The Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office at UH Mānoa focuses on implementing recommendations from Native Hawaiian reports authored over the last 30 years that guide UH Mānoa in becoming a Native Hawaiian place of learning. We have four focus areas:

  • Native Hawaiian Student Success
  • Native Hawaiian Staff and Faculty Development
  • Native Hawaiian Environment 
  • Native Hawaiian Community Engagement

We cannot do this work alone. It is our mission to foster the potential within each of you to positively contribute to our collective kuleana to make UH Mānoa a Native Hawaiian place of learning. These monthly newsletters are meant to keep you connected, highlight your work and continue to inspire you.
GOALS:
  • Native Hawaiian students are holistically supported from recruitment through post-graduation.
  • Best practices are gleaned from efforts to support Native Hawaiian students and are applied to student success strategies for all students across the campus.
Native Hawaiian Student Data
By Kawehionālani Goto
Average time-to-degree at UH Mānoa for first-time full-time freshmen
Time-to-degree, or how long it takes for an undergraduate student to graduate, is one way to evaluate the retention and success of students at a university. On average, UH Mānoa first-time full-time students earn their bachelor’s degree in 4.39 years, whereas first-time full-time Native Hawaiian students earn their bachelor’s degree in 4.44 years. Overall the reduction in time-to-degree for all students over the last six years reflects our continuous improvement as a campus community. 

When we reflect on the number of years it takes our students to complete their degree, we wonder: 
  • What can we learn from the experiences of our current NH students? 
  • What barriers do they encounter and how can we help remove them for future NH students? 
  • How can we continue to support their progress as students and as early-career professionals? 
To view this data in more detail please visit our data webpage.
GOALS:
  • Native Hawaiian staff & faculty are holistically supported from recruitment through promotion and leadership development in every unit across the campus.
  • All staff & faculty at UH Mānoa are more knowledgeable and culturally rooted in Mānoa and Hawai‘i.
Place-Based Education Lending Library
By
Barbara Bruno, Daniela Böttjer-Wilson, Henrietta Dulai & Jenny Engels
The UH-Mānoa Center for Teaching Excellence Place-Based Education Lending Library
Place-Based Education (PBE) can be defined as utilizing a place's unique culture, history, environment, literature, and art as a foundation for teaching and learning. Widely considered a powerful pedagogical approach across disciplines, PBE yields many positive outcomes for students, such as increased interest and motivation, deepened sense of place, and strong relationships with local communities. With support from a University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant College Program Award (#6108965), we recently launched a Place-Based Education Lending Library to promote place-based teaching and learning at UH Mānoa. Housed in Kuykendall Hall with the Center for Teaching Excellence, this small but growing lending library features a selection of books for those interested in exploring ways to teach and learn in the context of place. Click HERE to visit the PBE lending library website and browse the books that are currently available!
GOAL:
UH Mānoa campus is a physical, cultural, spiritual, and interactive environment that exemplifies the values of ‘ohana and community, mālama ‘āina, and kuleana; thereby, perpetuating Native Hawaiian values, culture, language, traditions, and customs.
Aloha ʻĀina Fridays:
Stop & Kilo
May 7, 2021
by Makanalani Gomes
At the end of the semester, I always feel like I am metaphorically in the doldrums. Everything seems to get still on the exterior, and in my head, things spin madly on. So although it looks like a transition is on the verge, I am caught in the spin cycle; tying up loose ends, making sure the accumulations of the semester are being woven together in preparation for the final projects, papers, and exams. Our last aloha ‘āina Friday took place the week before finals and it was so divinely orchestrated, as many of the carefully curated programming events of Nōweo Kai often are. 
Nōweo Kai with a participant in discussion about kilo
 
We were taken to a small garden in St. John’s building in the ‘ili of Kauwala’a (a small garden I never even knew existed). Everyone seemed eager to find out what our task was; perhaps weeding, cutting, or raking. To our pleasant surprise, she invited us to pick a plant or flower that we were drawn to and spend time in the practice of kilo. She reminded us that part of caring for ‘āina is an intimate relationship of observation and reflection. We were also invited to draw, write, and create poetry as an ode to our kilo practice. In our practice, she asked us things like: What does it look like? What does it smell like? How does it feel? How does it make you feel? What drew you to it? 
Participant practicing their kilo
Aloha ‘āina Fridays often remind me of the intimacy to our land, our communities, and our self. This experience reminded me that even without turning our hands down to take care of the land physically, we can still practice aloha ‘āina through our practice of kilo, which is something we can do daily, and when we do get to touch or care for ‘āina our aloha is felt with understanding and depth from our careful observation and intimacy. 
 
