As more and more of our country seems to be polarized over just about everything, I was thinking the other day about that moment nearly 50 years ago (1977!) when a reader wrote into Ann Landers’ advice column about the correct way to hang a roll of toilet paper. Some 15,000 letters were received in response, arguing vehemently about one perspective or another on this topic that now seems so quaint.
Did we really not have anything better to argue about or was the very silliness of the argument the escape from weighty issues that we all needed at that moment? It is, after all, so easy to disagree with someone about something, even more so now in this age of online communication.
I find myself craving in-person conversations more and more. It is much harder to be rude or dismissive when a living, breathing person is sitting right there before you. While a lot of human connection can be established online and there is a lot of AI that can complement the services that people provide, there is no substitute for a high-quality, face-to-face experience.
Partly for this reason, we have two initiatives at UH Hilo titled “Kuleana and Community.” Here at UH Hilo, we take our responsibility to the community seriously. It extends beyond educating local students to encompass providing the educational programs our community needs, providing programming of interest to our community and conducting research and community engagement activities with our community partners. Our university grew out of the activism of the Hilo community and we try to live up to the confidence that the community had in us in those early days.
Several years ago a group of enterprising faculty and staff, in partnership with interested community members, met in what we called the “Relationships Committee” and the “Place Committee.” These groups gathered periodically to talk story about strengthening the relationship that the university has with the community, and from these conversations, as well as others on campus, grew the Kuleana and Community course, designed for new students.
The course has multiple purposes, but chief among them is to introduce our students to college life by introducing them to this place. Faculty take students on field trips around the island and talk about kuleana. If we live here and benefit from living here, what do we give back and how? What is the cultural history of this place? What does it mean to be a good citizen?
By engaging these questions, our students build stronger bonds with both the Hilo community and UH Hilo. We hope that they persist to their degree and realize the importance of being responsible members of our community, both while they are students and when they graduate.
This last year, a new “Kuleana and Community” initiative has taken wing. On Fridays at noon in the Kilohana Academic Success Center on the ground floor of the Mookini Library, we have a campus and community conversations. Each features a campus or community speaker, a moderated discussion, and some closing thoughts to pull it all together. Our students learn about this place and reflect upon their role in it; faculty and staff in attendance see old friends and make new ones, and the community is welcomed onto our campus, all of which allows us to build relationships.
Both the course and the talk story sessions are among my favorites of the new things happening at UH Hilo because they are activities that connect us in this age of division. People across our campus are partnering in new ways, and we are also connecting to those of you outside our campus. We can bridge divides, team up for the greater good, and ensure that the Hilo community does not fall into the trap of arguing about the things that divide us rather than building on what connects us.
Like the braided Hilo lei, these activities represent what is best about our community: the connections we have and the strength we gain from them.
Upcoming Kuleana and Community talks at UH Hilo:
March 28, 2025: Derek Kurisu, KTA Super Stores
April 4, 2025: Dana Revilla, BISAC
April 11, 2025: Robert Efford, The Arc of Hilo, CEO
Bonnie D. Irwin is chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Her column appears monthly in the Tribune-Herald.
