Courses

Primary Instructors: Dr. Kauʻi Merritt and Ms. Katherine Burke

This course will explore health and healing practices of indigenous island people from a historical, economic, community, clinical and policy perspective. Through a combination of foundation lectures, guest speakers and site visits, students will address the concept that health and healing is not just taking medicine, but also determined by the interplay of health, food, community and culture.

There will be six major units in this course: Ke Kahua – Building a Foundation, Ke ʻAo ʻŌiwi – Creating a Culturally-Nurturing Space, Ka ʻAi Pono – Accessing Healthy Lifestyles, Ka Mālama Pono – Caring for the Environment, Ka Wai Ola – Social Justice, and Pilinā – Relationships and Connection. In each of these units we will have one day of in-class lecture and one day of fieldwork or a guest speaker. Students will be responsible for a self-assessment paper, six unit summary quizzes, and a final paper and presentation.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• SLO-1: Learn and explain basic conceptual frameworks of health and healing in Native Hawaiian culture.
• SLO-2: Identify and distinguish different historical, economic, community, clinical and policy areas that impact Native Hawaiian and Indigenous health and healing.
• SLO-3: Understand the dynamic roles that food and culture play as determinants of Native Hawaiian and Indigenous health and healing.
• SLO-4: Interface and recognize various traditional health practitioners and organizations.
• SLO-5: Effectively demonstrate knowledge, skills, and abilities in written and verbal forms.

Course Evaluation:

Primary Instructors: Aunty Lahela Kruse, Mr. Kōnane Brumblay, Mr. Enrick Ortiz, Jr., Ms. Kaʻiulani Akamine, and Dr. Kauʻi Merritt

Indigenous ways of knowing and being are vital to understand and implement for planetary healing. Here in the Islands, Hawaiian ways of healing are thus vital to the health and healing of the original peoples of Hawaii-nui-ākea. This course aims to expose students to three Hawaiian healing practices: hoʻoponopono, laʻau lapaʻau, and lomilomi. In this way (k)new understandings can help families practice ancient ways connected to place, people, story and ancestral values hidden and unused to its full potential in modern Hawaiʻi.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• SLO-1: Students will learn and be able to explain basic conceptual frameworks of healing in a Native Hawaiian/Indigenous way.
• SLO-2: Students will understand how the dynamics of food, culture, and poverty play as determinants of Native Hawaiian/Indigenous health and healing.
• SLO-3: Students will interface, watch, and bear witness to various traditional healing practices and understand where to find practitioners for future need.
• SLO-4: Students will distinguish different historical, economic, community, and clinical policies and practices that impact Native Hawaiian/Indigenous healing.

Course Evaluation:

Creative and cultural evaluation is vital for a transformed society. The following evaluation criteria are set within a self-regulating, peer-supported and community contextualized process that brings rigor, healing, awareness and understanding of what enduring knowledge is and can be:

• Attendance and Class Participation – 20%
• Weekly Written Reflections (13 total) – 30%
• Lomilomi Evaluation – 10%
• Peer Hōʻike Evaluation – 10%
• Final Hō`ike (May 3, 2021) – 30%

Primary Instructor: Aunty Lahela Kruse

These courses examines a Hawaiian practice for restoring harmony and balance in self, among family members, and in community from prehistoric times to its current use with families. Attention is on integrating the function and essence of hoʻopono and social work with 21st century families at a hoʻopono introductory level.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• SLO-1: Students will compare and contrast worldviews from Native Hawaiian and Western perspectives in order to understand how core values from multiple frameworks impact peoples interactions with themselves and others.
• SLO-2: Students will demonstrate techniques used to demonstrate respect for Native Hawaiian cultural beliefs and practices and for meaningful and effective interpersonal engagement in the hoʻoponopono process.
• SLO-3: Students will demonstrate critical thinking skills to effectively analyze interpersonal relationships, participant personalities and temperaments, and how to disentangle familial problems during the hoʻoponopono process.
• SLO-4: Students will demonstrate integration of knowledge and apply beginning, novice-level skills of a haku hoʻoponopono.

Course Evaluation:

• Attendance – 15%
• Reading Assignments – 15%
• Pono role play demonstrations – 30%
• Laulima (cooperation/working together) – 10%
• Pono assignment and oral presentation – 30%

Primary Instructor: Mr. Kōnane Brumblay

Students will be exposed to foundational vocabulary, ideas and values found within laʻau lapaʻau. This Hawaiian healing modality will be contextualized with moʻolelo, kaulana mahina, inward awareness, ʻōlelo noʻeau, and ʻike kupuna to bring forward deeper understanding of text, readings and website videos.

These courses will cover three major units: Moʻolelo of place and people, Introduction to laʻau lapaʻau philosophies and vocabulary, Introduction of laʻau lapaʻau practices. The third unit will include practical application of techniques and students will demonstrate practical competency in the uses and forms of medicinal products. The final products of the course will include a poster about one medicinal plant and a practical demonstration of medicinal products.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• SLO-1: Explain the importance of moʻolelo and place in Hawaiian healing by answering the question “What is your connection to place?” in the class discussions during the second week of the course.
• SLO-2: Identify the major horticultural, botanical, and medicinal characteristics of a medicinal plant and its medicinal forms in a poster presentation.
• SLO-3: Demonstrate a therapeutic use of a medicinal plant in a practical demonstration.
• SLO-4: Document daily activities in context of the kaulana mahina via daily journal entries.

