Learning Communities

The University of Hawaiʻi – West Oʻahu’s First-Year Composition program proudly collaborates with the Title III PIKO Project to offer learning community sections of ENG 100 and ENG 200.

Title III’s PIKO Project Grant

U.S. Department of Education Title III: Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian (ANNH)  programs are designed to strengthen universities and help institutions of higher education better serve students by providing funds to improve academic quality, institutional management, and fiscal stability. Title III grants also provide funding for institutions to improve and expand the capacity to serve Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives. The UH West Oʻahu Title III PIKO Project grant focuses specifically on the construction of health and wellness facilities and programs that integrate Native Hawaiian values of well-being.

PIKO Project's Learning Communities

UH West O‘ahu Learning Communities are designed to bring first-year students together through an integrated cohort experience for the purpose of successful college coursework completion at the start of the student’s academic career.

Learning Community students take part in fun and interesting activities that foster community engagement including service-learning projects that are co-planned by instructors and provide opportunities for cultural and relevant knowledge, deeper learning, and personal student/faculty collaboration. These service-learning projects engage students in meaningful volunteer service to the University and the local Kapolei and Waiʻanae communities – a great application of classroom learning. In the process, students discover how to use their education to enhance lives and change the world” (New Student Programs website).

Learning Community Groups include:

  • ‘Ike Mauli Ola: Pre-Nursing/Health Sciences Learning Community
  • Nānā I Ke Kumu: Environment, Education, and Community Learning Community
  • Fed Up: Poverty, Inequality, and Environmental Degradation
  • Pop Asia: Music, Movies, and Money
  • Gender, Sex, and Power

The FYC Program's Involvement

Since 2014, the First-Year Composition Program has offered learning community sections of both ENG 100 and ENG 200 in the ‘Ike Mauli Ola: Pre-Nursing/Health Sciences Learning Community and the Nānā I Ke Kumu: Environment, Education, and Community Learning Community. These ENG sections were a part of a larger assigned block of courses with faculty who synchronized their syllabi with relevant service learning opportunities and course materials around three central themes:

  1. Auamo Kuleana – collective transformation through individual excellence;
  2. ʻIke ʻĀina – knowledge learned from connection to land; and
  3. Aloha ʻĀina – love and commitment to land.

A final collaborative hōʻike (observable expression of lessons learned during coursework) provided a capstone experience for students to showcase their work, reflect on the learning community themes, and draw interdisciplinary connections as they moved forward in their degrees. Current and future iterations of these ENG learning community sections may vary in terms of thematic content, community engagement, and learning community membership. The FYC program currently has two learning community faculty members: Dr. Natalie Szymanski and Jade Sunouchi.

Contact Information

For more information about these course offerings, the student registration process, or UHWO’s PIKO Project in general please contact the Title III PIKO Project Director, Melissa Saul, at saulm@hawaii.edu or 808.689.2686.