This session, unlike any before, required us to take a step back, be still, and focus our life force into being with ‘āina and self. In this season of summer, I hope we all find some time to stop and kilo!
Collective picture of group's kilo cards
GOAL:
UH Mānoa and Native Hawaiian communities are consistently connected and engaged in order that there can be reciprocal teaching and learning for positive impact throughout Hawai‘i.
NREM Haumāna in Hālau ʻŌhiʻa
By Creighton Litton
Kuahu at Punaluʻu
The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management (NREM) and the NREM Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity (DEI) hui is covering the registration costs for five NREM haumāna (1 UG, 1 MEM, 1 MS, and 2 PhD) to participate in the online Hālau ʻŌhiʻa Iākea ʻAlua Papa Hua professional development course. Hālau ʻŌhiʻa was developed and is led by Kumu Kekuhi Kealiʻikanakaʻoleohaililani, and is a unique development opportunity for stewards of the natural landscape to learn Hawaiʻi lifeways to enhance the ways that we engage with our ʻāina community and kanaka community, professionally and personally. Hālau ʻŌhiʻa focuses both on the learning of Hawaiʻi cultural skills and, more importantly, how to apply those skills to our personal lives and our stewardship professions in ʻāina (land), lani (atmosphere), and kai (ocean). To date, several NREM faculty and both undergraduate and graduate students from NREM have participated in this training which helps the department expand natural resource management to include a strong biocultural foundation and to meet UHM’s Aloha ʻĀina strategic goals of Sustainability and Becoming a Native Hawaiian Serving Institution.
NĀ LAMAKŪ O KE ALOHA ʻĀINA
Kanaka Highlight Series
Picture of Tiele-Lauren Doudt, the Highlighted Student
Tiele-Lauren L. Doudt

Birthplace/Hometown:
Kīlauea, Koʻolau, Kauaʻi Nui Kuapapa

High School:
Kamehameha Schools Kapālama

UHM Degrees acquired:
Bachelor of Arts in Hawaiian Language, 2017
Bachelor of Arts in Hawaiian Studies, 2017
Master of Arts in Hawaiian Studies, 2020

Current Occupation:
Educational Outreach Manager at Mālama Hulēʻia


1.  What inspired/inspires the path for your academic major?

I initially entered UH-Mānoa with the intent to major in Natural Resources and Environmental Management (NREM), but was pretty quickly swayed towards Hawaiʻinuiākea due to their large range of classes and educational opportunities that were intertwined with communities outside of Honolulu. To this day my intermittent studies held in Kahoʻolawe, Maui, Denmark, Iceland, Holland, Alaska, and Aotearoa are some of my most cherished academic experiences. None of those opportunities would have been possible without the support and encouragement that I received from my instructors. Their mentorship played a very large role in my successful graduation from UH-Mānoa and afterwards, a successful entry into Hawaiʻi's job market.

2.  What are your future goals in your work? 

My goal for the future is to continue supporting initiatives in Hawaiʻi that aim to restore and reinvigorate traditional food systems as puʻuhonua (places of refuge) for education, career training, food production, and economic self-determination. 

3.  We believe that at the heart of a Hawaiian place of learning is aloha ʻāina: the constant care for and reciprocation with Hawaiʻi’s people, places and practices.” How do you see your time at UH shaping the way you aloha ʻāina?

The University of Hawai'i and the department that I graduated from are two very different entities with two independent approaches. For example, if I were to be asked how my time at Kamakakūokalani shaped the way that I aloha ʻāina, I would respond that the basis for which I understand moving forward in the direction of my kūpuna arrives from the teachings of that department. But if I were asked as to how my time spent at the University of Hawai'i shapes the way that I aloha ʻāina, my response would be that UH as an institution has not taught me anything about caring for Hawaiʻi's people, places and practices. The University of Hawai'i has some very serious institutional shortcomings which has not demonstrated to me that their administrative body understands any Hawaiian concepts, including aloha ʻāina.

4.  What does UHM as a Hawaiian place of learning mean to you? 

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa displays a lot of potential for what it could become.