A little over a year ago, leaders from and the put pen to paper to formalize a partnership that would boost post-high educational success of Native Hawaiians. The partnership, called Hui Hoʻopili ʻĀina (HHA), aimed at increasing Hawaiian student success at the post-secondary level while advancing Hawaiian culture, language and knowledge.

This progress report provides a look at the HHA partnership and the work accomplished over the past year since the agreement was signed by UH and Kamehameha Schools.

• Related �鶹��ýNews— and

Momentum continues to increase for both UH and Kamehameha Schools as they enter year two of their formal collaboration aimed to increase student success for Native Hawaiians across the paeʻāina. Through inventive, innovative and collaborative efforts from both institutions, HHA has established itself as a model of excellence to aspire to with organizations and institutions dedicated to ensure a thriving lāhui.

The partnership is organized around three themes: Native Hawaiian Student Success, Sustainability/Mālama Honua, and ʻIke �鶹��ý.

.

and the have launched Makalapua Naʻauao, a unique four-year pilot scholarship program that aims to increase the four-year graduation rate of Native Hawaiian students by providing necessary funding as well as intensive student support services.

“The Makalapua Naʻauao financial aid pilot program is an innovative, life-changing opportunity for our ʻōpio to successfully complete their college education,” said Jack Wong, Kamehameha Schools CEO. “This key partnership exemplifies and personifies what can happen when meaningful collaboration happens between two organizations who are committed to the success of learners throughout �鶹��ý.”

Kamehameha presented UH with a $1.18 million check in July 2016, the first of four donations, to fund the Makalapua Naʻauao.

“This generous gift is a great example of Kamehameha Schools support of our shared commitment to advancing Native Hawaiian student success,” said UH President . “The pilot project we are launching emerged from our institutional Hui Hoʻopili ʻĀina partnership and will provide financial aid and student support services to help participating students on a path to graduate in four years.”

Along with improving Native Hawaiian student success, the Hui Hoʻopili ʻĀina partnership between the two educational institutions also aims to revitalize Hawaiian knowledge and language and create a sustainable �鶹��ý.

• More about the partnership: and

Helping students with a strong start and continued support

In the first of year of the Makalapua Naʻauao program, four participating UH campuses—Mānoa, Hilo, Maui College and West Oʻahu—will accept a cohort of up to 100 Native Hawaiian students who will be full-time sophomores in the 2016–2017 academic year. Each student will be offered a scholarship of varying amounts for a maximum of four years or upon earning a bachelor’s degree. In addition, UH Hilo and UH Mānoa will accept up to 50 freshman students from the 2016 graduating class of Kamehameha Schools’ Kapālama, Keaʻau, or Pukalani campuses.

The four-year pilot will provide Makalapua Naʻauao students with support services including peer mentoring, tutoring, culturally rich learning opportunities, networking with faculty and researchers and career exploration and planning. Feedback and data will be used to reassess student support and funding services. Both organizations will also use the data to scale system improvements that impact the larger Native Hawaiian student population matriculating through the �鶹��ýsystem.

In addition, the Makalapua Naʻauao program offers UH and Kamehameha an opportunity to critically look at their existing systems and processes to identify potential areas of improvement in promoting Native Hawaiian student success from high school to post-secondary education.

The and the University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa partnered this summer in a six-week, dual credit, program called the Mānoa Academy for Social Sciences. In the Academy, 12 KS Kapālama students participated in two college courses, English 100 and Political Science 110, earning six college credits.

The program integrated the classes Composition I and Introduction to Political Science to bridge the content and writing skills. The nine KS Kapālama juniors and three graduates from the class of 2016 met four days a week on the KS Kapālama campus and one day at UH Mānoa, with the nine juniors also earning high school credit.

The classes were taught by ʻUmi Perkins, a KS Kapālama teacher and UH lecturer, and UH Mānoa graduate student Norm Thompson, with KS Kapālama English teacher Kaʻimi Kaiwi providing study sessions to assist the high school students to bridge their learning experience to align with college-level expectations.

“The Mānoa Academy has been a pioneering effort to create new and exciting possibilities for our haumāna to be exposed to a college-level experience,” said KS Kapālama Interim Poʻo Kula (Head of School) Debbie Lindsey. “Thanks to the creative planning of Dr. Denise Konan’s team and our Summer School Program Director Kela Park’s promotion and support, we were able to institute the Mānoa Academy, a partnership of learning, to increase our students’ educational, as well as post-secondary, experiences. I must also credit our previous Poʻo Kula, Earl Kim, for his vision and commitment in championing this project to our campus.”