Course Evaluation:

Student Learning Outcomes:

• SLO-1: Analyze the theory & objectives of Lomilomi, by understanding the lineage of the different styles of lomilomi and the process to become a kanaka lomilomi.
• SLO-2: Understand the kuleana of the practitioner including ethical responsibilities. How to prepare mentally, setting intention and mindset implementing components of Emotional Intelligence.
• SLO-3: Understand the benefits and contraindications of lomilomi acquiring a basic knowledge of the anatomy and insight into trigger points that stimulate and promote or deter healing.
• SLO-4: Ability to demonstrate effective written communication through course assignments and patient assessment.
• SLO-5: Ability to effectively demonstrate knowledge and skill of giving a noho lomi (Seated neck and shoulder lomilomi) and full body lomi base routine.

Course Evaluation:

Student Learning Outcomes:

• SLO-1: Describe an example of a health disparity affecting Pacific Peoples and its biological, environmental, and social determinants.
• SLO-2: Describe and analyze (provide historical and health evidence in support of) the mechanistic pathway between historical events and a contemporary Pacific health disparity.
• SLO-3: Apply basic epidemiology terminology to describe health disparities of Pacific Peoples in a research paper.
• SLO-4: Demonstrate critical thinking about the origins of a Pacific health disparity and culturally-informed and culturally-acceptable pathways to healing by summarizing and evaluating a culturally-based health program.
• SLO-5: Effectively communicate research about a Pacific health disparity in a verbal presentation to peers.

Course Evaluation:

Primary Instructor: Dr. Kau’i Merritt

Theories for both why people are well and why they get sick have existed since time immemorial. This course will explore epidemiological theories of disease distribution throughout history and across cultures: beginning with understanding “how we know what we know” and ending with answering the question of what a spider in a tangled web has to do with disease causality.

Throughout the semester five major themes will be explored: 1) history of epidemiological theory, 2) concepts of balance and health, 3) the “unseen” – germs, genes, and spirituality, 4) social connections, and 5) environmental connections to health.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• SLO-1: Describe one epidemiological theory of disease distribution including its historical and cultural context.
• SLO-2: Analyze the strengths and limitations of epidemiological theory of disease distribution.
• SLO-3: Describe the process of operationalizing and tests an epidemiologic theory of disease distribution.
• SLO-4: Orally discuss and analyze an epidemiological theory of disease distribution, specifically examining the Hawaiian and Pacific world views underlying the theory.
• SLO-5: Give and receive constructive feedback on written work to strengthen writing skills.

Course Evaluation:

Primary Instructor: Dr. Kauʻi Merritt

This course will provide an introduction to statistical methods. Lectures will consist of two parts: theory and application. The theory components will introduce statistical methods and provide a brief discussion of their mathematical underpinnings. In the application sections, we will explore how the methods are implemented in practice, using the free statistical software environment, R (http://cran.us.r-project.org/). I highly recommend supplementing R with RStudio (https://www.rstudio.com/), also free.

In general, this course aims to 1) introduce statistics as a tool that is widely applicable to questions we encounter in life, and 2) allow you to understand methods that are used in many epidemiological studies. Seldom do solutions come in tidy packages (e.g., as in pure mathematics); rather, we must accumulate evidence in order to form an opinion. Some opinions, of course, may be more persuasive than others. Indeed, highly principled use of evidence may even lead us to accept an opinion as fact. These are principles which we will explore and implement.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• SLO-1: Identify different types of data.
• SLO-2: Explain the principles of probability, random sampling, and non-random sampling.
• SLO-3: Generate a statistical hypothesis and test this hypothesis using an appropriate test statistic.
• SLO-4: Identify a community public health problem that can be explored using quantitative data analysis.

Course Evaluation:

Primary Instructor: Dr. Kau’i Merritt and Ms. Katherine Burke

Research is a systematic way to categorize observations in order to explain phenomena. Dominant Western research paradigms do not account for an Indigenous world view and, thus, important information is not incorporated into the models used to explain Indigenous health. This course will explore the theoretical and cultural basis for indigenous research frameworks and methodologies and then examine the application of these frameworks and methodologies to health inequities shouldered by Indigenous Peoples.

The course will be split into three main sections. The first will define research and describe characteristics of Western versus Indigenous research frameworks that encompass their respective world views. The second section will introduce several Indigenous research frameworks and paradigms from Hawaiʻi, the wider Pacific region, and other Indigenous Peoples. The final, and longest, section will apply these frameworks to multiple methods of collecting and analyzing health data with the ultimate goal of health equity.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• SLO-1: Describe characteristics of indigenous research frameworks and methodologies.
• SLO-2: Discuss ethical considerations for “insider” indigenous researchers.
• SLO-3: Critique the methodology of an epistemological research study published in an academic journal with the goal of using this study as a model for professional academic writing.
• SLO-4: Redesign an epistemological research study using an indigenous research framework reflecting a Hawaiian and Pacific world view.

Course Evaluation: