Campus News
- Hilo plans pharmacy college
- UH included in best schools books
- Web tool helps you manage your money
- Battle of Nuʻuanu map now available
- Fast track to teaching career
- UH Hilo offers Senior College programs
- Leeward opens Haleʻiwa learning center
- Moving AHEAD with Iraq initiative
- Army ROTC unit competes
- Construction Academy, other initiatives funded
- Coconut Island laboratory planned
- Magazine garners awards
- UH appoints two new chancellors
- Degrees accredited and approved
Hilo plans pharmacy college
UH Hilo officials will recruit a dean and pursue plans to create a College of Pharmacy on the Big Island campus, with a goal of having a fully enrolled program in a new building by 2011. The initiative is spurred by a national shortage of pharmacists that is particularly acute in Hawaiʻi’s rural communities. Planners expect the school’s operation to be largely sustained by revenue from tuition and private resources.
In a related effort, Hilo is working with the University of Alaska at Anchorage to extend distance education opportunities for pharmacy technicians to the Pacific islands. On Oʻahu, a short-term, non-credit pharmacy technician program incorporating classroom instruction and clinical practicum is available through Kapiʻolani Community College; for information call Martin Chong at 808-734-9540. top
UH included in best schools books
In its continuing quest to sell books to the college-bound, Princeton Review has issued its latest "best college" offerings. Mānoa is one of the 134 "best in the west" colleges, and is listed among the best 117 law schools—with top ranking for having the most diverse faculty and best environment for minority students—and best 143 business schools. See comments by the students surveyed.
Earlier in 2004, Princeton Review ranked Mānoa 44th among the nation’s "most connected campuses" based on computer-to-student ratio, computer science curriculum and student responses. When it comes to "most unwired college campuses," Intel placed Mānoa at 37 out of 100. A Pepsi Bottling Company grant and department commitments have expanded wireless Internet access on campus. top
Web tool helps you learn to manage your money
A free web-based tool to help people manage their finances earned its UH designers the 2004 Dean Don Felker Financial Management Award. MoneyEd was developed by a trio of College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources instructors. In the two years after its 2002 launch, it helped more than 200 people increase savings, reduce debt and improve spending decisions. A required component of a family and consumer science course, MoneyEd’s articles and worksheets are also free to anyone who logs on.
topBattle of Nuʻuanu map now available
Student cartographer Rob James’s map describing the pivotal 1795 Battle of Nuʻuanu is now available from Kamehameha Schools Press. The Mānoa master’s degree candidate was inundated with requests for copies following a July 2003 Mālamalama article about the map, which earned James a National Geographic cartography award. Reviewed, revised and turned into a 24- by 28-inch poster, the map costs $12.95 plus shipping.
topTake the fast track to teaching career
Mid-career professionals and recent college graduates can take the fast track to a teaching career with the Mānoa College of Education’s three-semester post-baccalaureate certificate in secondary education. The federally funded Transition to Teaching program provides a $1,500 per semester stipend to students who commit to teaching mathematics or science in a Hawaiʻi public high school for three years upon successful completion of the program. PRAXIS exam fees will be reimbursed to candidates who pass the required tests. For program information, contact the college’s academic services office, 808 956-7849. Application deadline for fall 2005 is Mar. 1, 2005.
topUH Hilo offers Senior College programs
Hilo’s College of Continuing Education and Community Service provides opportunities throughout the island for students over age 45 through its new Senior College Program. Hilo was one of 41 institutions to receive funding from the Bernard Osher Foundation for outreach centers. Senior College serves Big Islanders who live far from campus or lack transportation.
"Increasingly, Hawaiʻi is becoming a popular retirement location, with a unique quality of life and an environment that offers pristine living," observes Margaret Haig, principal investigator for Hilo’s Osher grant. Senior College offers longtime residents and newly arrived retirees a chance to stimulate mind, body and spirit. Classes start in January 2005 and range from practical skills to recreational activities and environmental issues to religions of the world. Special programs include an Asian film festival and a theatre bus complete with dinner, show and backstage tour. For information, call 808-974-7664.
topLeeward opens Haleʻiwa learning center
Leeward Community College and the Hawaiʻi Department of Education teamed up to give North Shore residents Kulanui o Kūpono (Schools of Excellence), a learning center at Haleʻiwa Elementary School. The center welcomes people of various ages, backgrounds and educational levels. Kulanui o Kūpono opened with selected non-credit courses in October 2004. Plans call for offering credit courses in the spring.