Strong partnerships for future success

The academy is part of the Hui Hoʻomaikaʻi partnership between Kamehameha Schools and UH, aimed at increasing Hawaiian student success at the post-secondary level. All fees and tuition for this initial semester was paid for by Kamehameha Schools. Participating early college students who successfully completed the courses in the academy also had a chance to gain early admittance to the University of �鶹��ý.

• More about the partnership: and

“It has been an honor to launch the Mānoa Academy of Social Sciences with Kamehameha Schools Kapālama campus as our lead partner,” said , dean of the College of Social Sciences at UH Mānoa. “The academy provides Kamehameha students with the opportunity to get an early start on their academic journey at the university by taking highly relevant courses for dual credit that satisfy both high school and UH Mānoa graduation requirements. We’re excited to be part of this bold, new effort to engage students and improve college readiness and attendance, and commend the individuals who have stepped up to be part of the Mānoa Academy’s inaugural class. They are outstanding, inspirational and are poised to become the next generation of leaders.”

“Hoʻomaikaʻi to our students who successfully completed this program,” added Lindsey. “And we look forward to a continued partnership for many years to come.”

More about the Kamehameha Schools Kapālama and �鶹��ýeducational partnerships

The Mānoa Academy is one of the many dual credit and enrollment opportunities started at the KS Kapālama campus. In the fall of 2015, KS Kapālama offered the college course Introduction to Pacific Island Studies, in partnership with Kapiʻolani Community College, with students receiving college credit. English 100 was also offered through Kapiʻolani CC as a blended learning course with teachers and online components in the spring of 2016. In spring of 2017, Political Science 110 will be offered through UH Mānoa with ʻUmi Perkins again teaching the course.

—By Lisa Shirota

For more than a decade now, and the have partnered to offer early college, dual-credit courses to KS Maui students.

Last fall, the University of �鶹��ý and Kamehameha Schools formalized a new partnership, known as Hui Hoʻopili ʻĀina, aimed at improving Native Hawaiian student success while creating a sustainable �鶹��ý. But the two educational institutions have been collaborating for years on many fronts, including the early college program at KS Maui.

• September 16, 2015
• September 9, 2015

“We wanted to start this culture early-on, of creating a college mindset,” said Jay-R Kaʻawa, KS Maui academies principal.

“It’s really paid off for our families financially by having our students get a head start on a college career while they are in high school.”

Through the partnership, UH Maui College instructors teach college-level classes on the KS Maui campus, allowing students to earn both high school and college credits.

From 2005 till 2016, more than 500 KS Maui students have taken these courses, earning more than 3,370 college credits in a wide range of subjects from math and science to history and English. Students get to experience courses like English 100, Calculus 205 and 206, Statistics 115, Psychology 100 and Sociology 100.

“I think it’s really crucial and you get that big step in college and it just gives you that boost,” said KS Maui senior Richard Renaud.

“It’s good to know what college classes are like so you can prepare for it. I got to mentally prepare for college and these dual credits are definitely going to help.”

Setting students up for success

National research reinforces that high school students who take early college classes are more successful when they transition to college. Early college also lowers the cost of higher education.

“They’re more likely to enroll in a college, they’re more likely to be successful in college, they are more likely to persist and they are more likely to complete a degree,” said UH Maui College Chancellor Lui Hokoana.

Through surveys KS Maui has conducted with alumni who have gone through the early college program, that thinking has been validated. Alumni have indicated how they are better prepared for the college transition and are acclimated to the rigor of a college course, even though they were still in high school.

KS and UH are now expanding the early college program to KS Kapālama and �鶹��ý campus students. At KS Maui, the campus is also looking to offer more courses to students in the next five years with the goal of having half of the seniors earn at least six college credits before graduation.

The success of the KS Maui partnership has also allowed UH Maui College to expand the dual enrollment program throughout Maui County.

“It doesn’t matter whether students come to us or not, but we want to make sure to provide higher education opportunities to our entire community,” said Hokoana.

Through Hui Hoʻopili ʻĀina, UH and Kamehameha Schools are committed to community engagement and partnerships that will result in increased access and success for Native Hawaiian post-secondary students.

On Wednesday, September 9, 2015, and the signed a memorandum of understanding, formalizing a new partnership called Hui Hoʻopili ʻĀina, a uniting to commit to supporting all that nourishes the mind, body and spirit.

