Representatives from UH West Oʻahu, Leeward Community College and the Joint Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command Central Identification Lab at Hickam Air Force Base following the agreement signing ceremony.

Students and faculty in University of Hawaiʻi–West Oʻahu and Leeward Community College’s joint certificate program in applied forensics anthropology will benefit from a new partnership between the two campuses and the Joint Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base.

The three institutions recently signed a memorandum of understanding that expands UH West Oʻahu’s current partnership with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Central Identification Lab.

The partnership provides forensic anthropology students with opportunities to learn in a field and laboratory environment at the Central Identification Lab, the most prestigious forensic anthropology lab in the nation. The lab’s primary mission is to search for, recover and identify U.S. personnel missing from past military conflicts. Teams from the lab have traveled to Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, South Korea, Iraq, the Pentagon after the September 11 terrorist attacks, and all over the world conducting recovery missions.

Instructors from the Central Identification Lab will teach forensic anthropology courses at UH West Oʻahu, and students and faculty are now able to attend classes and receive training at the lab’s Forensic Science Academy at Hickam Air Force Base.

UH West Oʻahu and Leeward Community College faculty members will also be listed as adjunct faculty at Hickam, and Hickam staff will utilize UH West Oʻahu and Leeward Community College campuses for research and training.

Applied forensic anthropology certificate

The certificate program in applied forensic anthropology is offered jointly by UH West Oʻahu and Leeward Community College through in-class instruction, and is awarded by UH West Oʻahu upon completion.

When combined with appropriate associate and bachelor’s degrees, the certificate prepares students for a variety of job opportunities, including crime scene analyst, forensic anthropologist, forensic scientist, and crime lab technician. The program gives students a solid foundation in forensic anthropology and an introduction to the wider field of forensic science.

“The UH West Oʻahu and Leeward Community College campuses that offer this joint certificate in applied forensic anthropology have been so very fortunate to have the world class JPAC/CIL facilities and staff located at nearby Hickam Air Force Base,” said UH West Oʻahu Professor Suzanne Falgout. “Many of our students complete senior culminating practicums there, and several have been further selected for prestigious Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education fellowships or Department of Defense internships.”

The UH Hilo College of Pharmacy is ranked in U.S. News and World Report’s 2012 list of top pharmacy schools.

The College of Pharmacy at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo earned national recognition earlier this year as one of the top five new schools of pharmacy, according to U.S. News and World Report.

In its first year of eligibility since admitting its inaugural class in 2007, the College of Pharmacy ranked 74 out of 135 schools of pharmacy in the United States. Of the 42 new pharmacy programs established in or after 2000, only three programs ranked higher than UH Hilo’s program.

“These rankings are based on expert opinions about program excellence, so to garner attention at all at this stage of our development is solid recognition of our progress,” said College of Pharmacy Dean John M. Pezzuto. “Of course, our eventual goal is to achieve ranking in the top 25 of all colleges of pharmacy.”

“This is the first time a UH Hilo graduate program has been identified in the U.S. News and World Report so we are indeed proud and optimistic that we will be able to continue an upward trend,” said UH Hilo Chancellor Donald Straney. “This is tangible proof that students graduate from our program with a top-notch education in a unique environment.”

About the U.S. News pharmacy rankings

Each year, U.S. News and World Report ranks graduate programs in business, education, engineering, law and medicine. The magazine does not rank all programs every year, and pharmacy schools were last ranked in 2009. The next ranking is scheduled to take place in 2015.

The data comes from surveys of administrators at more than 1,200 programs and nearly 15,000 academics and professionals, conducted during the fall of 2011 and early 2012. As has been the case for many years, the University of California-San Francisco was ranked the number one pharmacy school in the nation.

Adapted from a UH Hilo news release

Hawaiʻi Community College students built a three-bedroom, two-bath home for a Hawaiʻi Island family.

Under a partnership between the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and Hawaiʻi Community College, a home built by students in the college’s Model Home Program was dedicated this month in the Hawaiian homestead community of Keaukaha on Hawaiʻi Island.

Students in the program turned over the keys to a three-bedroom, two-bath home that they built for the department at a cost to the future homeowner of $199,935.

