In an upbeat and informative recounting of her life adventures (and misadventures), Virginia S. Hinshaw, chancellor emerita of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) professor, provides a handbook for life with a series of lessons that are timeless.
In her new book My Heart Smiles: Life stories from an audacious academic! Hinshaw shares lessons learned from relationships with people around the world and adventures such as swimming with great white sharks, surviving cancer and leading a university.
It’s a story of a girl growing up in a time when women in the workplace were not considered for brains, but for beauty. It’s also a charming telling of a girl who grew up with unwavering confidence, someone who doggedly devised a formula for success. Hinshaw’s anecdotes span from her childhood, to being a parent and a learner, to her time as UH Mānoa’s chancellor, and as a professor at JABSOM. She recalls spending days with her grandfather who called her his “Shining Star,” to her college days studying microbiology in a realm where women were a rarity, to working in hospitals, institutes and universities.
Hinshaw, and many like her, still blaze through barriers for women and minorities. At one point in her many jobs, she took a position at a hospital conducting microbiology research and clinical work, eventually developing an independent research project. When she discussed her plans to leave, the hospital asked her to help find someone to take over her position. Since she had turned the job into a more supervisory, independent position, they decided that a man should be hired for the job.
“This also meant, of course, that they would hire a man with my exact qualifications to replace me and pay him 40% more than I was making,” Hinshaw recounted. “I know how humiliating it is to be viewed as less valuable because of your gender; that pain is surely no less for racial minorities, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+, and others characterized as ‘different’ and subjected to discrimination in the workplace and society as a whole.”
Laced with humor and many inspirational quotes, Hinshaw hopes her reflections will inspire others to celebrate the wonder of their own lives. My Heart Smiles: Life stories from an audacious academic! is available on Amazon.
Read the full story on the JABSOM website.
—By Paula Bender
