Ho‘ala Hou

Program Goals

Goal 1

The first goal of the program is to establish an enrollment pathway to HonCC for Native Hawaiian students and create a sense of place at the college for Native Hawaiians that is culturally significant and relevant. This will be done through a series of four activities which include:

1. Developing and implementing a culturally appropriate outreach and recruitment plan focused on increasing access and enrollment to the college by Native Hawaiians,
2. Creating a team of peer mentors to outreach to the community and establish community based partnerships,
3. Erecting a halau (community gathering space) through traditional community building practices, and
4. Creating a digital cultural and historical bilingual (Hawaiian and English) tour of the campus and native plant species.

Goal 2

The second goal is to create a culture and place-based training program for faculty, staff, and administrators aimed at infusing Hawaiian culture, traditions and values in teaching, learning and service in order to support student success and completion. This will be done through a series of three activities which include:

1. Creating a culture and place-based training program based on the Hawaiian resource management system of ahupua‘a and ‘Ike ‘Āina,
2. Establishing a cohort of mentors to sustain what is learned through the training program, and
3. Using technology to deliver the training materials for future use.

Highlights from Cohort Activities

To support Goal 2, Ho‘ala Hou created a culture and place-based training program for faculty, staff, and administrators modeled after the Hawaiian ahupua‘a resource management system and the value of ‘ike ‘āina. The first cohort began in Fall 2016 and a total of 25 employees from throughout the college participated. The first cohort, named Papa Kumupali, learned various culture and place-based educational strategies and visited significant cultural sites within the ahupua‘a. They developed relationships with colleagues, community partners, and the ‘aina.

Each cohort will serve as mentors to the next class to ho‘okō kuleana and pass on their learning to the next cohort. By the end of the grant, a total of 100 staff, faculty and administrators will participate in the training and serve as mentors to their colleagues throughout the college and increase the number of employees using culture and place-based educational strategies to enhance their work.

Ho‘āla Hou has also developed an online repository to store resources and training materials for future use and serve as an online resource for the rest of the campus.