ASAO News

On April 2nd, the 2022 in-person Manoa Experience event brought 2,914 prospective and admitted students and their families to the Manoa campus to learn about CTAHR's undergraduate programs.  Mahalo to everyone who spent time preparing for and working at the Manoa Experience event! Although the last two years have been a blur with Manoa Experience being on hiatus, it is impressive how CTAHR can continue to pivot as needed to share how amazing CTAHR is!

When the Hawaii Foodbank kicked off its annual State Employees food drive, CTAHR took on the goal of raising $3,000 in monetary donations and 7,500 pounds of food to surpass 2021’s totals of 7,413 lbs and $2,623.34. Although we did not reach our poundage goal, we still brought in a massive 1,403.4 lbs and made up for it by shattering the monetary goal by 134%, having raised $4,035.27 for the Hawaii Foodbank! As of May 5th, CTAHR has brought in the most monetary donations of all the departments in the UH system. 🥳

On April 22nd, our ASAO office and Ambassadors went “on the road” to the UH Manoa Sustainability Garden to celebrate Earth Day CTAHR style.  To enlighten the public about the powerful protein properties of insects, Ka Mea Kolo, CTAHR’s Entomology club passed out Chocolate Chirp Cookies (made with cricket powder) and enticed passers-by with multiple flavors of dried cricket treats.

The return of in-person events meant that after a two year hiatus, the CTAHR student 3 Minute Elevator Pitch (3MEP) Competition was on!  This competition follows the spirit of the 3 Minute Thesis (3MT)® competition that originated at the University of Queensland, Australia. The session offered an opportunity for students to showcase their innovative and significant research to a wider audience, challenging them to consolidate their ideas and research discoveries so that they could be presented in an informative and concise way.  This year the CTAHR student Ambassadors coordinated the event, held on March 19th at the Architecture Building auditorium, with a total of 23 presenters.

Dean Comerford did an exemplary job, showing off his culinary skills with Food Science & Human Nutrition instructor, Lara Hackney, during our "What's Cookin' with the Dean" Zoom event on Saturday, March 26th. We learned the heartfelt significance of his recipe choices (sloppy joes, baked beans & angel food cake) along with other very interesting factoids about the Dean's life & career. Did you know he speaks fluent Portuguese?

Dean Comerford also fielded questions from Alumni pertaining to his goals for the college, what is going on in the realm of Agricultural Economics and how CTAHR's strategic positioning initiative is primed to boost us into the post-pandemic world. Watch the recording on the CTAHR YouTube Channel.