Ka Pe‘ahi Lono: Monthly Message for July
Date/Time sent: 07/06/2021 8:00 amWe look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, August 18, 2021
UH West Oʻahu Professional Development and Convocation for Faculty and Staff
8:30 a.m. – noon at our new Outdoor Learning Space
Individual bentos served – RSVP information coming soon
Aloha mai kākou e UH West Oʻahu ʻOhana!
I begin with heartfelt gratitude to all our faculty, staff and students who have contributed to our UH West Oʻahu Institutional Report for Reaffirmation, WSCUC Accreditation. A very special “MAHALO!” to the IRR Drafting and Support Hui led by AVCAA Alan Rosenfeld, John Stanley, and Gloria Niles and supported by brilliant team members: John Ly, Brian Miyamoto, Christi Palacat, Yasmine Romero, Rebecca Romine, and Leila Wai Shimokawa. Please take the time to review the report and remember to take a look at the final page where our IRR Component Group Members are listed. Next time you bump into them (on zoom or in person) please extend your “Thank You!”
“Happy New Fiscal Year 2022 (2021-22)!” Well, some celebrate new year on January 1 while others rely on the moon cycles, and educators – like many of us – celebrate it at the start of a school/academic year. Okay – I admit, the new fiscal year isn’t so exciting to many but fiscal year 2021 and now fiscal year 2022 has brought and will continue to bring significant change. What’s the point? It is a reflection point where we can pause to assess our actions and understand better how our past decisions will move us forward in the short and long-term. Over this last year, we engaged in a significant Pueo Planning Process that led to decisions regarding academics, students services, facilities, and budget. The budget planning work led to a decision-making, ROI business model that is being used by both a task force charged to review how we are using our Federal Funding and our executive team (consisting of the VCs and Chancellor). Our experiences using this ROI model has led to my decision to establish the UH West Oʻahu Budget Advisory Council that will be constituted over the next couple months. I will be guided in this process by the UH West Oʻahu Federal Funding Advisory Council and the Vice Chancellors. More on this very soon.
The other day I bumped into someone’s blog about the month of July, the “dog days of summer July!” While you all know the many international, national, and local celebrations this month did you know that July 17 is World Emoji Day!
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Now, where would we be without emojis? And, July 27 is “Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day.” Okay, if you do take your houseplant for a walk please take a selfie and send it to Leila and we will feature you in an upcoming bulletin! However you celebrate the month of July, please take a break with family and friends to put some “shrimp on the barbie”, take a dip in our beautiful ocean, and/or go for an adventurous hike. Enjoy! Have a wonderful July!
E mālama pono!
Maenette Benham, Chancellor
A Celebration of Good Works: Kūlia i ka nuʻu (Reach for the Summit!)
Take a look at the good works of our faculty, staff, students and alumni!
- UH West Oʻahu associate professor authors fifth book, ‘The Minoritarian and Black Reason’
- Statewide ceremony for chemistry students included UH West Oʻahu scholars
- New outdoor space on campus offers ‘sense of belonging’
- Library’s new photo exhibit highlights Honouliuli
Hana Lawelawe: On Leadership
Participate in a system-wide review of our General Education Courses.
Your UH West Oʻahu representative is Leslie Opulauoho, opulauoh@hawaii.edu
From Your Campus Representative to the UH System GenEd Curriculum Team
As the UH General Education Curriculum Design Team embarks on a month-long, intensive re-envisioning of the UH General Education requirements for our students, they will examine the competencies that undergraduate students will have upon graduation. At the end of the Institute, they will endeavor to produce a high-level (conceptual) proposal for UH’s future General Education program that encompasses all the team’s research and discussion, and that will ensure graduating students leave UH well prepared for the demands of the 21st century.