Hawaiian Home Lands beneficiary Denice Keliʻikoa is the prospective homeowner for the home. She has been on the Hawaiian homes waiting list since January 1986.

A traditional Hawaiian ceremony called moku ka piko, meaning the cutting of the umbilical cord, was performed to initiate the new home. The symbolic piko was made of plant materials gathered by Hawaiʻi Community College students and woven together, with each plant possessing a specific reason for its use.

This yearʻs model home comes equipped with a solar water heater system and a 4KW photovoltaic system. Many other green features were incorporated, including Energy Star qualified appliances, Energy Star metal roofing and radiant barrier sheathing, low VOC paints, CFL lighting and native plant landscaping.

Watch a video of the dedication event covered by Big Island Video News.

Hawaiʻi Community College Model Home Program

The model home program provides vocational technical students an opportunity to obtain job skills through the construction of a house that is sold to a Hawaiʻi family as an affordable home.

This is the 45th home to be built under this program, which began in 1965. Since its inception, over 3,630 Hawaiʻi Community College drafting, carpentry, electrical, agriculture, welding and diesel students have participated in the program and gained on-the-job experience in home construction.

The model home program was initiated as part of the instructional program at Hawaiʻi Community College. The Architectural, Engineering and CAD Technologies program designs the home and the Carpentry program carries out the basic construction.

The Agriculture program designs and furnishes the minimal, low maintenance landscape and maintains the grounds until the home is accepted by the prospective owner.

The Machine, Welding and Industrial Mechanics Technologies program provides equipment and labor to lift and install the pre-trusses. The Diesel Mechanics program does the grubbing, landscaping and mulching of the shrub and trees to be used for landscaping with assistance from the Department of Transportation.

Hawaiʻi Community College also coordinates the painting, plumbing, and drywall subcontracting work.

United States Senator Daniel Inouye was recently interviewed by Ka Hui Hoʻolauna, a television news magazine by journalism students at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. The episode airs Sunday, May 20 at 4 p.m. on KFVE.

Inouye shared his experiences at UH Mānoa and how it led him to a career in politics.

The episode also includes a segment on how UH is partnering with a university in Japan to create a disaster planning initiative in the aftermath of the devastating March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

On Sunday, May 27, Ka Hui Hoʻoluana will feature an interview with University of Hawaiʻi president M.R.C. Greenwood and stories on Native Hawaiian culture including Hawaiian newspapers and the spiritual significance of Mauna Kea. The episode will also air at 4 p.m.

Ka Hui Hoʻolauna

A new associate degree in Hawaiian studies will offer a curriculum focused on Hawaiian culture and knowledge.

A new associate in arts degree in Hawaiian studies to be offered by the University of Hawaiʻi’s seven community colleges received unanimous approval as a provisional degree by the University of Hawaiʻi Board of Regents at its monthly meeting held May 17.

The degree was collaboratively developed by the community college campuses as an option to prepare students to transfer to a Hawaiian studies baccalaureate degree path at UH Mānoa or UH Hilo.

It also provides students with the option to earn an associate degree that provides the qualifications that would be beneficial in the workforce or or other areas of study where a knowledge of the host culture are desired.

“One of the things we see at the community colleges is that not everyone comes to us intending to transfer to a BA program,” said Keala Losch, assistant professor at Kapiʻolani Community College. “For these students, they will now have an opportunity to follow a path of Hawaiian knowledge that, once they graduate, will allow them to take that knowledge into the workforce and back to their communities.”

All of the colleges currently offer well-established and diverse Hawaiian studies courses based on the expertise of its faculty and existing academic subject certificate programs in Hawaiian studies.

Establishing the associate degree program is also one way of preserving the Hawaiian culture, values and language, according to Losch.

The degree proposal grew out of a desire to strengthen the University of Hawaiʻi’s goal of being a leading indigenous-serving institution and to support the advancement of Hawaiian culture and knowledge. It is also a product of the close collaboration of faculty at the community college campuses interested in offering a single program of study that addresses the university’s strategic goals with a shared focus.

The degree will be offered beginning in the fall 2012 semester.

It happens once every four years on the island of Molokaʻi—a graduation ceremony for the students of the Molokaʻi Education Center, which is part of the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College. Fifty-five of the 194 students who have graduated since 2008 took part in the commencement exercise on Saturday, May 12, 2012.