"We hope that the Kulanui o Kūpono program will benefit North Shore communities by providing education and career development opportunities that will help stimulate and sustain economic growth," says Leeward administrator Varaporn Jamklai. For information, email or call 808 455-0392.
topMoving AHEAD with Iraq initiative
Cautious and protective. It's become a way of life. For the Iraqi graduate students, including Amjad Ahmad, Diaa Ibrahim and Adel Youkhana, pictured from left, spending the year at Mānoa completing research for their doctorates. For 115 Iraqi faculty attending a UH-organized workshop at the University of Jordan in August 2004, the first scientific meeting outside of their country for many. And for UH faculty members, who've learned to travel incognito and keep flexible schedules while inside Iraq working on AHEAD, a U.S.-funded agriculture higher education and development project (Mālamalama, May 2004.)
In Jordan, agriculture professors from the Universities of Mosul and Dohuk attended sessions on economics, horticulture and food science and visited an agricultural research station near the Dead Sea. Additional workshops are planned at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Syria and American University of Beirut in Lebanon. With an emphasis on regional partnerships, the land-grant approach to agricultural education and rebuilding resources within Iraq, AHEAD has awarded more than $200,000 to 21 proposals to date.
Involving regional partner universities creates a knowledge network for scientists working to revitalize Iraq’s agricultural research and training programs, ensure its food security and build its agricultural sector, which is second only to oil in economic importance, says principal investigator Samir El-Swaify.
topArmy ROTC unit competes
The one-rope bridge was one of six events completed by cadet teams from three states in the 12-hour PACRIM Ranger Challenge at Oʻahu’s Bellows Air Force Station in October. Alaska scored highest in five events, including the grenade throw, M-16 rifle disassembly/reassembly and 10-kilometer march with full packs. Guam won the land navigation event. When it comes to overall excellence, however, the Warrior Battalion is a winner. The 150-member Hawaiʻi unit was honored last summer for being in the top 15 percent of the nation’s 271 units for the 2002–03 school year.
topConstruction Academy, other initiatives funded
Honolulu Community College received $2.2 million in federal grants for its Construction Academy initiative. The funding from the Department of Labor and Department of Housing and Urban Development will help produce qualified workers for an industry that is experiencing tremendous growth as well as standardize building and construction curriculum with the K–12 system, create teacher mentorship and internship opportunities with businesses and establish a statewide industry advisory council.
Other recent community-building grants include $795,000 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to Hawaiʻi Community College for a Keaʻau Youth Business Center, where young people can pursue entrepreneurial projects, and job training programs and close to $400, 000 each from the National Science Foundation to Maui Community College, the Pacific Biomedical Research Center and Mānoa’s mathematics department to increase participation or provide training and scholarships for Hawaiʻi and Pacific islands students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Addressing the global community, Atlantic Philanthropies provided $1.1 million to expand English language teaching capacity in Vietnam through Mānoa Department of Second Language activities in Hanoi and Hawaiʻi.
topCoconut Island laboratory planned
Planners are designing a new wet laboratory and visitor reception area for the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology on Coconut Island using $1 million in capital improvement funding released by Gov. Linda Lingle last summer.
UH is requesting another $11 million for sorely needed shoreline construction and sea wall repair on the island. However, top priority on the university’s capital improvement project request for the next biennium is $147 million for health, safety and backlogged repair and maintenance projects. Also on the list are new buildings for Hilo’s Hawaiian language and science/technology programs and improvements to student housing on Maui and Hawaʻi Community College’s Komohana campus on the Big Island.
topMagazine garners awards
Malamalama received two Public Relations Society of America Koa Hammer awards in 2004, one for the overall magazine and another for UH Public Information Officer Kristen K. C. Bonilla’s feature article on the Hamilton Library preservation department.
The magazine also received a 2004 Award of Excellence for publication design from the Honolulu chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.
topUH appoints two new chancellors
Rockne Freitas, a former UH vice president and Kamehameha Schools executive, is now chancellor of Hawaiʻi Community College. Gene Awakuni, vice provost for student affairs at Stanford University, will become chancellor of UH West Oʻahu in March 2005. Both hold Mānoa degrees-Freitas earned his MEd and PhD in education; Awakuni, a BA in political science and master of social work.
topDegrees accredited and approved
The Mānoa School of Architecture’s first-in-the-nation doctor of architecture program received the official nod from the National Architectural Accrediting Board. The professional ArchD replaces the bachelor’s and master’s degrees with a seven-year, Asia-Pacific focused curriculum that emphasizes practicum experiences to close the growing gap between academic and professional sectors.
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges approved Hilo’s plans to offer a master of science in tropical conservation biology and environmental sciences and the Board of Regents approved in concept Hilo’s plans to establish a doctorate in Hawaiian and indigenous language and culture revitalization and master of arts in indigenous language and culture education.
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