Pikoʻokoʻo conference

The Pikoʻokoʻo conference was held over the course of two days, Oct 5^th & 6^th, at the Imin Internation Conference Center. Attendees included community members state wide, faculty, staff, students and local high school students. The conference showcased new and established programs and initiatives that embrace the ideal that UH Manoa has been striving for ~ that of becoming a Hawaiian Place of Learning.

Conference panelists were in agreement that we still have a very long way to go. One of the biggest challenges is moving “Hawaiian place of learning” from a memorable phrase or slogan into reality. At the end of the conference the challenge that we were given was to determine the actions and steps that can be taken now to begin the process of creating and building a campus that is centralized around the Hawaiian culture ~ a campus where our future students and visitors will know immediately that UH Manoa is indeed a Hawaiian place of learning as we will be surrounded by the evidence in and outside of the classroom.

Collaborations between Colleges make such a world of difference as Native Hawaiian faculty make up only a small percentage of the faculty (4-5%).  There are currently 125 Native Hawaiian students in Graduate programs and the future for a larger faculty base looks promising.

Our very own NREM has partnered with the Hawaiian Studies program and plans to offer a certificate program to a cohort of 20 students, beginning Fall 2019.

The Native Hawaiian Student Services provided a tour of the campus where participants learned about the untold history of UH Manoa. Even though it poured down rain during the tour, no one wanted to the tour to end. The stories were informative & inspiring, and we will be working with the Native Hawaiian Student Services to incorporate the tour into our future New Student Orientations.