{"id":160694,"date":"2022-06-14T14:20:06","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T00:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=160694"},"modified":"2022-06-14T16:49:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T02:49:13","slug":"rockne-freitas-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/06\/14\/rockne-freitas-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockne Freitas\u2019 Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><figure id=\"attachment_160457\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-160457\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/system-freitas-r-2-2.jpg\" alt=\"Freitas, Bachman Hall\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-160457\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/system-freitas-r-2-2.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/system-freitas-r-2-2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/system-freitas-r-2-2-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-160457\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rockne Freitas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Former <abbr>UH<\/abbr> vice president for student affairs <strong>Doris Ching<\/strong> remembers Rockne Freitas<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Rockne Freitas<\/strong> was a man dedicated to educational opportunity and success for all students and, especially, for Native Hawaiians and other student populations previously underserved and underrepresented in higher education. Whether he served the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> as associate athletics director, vice president for university relations, or chancellor of a community college or four-year campus, Rockne never wavered from his advocacy for the educational success of Native Hawaiians\u2014historically, one of the most underserved and underrepresented populations in higher education. His vision was to inspire Native Hawaiian students\u2019 academic success as a means to elevate the economic and leadership status of Native Hawaiians in the State of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>As associate athletics director, Rockne initiated the Student Athlete Guidance Education program to help student athletes succeed both in athletics and in academics. As vice president for university relations, Rockne&#8212;with the vice president for student affairs&#8212;visited every public high school on <span aria-label=\"Oahu\">O&#699;ahu<\/span>, <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island, <span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span>, and Maui and met with school administrators, college counselors and athletics directors to strengthen school-college relations and gain insights into how the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> could more effectively serve students as they transitioned from high school to college.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Related <em><abbr>UH<\/abbr> News<\/em>:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/06\/14\/in-memoriam-rockne-freitas\/ \">In Memoriam: Pioneering Native Hawaiian educator and athlete Rockne Freitas<\/a>, June 14, 2022<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/06\/14\/rockne-is-truly-one-of-a-kind\/\">Statement by former <abbr>UH<\/abbr> President Albert Simone<\/a>, June 14, 2022<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/06\/09\/uh-statement-on-the-death-of-rockne-freitas\/\"><abbr>UH<\/abbr> statement on the death of Rockne Freitas<\/a>, June 9, 2022\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>More importantly, Rockne envisioned the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> as the world\u2019s model Indigenous-serving higher education institution in leadership development and community engagement, gaining Hawaiian culture and language parity for Native Hawaiians. He was instrumental in the development and adoption of the <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Papa O Ke Ao Plan in 2012. As chancellor of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Community College and <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> West <span aria-label=\"Oahu\">O&#699;ahu<\/span>, Rockne implemented the <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Papa O Ke Ao Plan as he developed programs and steeped the campuses with Native Hawaiian culture and values. He furthered his vision with the buildout of the P\u0101lamanui campus, a previously underserved region in higher education on the west side of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island. Today, his expansion of <abbr>UH<\/abbr> West <span aria-label=\"Oahu\">O&#699;ahu<\/span> with programs, faculty and staff, and state-of-the-art facilities such as the Creative Media Center is a center of higher education access for the population on the westside of <span aria-label=\"Oahu\">O&#699;ahu<\/span> so that it is no longer a historically underserved area in higher education.<\/p>\n<p>Rockne Freitas\u2019 legacy is his strong advocacy, actions and accomplishments for the advancement of Native Hawaiians and other underserved and underrepresented populations with opportunities to succeed academically, financially, culturally and in leadership in the university and in the community for current and future generations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<strong>Doris Ching<\/strong>, former <abbr>UH<\/abbr> vice president for student affairs, associate dean of the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa College of Education and <abbr>UH<\/abbr> West <span aria-label=\"Oahu\">O&#699;ahu<\/span> interim vice chancellor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former <abbr>UH<\/abbr> vice president for student affairs Doris Ching remembers Rockne Freitas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[61,33,756,435,9,947,59],"class_list":["post-160694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-hawaii-community-college","tag-hawaiian","tag-in-memoriam","tag-palamanui","tag-uh-manoa","tag-uh-system","tag-uh-west-oahu","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160694"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160729,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160694\/revisions\/160729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}