The mission statement of the University of Hawaii at Hilo begins with “‘A‘ohe pau ka ‘ike i ka halau ho‘okahi” (“One learns from many sources”).
You might think this mission is a strange one for a university to have. After all, shouldn’t we be the source of knowledge and learning?
Isn’t that why students and families pay our tuition?
Isn’t that why the state provides funding?
Yet, we have found throughout our history as a university that learning takes many shapes and indeed comes from many sources.
Certainly, our faculty and the courses they teach are an important source of learning. Through the years, we have recruited faculty from far-flung places and from right here in our backyard. Each brings expertise to their work, and many bring the community and the environment into their classrooms and take their classes out into the world in various ways, whether it be marine scientists taking students out on the ocean or English professors bringing in local authors to share their creative process with students.
A professor friend of mine, now retired, used to say college students learn more outside of class than in class, and while that might not be true of all students, the learning experiences they have outside of class can be as valuable as the formal curriculum.
Students involved in our Pacific Internship Program for Exploring Science find opportunities to apply what they learned in class to real-world settings. Working side-by-side with agency professionals, students learn how they might pursue a career in caring for the land.
Through an experience offered by our Center for Community Engagement, students learn through service. By co-creating projects with faculty and community members, students learn about societal challenges and explore ways to address them.
Business students who intern at local businesses acquire valuable skills that prepare them for their future careers.
All these sources of learning are integral to student success.
Students also learn from one another.
U.S. News and World Report once again named UH-Hilo as the national university with the most diverse student body in the country. Our students tell us that they learn about diversity not only in class, but also through living in a diverse community, working on projects with fellow students and participating in student activities on campus. Our student affairs programming has students participating in activities alongside others with very different backgrounds from their own.
Through these experiences, they learn how to work in teams, preparing them well for the diverse workplaces and communities they will be a part of upon graduation.
As an institution and as individuals, those of us who work at UH-Hilo also learn from our students. This happens in and out of class. Our professors bring the theory and provide the framework for students to learn from one another.
In a sociology class, a student with a lived experience distinctly different from her instructor or her fellow students can make a concept real in a way just reading about it cannot.
In our agriculture classes, a student from the Marshall Islands might teach a professor a different technique for growing based on what his grandfather taught him.
The value of the university, especially one as small and engaged as UH-Hilo, is the bringing together of these people of diverse races, ethnicities, genders, abilities and ideologies. As a public university we provide a collaborative, respectful space in which we protect the rights of individuals to share their mana‘o, their experiences, and their expertise.
I always tell students that in order to be successful, they need to ask questions, and I find that I learn a lot from the questions they ask. Their questions open different perspectives to me, and make me a better teacher and a better leader.
I have spent my life learning and will continue to learn from our faculty, our students and our community. I am often surprised by what I learn and I am always grateful.
The way we grow as human beings is to pay attention to one another and open our minds to the people and world around us.
Bonnie D. Irwin is chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Her column appears monthly in the Tribune-Herald.