“This represents a commitment between both institutions to advance Native Hawaiian student success, including through post secondary education,” said UH President David Lassner. “To advance our understanding and propagation of ʻIke �鶹��ý, Hawaiian language, culture, and protection of the environment.”

“You know what is really important for us is this partnership, a partnership with the University of working together towards our common goals,” said Kamehameha Schools CEO . “We have a lot going on with the university but having a purposeful partnership where we are working together for Native Hawaiian student success is critical for us.”

Setting the path forward

The agreement is the result of more than a year of work by representatives of both institutions that began in March 2014. A summit was held four months later in July that covered numerous areas, including early college success, past and current partnerships and common goals. The effort led to pilot initiatives and multiple follow up meetings and discussions.

The day after the signing of the memorandum of agreement, a second summit was held. Attended by more than 75 leaders and representatives from both organizations, their mission was to set the path forward.

“Two powerful organizations like Kamehameha and like the University of , coming together, to put basically the muscle of our organizations and our good thinking around how do we support Native Hawaiian students to go on to post secondary, knowing how crucial that step is to their life long success,” said Shawn Kanaʻiaupuni, executive strategy consultant, Kamehameha Schools.

Six key initiatives

Working groups made up of administrators and faculty from both organizations are now focused on six key initiatives:

1. Early college programs like the model that currently exists at , where students earn college credits in high school, is now being developed at Hilo and on Oʻahu.
2. A collaboration on Kamehameha’s Mōʻiliʻili redevelopment project focused on designing a culturally rich and educationally and economically viable community at the gateway of the campus.
3. Data sharing that will help develop a greater understanding of student pathways by identifying and eliminating barriers and success gaps.
4. Living Learning Labs that will include ʻ�徱�Բ� and site-based learning laboratories to encourage and support Native Hawaiian science and Aloha ʻĀina.
5. ʻIke �鶹��ý that will advance and strengthen expectations and the future workforce, increase access and support and achieve normalization of the Hawaiian language.
6. Financial Aid and Student Persistence that will ensure wrap-around support for undergraduate students to complete their degree programs in four years.

Said Maenette Benham, dean of UH Mānoa’s , “What I think that people need to understand is that we do have a diverse group of folks working on important questions, and we hope that within the next year to two years, that we will begin to see results.”

Hui Hoʻopili ʻĀina (HHA) is a new partnership between and the , aimed at improving Native Hawaiian student success while creating a sustainable �鶹��ý.

“The purpose of this statewide partnership is to increase Hawaiian student success at the post-secondary level while advancing Hawaiian culture, language and knowledge,” said Kamehameha Schools CEO Jack Wong. “Through this multifaceted collaboration, early college work is a top priority, offering Native Hawaiian students opportunities to earn college credits in high school and increasing rates of post-secondary enrollment and completion. Other aspects of this work include, ʻāina-, Hawaiian culture- and language-based pathways.”

At the heart of HHA, is the desire of both organizations to foster crucial community collaborations with like-minded institutions to achieve mutual educational goals for their beneficiaries, using data to inform progress.

“This partnership is an important step in fulfilling our commitment to developing community partnerships that advance our indigenous-serving goals while developing Native Hawaiians for leadership roles in the University of �鶹��ý’s ten campuses and the community,” said UH President David Lassner.

As part of both organizations’ strategic plans, UH and Kamehameha Schools are committed to community engagement and partnerships that will result in increased access and success of Native Hawaiian post-secondary students.

“The goal of our vision for 2040 is a thriving lāhui (people) within a generation,” Wong said. “With 14,000 Native Hawaiian students matriculating through the UH system each year, it is our kuleana to create the opportunity for each of those students to realize their fullest potential and to emerge as leaders for the next generation. Together with UH, this collaboration affirms our dedication to our Native Hawaiian students by creating a pathway to college that will prepare them to complete a higher education.”

For UH, the partnership aligns with the university’s mission of being a foremost indigenous-serving institution and advancing sustainability.

“It really is about leveraging the investments that we’re both making toward our common interests,” said Lassner. “We are both committed to the success of Native Hawaiian students and to the preservation and support of Native Hawaiian culture and language and the environment. These are values that we share.”

Looking forward, this union will also be an important component in UH’s and one of its goals of increasing the participation and graduation rate of Native Hawaiian students and preparing them for success in the workforce.

“This collaboration presents a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between a K–12 education and college attainment and completion for Native Hawaiian learners,” added Wong. “With a solid foundation in place for students and families to realize their dreams of a college education, we’re preparing them for sustained success in school and beyond.”