We are Not Alone
Spend some time online perusing the agendas for recent national conferences organized by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and you will quickly find that hundreds of American institutions of higher education have recently completed, are in the midst of, or contemplating an effort to redesign their general education curricula. Similarly, recent articles published by national higher education outlets such as Inside Higher Ed have paid much attention to the reasons why there’s a sea change in colleges’ and universities’ approaches to core curricula. In “The General Education Curriculum We Need,” for example, Steven Mintz provides a brief history of the evolution of general education and some of the reasons why American higher education is once again rethinking core curricula. Paul Handstedt too addresses some of the reasons why General Education reform is so difficult in “It’s Time to Get Rid of Distribution Requirements.”
There are almost as many different ways of organizing general education, and sets of learning outcomes and specific categories of requirements, as there are institutions. The specific institutions used as examples in “Beyond Box Checking” by Colleen Flaherty, as well as those named in the curricular models page of the General Education Redesign website, illustrate programs that range from highly structured, multidisciplinary seminars to integrative experiences and skill-building courses within the major. This variability will be one of the is sues studied by the UH General Education Curriculum Design Team.
Stay Engaged
We invite you to stay engaged and follow along during the Summer Institute. All presentations, materials provided to the Curriculum Design Team (such as articles and UH campus assessment reports), and a daily summary of our discussions, will be posted in a public Google Drive via hyperlinks added to the Summer Institute schedule and list of topics. Throughout the year of extensive consultation and feedback in 2021–22, the full list of meetings and town halls, along with notes and any presentations from those discussions, will also be posted on the website. You can always share your thoughts, questions, concerns, and ideas with us through the email address established early in this process, gedesign@hawaii.edu.
Mahalo for your time and consideration,
On behalf of the UH General Education Curriculum Design Team
How does that work? Messages From Across Our Campus
Kūlana o Kapolei, Dr. Manu Meyer
VOLUNTEERS and KŌKUA NEEDED
For Hawaiʻi Food Bank Distribution @ UH West Oʻahu
Give your aloha. On Saturday, July 10, our UH West Oʻahu ʻohana begins a five-month commitment to distribute food to 200+ families in need. We will be part of a Community Volunteer pool that provided food assistance during the pandemic. The following dates will be at our West Oʻahu campus parking lot. We start at 6:30 a.m. and should be finished by 10 a.m. (after clean-up!)
- Saturday, July 10
- Saturday, August 7
- Saturday, September 11
- Saturday, October 9
- Saturday, November 6
Please arrive by 6:30 am and contact Dr. Manulani Aluli Meyer to confirm your participation: manulani@hawaii.edu. Wear a RED t-shirt, covered shoes, baseball hat, and please tie back your hair. This is a food distribution event so please dress appropriately. Mahalo nui e Pueo!
PILIʻĀINA – OUR BELOVED & STORIED LANDSCAPES
Welcoming our newest UH West Oʻahu faculty and staff
Monday and Tuesday, August 16 + 17
Welina Honouliuli! A yearly tradition continues with the welcoming of new faculty and staff via the guidance and vitality found in the Mele Honouliuli, our UH West Oʻahu mele komo by Puʻu Zablan. In this welcoming chant/song we recognize three significant sites in Honouliuli: Puʻu o Kapolei – a sacred site once known as Fort Barrett; Kapapaʻapuhi pond in Puʻuloa (Pearl Harbor), and Palehua, the mauka lands above Makakilo. All places will be visited in this six hour huakaʻi. Stories and people will help our growing campus personnel know where they are located and why a relationship with this beloved and storied landscape activates its shared purpose. Piliʻāina is supported by the Chancellorʻs Office.
From Facilities, Planning and Operations, Director Bonnie Arakawa
We are excited to announce that our new Planning and Facilities site is now live and accessible via the UH West Oʻahu Faculty/Staff link, under Campus Departments.
We invite you to browse our pages, where you can access our automated Project/Purchase Request workflow process, or request custodial and maintenance services. The Planning and Capital Projects tabs provide insights into our ongoing Planning efforts and larger Design & Construction projects, where our active and completed capital improvement projects are listed with brief descriptions and photographs.
We’d like to give a shout-out to John Ly and Erin Kim of the UHWO IT Department for their talents and time toward the development of our new webpage!
Important Announcements
Refer to our weekly bulletins or our news site Ka Puna O Kaloʻi for more information, updates, news, and announcements.