About 300 family, friends and faculty watched as the graduates received everything from their associate degrees in liberal arts and early education to certificates in Hawaiian studies and sustainable construction technology. The students took most of their classes via interactive TV and the internet, while raising their families and working full time jobs.

“For many of us, that’s impossible for us to leave our families and go off island to get an education so this is wonderful that we have this here,” said graduate Edline Albino, who has seven kids and four grandchildren.

Albino earned two associate degrees and finished with a 4.0 grade-point-average. “That just means a lot and I figure you know for my kids later on. Mom did it and you can too.”

The 194 graduates are parents to 244 children and 48 grandchildren. The youngest graduate is 18 years old and the oldest is 64. Seventy-five percent of them are part Hawaiian, the highest of any campus in the University of Hawaiʻi system. The Molokaʻi campus was a lifesaver for Brent Nakihei, who quit using crystal meth nine years ago.

“My first year, I was in Halawa Correctional Facility,” said Nakihei who graduated with a 3.9 grade-point-average and associate degrees in liberal arts and human services. “My second year I was in treatment. My third year I came to school in 2006 and I am still continuing my education because it keeps me sober.”

“We’re very fortunate and blessed to have an educational learning center here. It’s great for the youth and also for the parents. The youth get to see their parents in school and it shows them it’s important, especially for me.”

After the traditional handing out of the diplomas and turning of tassels, the ceremony came to close with the release of 50 rainbow colored pigeons. It was a perfect symbol of how the Molokaʻi Education Center has given so many Molokaʻi residents the opportunity to spread their wings and fly.

Molokaʻi Education Center

University of Hawaiʻi Maui College first offered off-campus instruction on Molokaʻi in 1970. The Molokaʻi Education Center was opened in 1999 and currently employs two part-time and six full-time staff including three full-time professors.

About a hundred people gathered in early May on Mokuolu, also known as Coconut island, off Hilo, Hawaiʻi for a Māweke. A tradition at Hawaiʻi Community College that was started 15 years ago by the school’s Hawaiian Life Styles program.

“There is a need within our learner community to go through, to have a sense of closure, to their academic cycle,” said Hawaiʻi Community College Associate Professor Kekuhi Kealiʻikanakaʻoleohaililani.

The annual ceremony begins before sunrise, and includes a ritual bathing in the ocean, an ʻawa circle, foods representing the land and sea, and a hula telling the story of the long journey the ancient settlers took to reach Hawaiʻi.

“We expect our learners then to reenact that journey, no matter how far they go,” said Kealiʻikanakaʻoleohaililani.

The participants then call out to canoes waiting offshore and the canoe paddlers respond. After the canoes come ashore, offerings made by the graduates are loaded onto the canoes to be released in the open ocean. The Māweke comes to a close as the canoes circle the island while the participants follow on land, singing.

“By singing the song, we’ve completed the lei,” said Kealiʻikanakaʻoleohaililani. “The learner has completed the cycle.”

Kalani Makekau-Whittaker participated in the ceremony after completing his PhD in education at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. For him, he says the Māweke served as an important reminder.

“All the work I put in to getting my degree is not just about me, not just about my immediate family, but it’s about the whole community. When I say community, I don’t just mean the human community but the spiritual community, our ancestors, the land.”

The future home of UH Hilo's campus housing project

The University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo is expanding student housing to keep up with student demand.

UH Hilo will break ground on phase one of a new $32 million student housing project in June. It will add 300 beds to the existing 600 beds already available on campus. The new project will be built on a 40-acre parcel across the street from the main entrance to the campus.

The new student housing project will be paid for with student housing fees and with state funding.

“If we can get half of our campus living on campus and half living off campus, that’s our vision and we’d have more of a residential campus where we can program for student success. Basically, we would have all of our freshman living on campus. That’s where we want to go,” said Hilo Director of University Relations Gerald De Mello.

De Mello also envisions a campus commercial core for students’ convenience, which will be part of the proposed second phase of the student housing project.

There are currently about 4,000 students enrolled at UH Hilo. It turns away more than 300 student housing applicants each year.

