Yesterday we celebrated UH-Hilo’s summer and fall graduates in the university’s first drive-through commencement exercise, and I am incredibly proud of what our graduates have accomplished during truly challenging times.
While fewer than 50 participated in the drive-through ceremony, all of our graduates had the opportunity to be part of the virtual ceremony that also was online yesterday. However our graduates chose to participate, it is important that we all join them in celebration. We all need a little celebration in our lives right now, and these students have earned our praise.
A student graduating from UH-Hilo this year has persisted through the 2018 lava flow, the rain and flood of Hurricane Lane (which thankfully did not hit us full on), and has completed two semesters of coursework largely online. Because of these challenges, some of these students have lost their homes, they or their family members have lost jobs, and some have had family members experience firsthand the symptoms of the coronavirus. In that respect, they are not all that different from many in our local community. Through it all, however, they have kept their eyes on the goal.
This week there will also be the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the night sky, also known as the Christmas Star, which has not been seen this close since 1226. Given Hilo weather, I am not counting on seeing it. Yet, the smiles on the faces of graduating students and families, staff and faculty, is all the light I need. This year has seen another amazing conjunction of staff dedication, faculty ingenuity, and student resilience.
Indeed, this holiday season, I am grateful beyond measure for the constellation of amazing things happening at UH-Hilo. The UH-Hilo Kipuka Native Hawaiian Student Center received a new Title III Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions grant that will support the program entitled “Kukulu: Strengthening Native Hawaiian Leadership by Building Retention and Graduation Effort.” This federal funding will allow us to continue to enhance our support of Native Hawaiian students.
The UH-Hilo Student Support Services Program has received another U.S. Department of Education TRIO grant award that will allow the program to continue providing services to low income and first-generation UH-Hilo students for another five years. These efforts all support students staying on course and getting closer to the goal of graduation.
The ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, which has had to close its doors to the general public during the pandemic, used county CARES funding to run an educational program for local keiki this fall. This program, using ‘Imiloa’s hallmark strategy of combining culture and science, provided a wonderful supplement to the online learning provided by local schools this year. The young people, exposed to learning, may become our UH-Hilo students of the future, providing us with more of those radiant smiles at commencement time.
Another conjunction of inspiration and skill is coming from our data visualization projects, one of which has art and marine science working together to create a 3D reconstruction of local coral reefs. This work is not only cool to look at by those of us who are non-experts, but also provides a useful tool for students and faculty to study the reefs without creating further damage to our fragile ecosystem.
This is but one of many projects we hope will come out of our data science team, who is also in the process of developing a new major for students to learn important skills to enable them to work with the big data that lies behind so much of what we do today, whether it be in science, business, or health care.
UH-Hilo is an ideal place for interdisciplinary teams to come together to address the big issues, and as our planets align, I am confident that we will be able to continue to serve our island and see more happy and amazing graduates in the years to come.
Happy Holidays!
Bonnie D. Irwin is chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Her column appears monthly in the Tribune-Herald.