Alumni News

If you think woke is a joke, try this on for size: the pretty red bird known as Jameson’s Firefinch is named for John Sligo Jameson, who once purchased a young girl as “a joke” and drew sketches of the child being stabbed and dismembered. So begins the article, “The racist legacy many birds carry,” in a recent The Washington Post. Included in the story is commentary by Olivia Wang, a grad student in the Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Management. “They are a reminder that this field I work in was primarily developed and shaped by people not like me, who probably would have viewed me as lesser,” Olivia is quoted. “They are also a reminder of how Western ornithology, and natural exploration in general, was often tied to a colonialist mind-set of conquering and exploiting and claiming ownership of things, rather than learning from the humans who were already part of the ecosystem and had been living alongside these birds for lifetimes.”

Olivia goes on to discuss the proposed renaming of the Maui parrotbill to kiwikiu, which was initially refused and ridiculed by the American Ornithological Society.

 “I called out the AOS and [its North American Classification Committee] for censoring some racist and offensive comments the [committee] made when discussing the … proposal,” she is quoted.

Read the Full Article.

In Hawaiʻi, when you check the weather forecast, you often get a prediction of partly sunny, partly cloudy, and partly rainy – talk about covering all possibilities!

But if you’d like to know exactly what the weather is at Mealani Research Station in Kamuela, Hawaiʻi Island, or Kona Research Station in Kealakekua, Hawaiʻi Island, you can simply click HERE, because on May 20, two new weather stations were installed. Now, when you visit the Mealani and Kona stations, you can find out the current weather conditions, which are updated every 15 minutes. You can learn about the temperatures during the past 24 hours (including daily maximum and daily minimum temps), daily accumulated rainfall, and total solar radiation. The Kona weather station also gives the relative humidity and dew point (the temperature at which dew can form).

The Mealani weather station will be useful in predicting the growth of pasture grasses for cattle grazing in the Kamuela area. The Kona weather station will help us predict coffee growth in the Kealakekua area, as well as monitor the development of pests and diseases, such as the coffee berry borer and coffee leaf rust.

The Kona weather station was funded by a USDA-ARS CBB AW project and the Mealani weather station was funded by CTAHR internal funds for improving research capacity.

No, you can’t crack open a cold one here. But if you’re in Miller Hall or nearby, and need a place to just hang out, then check out “The Korner.” Created by student interns of the Dept. of Family and Consumer Sciences’ Human Development and Family Studies program, The Korner is a free, open space area where students, faculty, and staff can meet new people and create networks, explains Sothy Eng. It’s available for anyone to study, have lunch, or sit and carry fun conversations with friends. “We also designed The Korner to spread the word about HDFS’ Home Garden Network (HGN), a meaningful community program, and all that it does with gardening and healthy lifestyles,” he says.

To build awareness of the lounge, students also made a brief but entertaining WELCOME VIDEO, and invite students to stop by.

“Our favorite part is all the plants that surround the lounge area,” say Emma Castro and Jamie Fujii. “It feels very welcoming and there is even a spray bottle to help water and take care of the plants, too. We hope it will help welcome students back to the UH Mānoa campus in the Fall.”

If you’re a recent grad, not-so-recent grad, or just want to get involved, I’ll let you in on a little secret: The CTAHR Alumni Association and Friends. The recently re-formed group will support CTAHR student programs through fundraisers, volunteer opportunities, and connecting students to careers – and first up is a T-shirt!

The super-soft shirts are made in the USA, using an organic eco-friendly 50/50 material partly made from recycled plastic bottles. Order tees for the whole family HERE. All proceeds from the sales will go toward supporting CTAHR students and CTAHR student programming!

It’s not too late to add a course to your Summer II 2021 session load, and what better addition than “Topics in NREM: Terrestrial and Marine Mammal Regulation, Science, and Management” from the Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Management. Class #491/691 is appropriate for graduate students and upper-level undergrads studying natural resource and environmental management, biology, marine biology, environmental policy, or related fields.

Students will learn about applied terrestrial and marine mammal conservation and management principles, and the complex framework of regulatory, scientific, and often-conflicting stakeholder interests under which management and conservation actions are developed and implemented. Students will have the opportunity to learn directly from professionals in industry, state, and federal systems who are actively engaged in developing and implementing management plans and conservation programs.

Synchronous internet sessions will include interactive lectures with the professor and with leading industry professionals at state and federal agencies, marine mammal research and conservation organizations, and zoological and aquarium institutions.