So, as we reflect on the work we have each contributed as members of our Pueo learning community, let’s ask ourselves:
How can we, individually and collectively, engage the abundance of life’s wonders that comes from the diversities of our knowledge wells, programs and services, and our cultural uniqueness to uplift and inspire?
Our kāhea/our clarion call for 2025 is to be that beacon in West Oʻahu that give hope and opportunity. Mahalo hou for all you do to ensure that we pūpūkahi i holomua!
E ʻeleu mai ʻoukou! Step lively, let’s move together!
E mālama pono!
Maenette Benham, Chancellor
Health and Well-Being Reminder
Keep in mind, kūkūlu 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!
Although we are no longer in a public health emergency in regard to the COVID-19 virus please stay vigilant. Health officials are keeping watch on the latest variants and any rise in cases and their potential for causing serious illness.
If you test positive for COVID-19:
- Isolate for 5 days.
- After 5 days, you may return to work or classes if you have been fever-free for 24 hours.
- Wear a mask for an additional 5 days around others.
You can notify your instructor or supervisor that you tested positive for COVID-19 or that you have been exposed but it is not required. You should let them know if you will be out sick as you would for any other illness that would cause you to miss class or work time. Masking is optional on campus and in offices, except where required, for example, in certain healthcare-related clinical situations. Again, please respect an individual’s personal choice to wear a face mask.
Important Highlights
Every project, big or small, leads to new experiences and teaching moments that enable us to continue to do what we love– and for that we are so grateful. (Gratitude Statement)
Here are our December highlights you might have missed:
Commencement student speaker says to learn, grow from failures
Power of pilina important to commencement student speaker
Food system change advocates attend annual summit at UH West O‘ahu
Special Events this month:
Wednesday, Jan. 8: Convocation and Professional Development Day
Tuesday, Jan. 14: President Wendy Hensel’s UH West Oʻahu Campus Visit
Thursday, Jan. 16: UH West Oʻahu hosts the UH System Board of Regents Meeting
Wednesday, Jan. 22 to Friday, Jan. 24: JED Foundation Campus Visit
Hana Lawelawe: On Leadership
In memory of James Earl Carter Jr., 39th President, Public Servant, and Humanitarian
In celebration of impactful public service
Regardless of your politics we must celebrate the lives and sacrifices for those in public service who gave their time, passion, and hard work to better our lives, our families, and our communities. Every employee of the University of Hawaiʻi is a public servant and as such it is important for us to recognize our comrades who have passed on. Collectively we celebrate why public service matters, because our work impacts lives.
With the passing of President Jimmy Carter, I want to take this moment to draw to your attention the impact public servants can make. We sit below the largest internment camp of WWII in the Pacific, Honouliuli Internment Camp. While there were soldiers from the European theatre held there as well as the Pacific, this camp also housed our own families, Japanese Americans wrongfully incarcerated during WWII.
In 1980, then President Carter signed into law the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. The findings of this Commission eventually led to the reparation to those Japanese American citizens held in incarceration sites and an official apology for what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII. We need to recognize this important role he played in righting the wrongs against incarcerated Japanese Americans.
As Honouliuli reaches a milestone this year, 2025, of 10 years since President Obama established it as a national monument on February 24, 2015, the passing of President Carter is especially poignant for our local history and communities who were impacted by his legacy.
When you get a chance visit the Honouliuli National Historic Site. UH West Oʻahu will partner with the National Park Service to celebrate the landmark. We will keep you posted.
Hoʻomanaʻo Mai
Emergency Alert Enrollment
The University of Hawaiʻi is initiating a new alert messaging system: UH RAVE Alert. UH has contracted Rave Mobile Safety to provide emergency alert notifications via email and text. All members of the UH community will automatically receive emergency alerts to your @hawaii.edu email address for all 10 campuses.
In early January you will receive an email informing you that you are registered. At that time, we encourage you to log into RAVE to add your mobile phone number to receive text alerts. (Your cellular provider may charge per-text fees depending on your plan.)
Students, faculty and staff who registered for UH Alert text messages on the old system must register your mobile phone number with RAVE to continue to receive emergency text alerts. Only active UH students and employees will receive text messages.
You may receive email communications from the following email addresses:
uh@getrave.com
no-reply@getrave.com
system@litmos.com
You may verify the validity of this message by contacting the ITS Help Desk at help@hawaii.edu or (808) 956-8883 or for neighbor island residents, toll free (800) 558-2669.
Mahalo,
University of Hawaii Rave Alert Team
uhrave@hawaii.edu
Invitation from Hawaiʻi Papa O Ke Ao – Hawaiʻi Kuʻu Home Aloha Summit
Hawai‘i ku‘u home aloha: Hawai‘i my beloved home. As a Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation ™ Campus Center and a campus committed to becoming a Native Hawaiian Place of Learning, we intentionally pause each year on Jan. 17 to mark the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. During this time, we also honor the National Day of Racial Healing and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We do all of this in the name of Hawai‘i, our beloved home, as we come together – inclusive of all those who call Hawai‘i home – to build pilina while and through learning and sharing about Hawai‘i’s past and present to prepare a future Hawai‘i in which our mo‘opuna can not only survive but also thrive. Join us!
Hawaiʻi Kuʻu Home Aloha Summit (Past + Present + Future)
Jan. 17 to 22 (see schedule online)
Register here
Remember our Hanafuda Tourney?
Our Hanafunda friends have created a new set of cards. See more details here.