Phase one of the student housing project is set to be complete in the fall of 2013.

University of Hawaiʻi campuses statewide will hold spring commencement ceremonies May 4–14.

More than 5,000 students are candidates for degrees to be awarded at University of Hawaiʻi commencement ceremonies in May.

See the schedule of events below or read the news release for complete details.

Friday, May 4

UH Mānoa College of Education Department of Educational Technology
Time: 5 p.m.
Location: Wist Hall 234, UH Mānoa campus, or at the Diamond Head Amphitheatre in the College of Education Second Life (SL) Island

UH Mānoa College of Education Convocation
Time: 5 p.m.
Location: Andrews Outdoor Amphitheater, UH Mānoa campus

Thursday, May 10

UH Mānoa School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene Recognition Ceremony
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Hawaiʻi Theatre

Friday, May 11

Leeward Community College
Time: 5 p.m.
Location: Tuthill Courtyard, Leeward CC campus

Honolulu Community College
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Waikīkī Shell

University of Hawaiʻi Center, Maui
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Elleair Rainbow Ballroom, Maui Beach Hotel

UH Mānoa Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Kennedy Theatre, UH Mānoa campus

Kapiʻolani Community College
Time: 6 p.m.
Location: The Great Lawn, Kapiʻolani CC campus

Kauaʻi Community College
Time: 6 p.m.
Location: Performing Arts Center, Kauaʻi CC campus

Hawaiʻi Community College
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Edith Kanakaʻole Multi-Purpose Stadium

Saturday, May 12

University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
Time: 9 a.m.
Location: Edith Kanakaʻole Multi-Purpose Stadium

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa – Undergraduate Ceremony
Time: 9 a.m.
Location: Stan Sheriff Center, UH Mānoa campus
*The ceremony will also be webcast live.

Windward Community College
Time: 1 p.m.
Location: Palikū Theatre, Windward CC campus

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa – Graduate Ceremony
Time: 3 p.m.
Location: Stan Sheriff Center, UH Mānoa campus

University of Hawaiʻi Maui College, Molokaʻi
Time: 3 p.m.
Location: Molokaʻi Education Center

University of Hawaiʻi Center, West Hawaiʻi
Time: 4 p.m.
Location: Hilton Waikoloa Village, Monarchy Ballroom

University of Hawaiʻi–West Oʻahu
Time: 5 p.m.
Location: Neal S. Blaisdell Center Concert Hall

Sunday, May 13

UH Mānoa John A. Burns School of Medicine Convocation Ceremony
Time: 9:30 a.m.
Location: Kennedy Theatre, UH Mānoa campus

UH Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: Andrews Amphitheater, UH Mānoa campus

University of Hawaiʻi Maui College
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Maui Arts and Cultural Center, Castle Theatre

Monday, May 14

UH Army ROTC Commissioning Ceremony
Time: 3 p.m.
Location: Kennedy Theatre, UH Mānoa campus

University officials at the groundbreaking ceremony held for the Gartley Hall renovation on May 7 (photo courtesy of UH Mānoa)

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa held a groundbreaking ceremony on May 7 for the renovation of Gartley Hall, which will be the future home of the Myron B. Thompson School of Social Work. The target completion date is August 2013.

Renovations will consist of $12.5 million in upgrades that will improve the building’s aging interior and is designed to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver Certification, promoting a more energy-efficient campus. Specific improvements include demolition of the basement, first and second floors and roof; spall repair on exterior walls; and installation of an elevator and accessible ramp inside the building.

“The renovation of Gartley Hall is another example of ʻpolishing the Mānoa jewel,’” said Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw.  “Our refreshed Gartley Hall will truly highlight our campus as a modernized instructional and office facility designed in a sustainable manner.”

Gartley Hall history

Constructed in 1921, Gartley Hall is one of Mānoa’s oldest buildings in the “Old Quadrangle,” which includes Crawford, George, Hawaiʻi and Dean halls.

The building was named after Alonzo Gartley, who was a Honolulu businessman and the first chairman of the UH Board of Regents.

Gartley Hall was originally designed as a laboratory facility for chemistry, physical and sugar technology. The building was evacuated in late 2009 due to health and safety concerns caused by structural damage.