Taye Mowat is a busy Molokaʻi High School junior, who is also taking a college course this semester: English 100. She admits, it was nerve-wracking at first.

“I was kind of like, I don’t know if I can handle sports and school, plus a college class. I like it though,” said Mowat.

“We do a lot of essays and writing, learning grammar a little more in college, so I can see my improvement in writing essays.”

Mowat is one of about 20 Native Hawaiian students at Molokaʻi High participating in the Hoʻokele Program, a partnership between the University of �鶹��ý Maui College , Kamehameha Schools, and Molokaʻi High. The dual credit program pays for tuition, fees and books, and students earn both college and high school credits.

“We hope to expose kids now, while in high school, to college,” said Hoʻokele Program Coordinator Kalei Adolpho, “And once you get the first couple of classes down, we are hoping that theyʻll just take off from there.”

Earning college credits in high school makes higher education more affordable, while more importantly, gives students confidence that they can succeed in college.

“In high school, they’ll get on your case to turn in your work but college, it’s all up to you. So I’m glad I got that experience,” said Mowat.

Read more Early College stories on UH News

Kamehameha Schools, the and Chaminade University of Honolulu have partnered to create ��������� ʻĪ�Բ��Բ� ma Kapaʻakea, a collaborative learning space that connects, engages and facilitates the success of students as they transition from high school to college and onto careers. The ��ōʻ������ʻ������ center is home to a unique educational incubator program designed to strengthen ��ōʻ������ʻ������’s capacity to nurture, educate and uplift students and learners within the communities it serves.

��������� ʻĪ�Բ��Բ� will enable learners to engage in highly creative, culturally-grounded, interdisciplinary collaboration with students from various colleges and programs. The learning center will also provide access to equipment, researchers, mentors and industry experts.

“These programs support incubating new businesses and product ideas, along with developing solutions for challenging community and business concerns,” said Hailama Farden, Kamehameha Schools community engagement and resources regional director for Kona Oʻahu.

For more, .

A new agreement will involve �鶹��ý’s students in critical planning for green education and sustainability. A memorandum of understanding signed by , and bridges educational missions and begins to create pathways for local students to help define and develop �鶹��ý’s statewide green workforce and education goal as part of the .

The public-private partnership between �鶹��ý Green Growth and two leading educational institutions in �鶹��ý seeks to bring students from private and public schools, the university and the community to the forefront of decision making in developing �鶹��ý’s statewide sustainability framework.

“Today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders, and it is vitally important that our youth be given the opportunity to help the state to craft its sustainability goals,” said UH President .

“This partnership has the potential to transform how we as a community approach education and our workforce, where our keiki, our culture and our ʻāina are positioned at the center of our decision-making,” said Jack Wong, CEO of Kamehameha Schools. “I’m grateful that we get to participate in the process and with partners who share the same values.”

Celeste Connors, executive director of �鶹��ý Green Growth said, “The next generation will be the leaders that carry the Aloha+ Challenge forward to 2030. We are committed to working with �鶹��ý’s youth to address global challenges through place-based knowledge, education, and practical workforce development programs and curriculum.”

The Aloha+ Challenge

The outcomes of the new agreement should help define �鶹��ý’s green workforce and education 2030 goals as part of the Aloha+ Challenge statewide sustainability framework.

The Aloha+ Challenge is a statewide commitment to sustainability, launched in 2014 with the leadership of the governor, four county mayors, Office of Hawaiian Affairs, State Legislature, and �鶹��ý Green Growth public-private partners across the state. It builds on �鶹��ý’s history of systems thinking, Hawaiian culture and values and successful track record on sustainability to outline six ambitious goals to be achieved by 2030 in clean energy transformation, local food production, natural resource management, solid waste reduction, smart sustainable communities (including climate resilience and livability) and green workforce and and education.

Details of the new agreement

Under the new agreement, there are four primary areas of collaboration

• Youth Engagement: Create platforms for youth leadership and engagement in the Aloha+ Challenge Green Workforce and Education goal development process, as first step to involving youth leadership on all six Aloha+ Challenge sustainability goals;
• Leadership Building: Create practical internship or workforce opportunities for UH and KS students with �鶹��ý Green Growth and other network or local partners;
• Educational Pathways: Develop an understanding of current and emerging workforce opportunities around sustainability and develop degree and certificate programs, including bridging from K12 to higher education, that prepare students for successful careers in these fields;
• Statewide Action: Coordinate joint action on �鶹��ý’s 2030 sustainability goals, including the online Aloha+ Challenge dashboard to track progress, provide accountability, develop shared policy and initiatives to drive implementation, and the adoption of the Aloha+ Challenge as a statewide sustainability framework.

—By Kelli Trifonovitch

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.

Kamehameha Schools and the University of �鶹��ý are collaborating on a vision for ��ōʻ������ʻ������ lands that Kamehameha Schools owns in the UH area. Leaders from the two educational institutions met at UH Mānoa on Thursday for a charrette, or intense period of planning activity, as part of a long-term partnership dubbed .

“So the area is about five acres, it’s the parcels where Puck’s Alley is, University and Beretania Street,” explains Kamehameha Schools Director of Development Cathy Camp. “We think it’s a great opportunity to collaborate together and come up with a common vision of what we can do in this area, what types of programs and initiatives we should have in this area, to really further the graduation rates for Native Hawaiians, to help them want to stay in school and graduate and persist.”

The big picture, says Dean of the , is “to envision what UH can be for our Native Hawaiian community. How it can benefit the university, our students coming in and their families and their communities, but how it can also benefit Kamehameha Schools—what we call triple bottom line. You know, the commercial bottom line, the educational kuleana and well as their kuleana to Native Hawaiian communities.”

“We’ve had a charrette already with educators, this one is now with our leadership, and we’ll be coming up with a vision, we’ll be looking at all kinds of analysis around that—what the market has to say, what are the uses, how do we make it all work together,” says Camp. “And then hopefully present something to our trustees, that we can push it even further.”

“We’re basically looking at different ways we can find synergistic places, where we can come together to increase the potential of our educational ʻauwai,” explains Benham of the goal “to reach all Native Hawaiian students across the state of �鶹��ý, in fact, beyond the state of �鶹��ý.”

Partners from (KS) and the recently came together to launch an exciting three-year Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) innovation and entrepreneurship collaboration.

The collaboration includes two projects: , which comprises six integrated Hawaiian culture-based STEM and healthcare teams assigned to specific laʻau lapaʻau (Hawaiian herbal medicine) projects and Hālau Pā, an innovation hub located in the heart of Mōʻiliʻili.

Project ʻOlonā

The newly formed education collective aims to engage Native Hawaiian community college students in Project ʻOlonā through a series of applied and scientific research projects that are founded on Native Hawaiian ʻike and ways of knowing and doing while leveraging 21st-century scientific technology and tools to better investigate and understand what their kūpuna knew and practiced through centuries of lived experiences.

Hālau Pā

The Hālau Pā will be the piko or central point for the convergence of Native Hawaiian student research and innovation. It will provide a space for highly creative, culturally-grounded, interdisciplinary collaboration for students from the various colleges and programs—including nursing/health, construction and business—to pursue research, product development and prototyping.

Students will have access to design space and equipment, as well as university researchers, mentors and industry experts. Coordinated student research and product prototyping developed at the Hālau Pā will be supported by , and the UH Mānoa faculty. Entrepreneurship experts from will assist the students in cultivating commercially viable products or services.

For the full article and photos from the launch, visit .

—Written by KS Executive Strategy Consultant Stacy Clayton (republished with permission)

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.”