Psychology professor and “local girl” Cheryl Ramos (center) receives the Taniguchi Award for Excellence and Innovation at the 2008 End-of-the Year Celebration. Funding for this award comes from the Koichi and Taniyo Taniguchi Memorial Endowment Fund, which was established in memory of the founders of what is known today as KTA Superstores. The award was presented by Barry Taniguchi (left), president of KTA and the grandson of the endowment founders, and Randy Hirokawa (right), dean of the College of Arts & Sciences and chair of the award selection committee. Photos by John Oshima.

Aloha!

Once again, we celebrate the end of the academic year. This is a special time to recognize our colleagues, and my special time to say thank you to all of you. Your dedication to working together results in a great learning environment we can all be proud of.

This year, we’re also celebrating UH Hilo’s 60th year. We’ve been reviewing how far we’ve come in that time and the obstacles and hardships many people here have had to face as we struggle to advance our university. I want to say that I appreciate more than I can say how we all pull together for the betterment of UH Hilo.

Here are just a few highlights of what you all have achieved this semester.

Our terrific student athletes won the Commissioner’s Cup for the entire Pacific West Conference. This is a wonderful achievement! It means that ours is the top athletic program in the league. Our coaches and student athletes are to be congratulated.

Our faculty passed a new General Education program that had been years in the making. Our Faculty Congress led the way and developed a successful proposal. We’re all looking forward to seeing it implemented.

The hard work of many, many people goes into our budget requests. In this second year of the biennium, we were only allowed to request positions and funds to enhance health, safety and security on campus.

The legislature was generous to UH Hilo. We were given:

• A security director position
• Personnel for health and safety as well as safety education
• Personnel to improve physical and mental health services
• Restoration of a position in the library and five rangers on Mauna Kea

This is a very good showing for the second year of the biennium.

We had a great visit from the WASC site team. Many thanks to April Komenaka and the many people who took the time to meet with the visiting team.

In a few months, we’ll have the grand opening of our Student Life Center. We’ve been waiting for this a long time, and it will be worth it. We’ll finally be able to offer the exercise and recreational activities our students so badly need.

After decades of work, we will break ground on the new China-US Center this summer. This is another long-awaited project, which will double our student housing capacity.

Each and every one of these achievements were made possible by our faculty and staff, and often students, too, pulling together for the betterment of the university.

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Connie Lau (at left), president and chief executive officer of Hawaiian Electric Industries, will deliver the spring commencement keynote.

Timothy Fallis, an English major with minors in religious studies and philosophy, will deliver the student address. Fallis maintained a 3.93 grade point average as a full-time student while also working full time as a machinist for Mauna Kea observatories.

Spring commencement is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 17th, at Edith Kanaka‘ole Stadium.

A total of 448 students are candidates for degrees or certificates:

· College of Arts and Sciences (377)

· College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management (20)

· Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani College of Hawaiian Language (21)

· College of Business and Economics (30)

Full press release here.

The university’s cable show, Focus on UH Hilo, wraps up the season tonight with Don Price (at left), Randy Hirokawa and Mark Manuel discussing the integration of culture, science and technology in education and research at the university. The 30-minute show airs live on local cable Channel 55 starting at 8 p.m.

Price is a biology professor who serves as co-project director of Hawai‘i’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. Administrated by UH Hilo, EPSCoR is a federal program funded by the National Science Foundation to strengthen the research capacity of the entire state.

Randy Hirokawa is dean at UH Hilo’s College of Arts and Sciences. Mark Manuel is a graduate student in UH Hilo’s Tropical Conservation Biology & Environmental Science master’s program.

Focus on UH Hilo, hosted by Chancellor Tseng and moderated by Ken Hupp, highlights programs, developments and partnerships with community organizations.

For more info, contact Michelle Araki at University Relations, melander@hawaii.edu.

Left to right, Barry Taniguchi, Larry Isemoto and Rose Tseng. Photo by John Oshima.

Isemoto Contracting Company recently donated $50,000 to UH Hilo. Chairman Larry Isemoto was inspired to give when he read in the newspaper that fellow local businessman Barry Taniguchi had established five new endowed faculty funds at the university on behalf of KTA Super Stores.

Isemoto said he knew the university’s most important goal in its current Centennial Campaign is to increase the size of its endowment. The generous gift will build an endowment for each of the university’s five degree-granting colleges: Arts and Sciences; Business and Economics; Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management; Hawaiian Language; and Pharmacy.

College deans will have discretion to use the funds for recruitment and retention of faculty.

“This gift will have a transforming impact on UH Hilo because it responds to two of the university’s highest priorities: building our endowment and investing in our faculty,” said Chancellor Tseng.

Founded in 1926, the Isemoto Contracting Company is headed by Larry Isemoto and Leslie Isemoto and regularly appears on Building Industry magazine’s “Top Ten” list in revenue generated by Hawai‘i contractors. The Hilo company has been involved in a number of construction projects over the years on the UH Hilo campus and is currently completing work on the new Student Life Center , set to open this fall.

In today’s Hawaii Tribune-Herald (link expiration determined by outside news source).

Mark Chun, left, Lucas Chun, 7, Shy Canfield, 6, and Samantha Mondragon, 10, color star buttons at Sunday’s free AstroFest 2008, which was held at UH Hilo’s ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawai‘i. Photo by Jason Armstrong/Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

By Jason Armstrong

Hundreds of rural schoolchildren and their families got to explore the universe Sunday thanks to the generosity of a prominent Big Island family.

“We strongly believe this was a very successful first event,” David De Luz Jr., vice president of special events for Big Island Toyota, said of AstroFest 2008 held at the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawai‘i.

The De Luz family, headed by patriarch David De Luz Sr., owner of the dealership, provided 1,200 passes so public and private schoolchildren could enjoy a free day at the planetarium.

“This is something that came out of our experience with ‘Journey Through the Universe,’” De Luz Jr. said of the weeklong astronomy education program available only to students in the Hilo-through-Laupahoehoe region.

Wanting to expose more children to the world-class planetarium, the De Luz family sponsored AstroFest, which was offered to elementary students in the Puna, Kohala and West Hawaii areas. It’s slated to become an annual event.

“That’s our plan,” De Luz Jr. said. “Our dreams are only as big as our imaginations.”

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Keiki, adults plunge right in to UH-Hilo’s Ocean Day

by John Burnett

In Hawaii Tribune-Herald

Brothers Joao, left, and Daren Garriques hold clams and oysters like those found in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu. These 11/2-year-old specimens are being raised in greenhouse tanks on the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resources Center, in hopes of developing a viable bi-valve industry in the state of Hawaii. Saturday’s annual Ocean Day opened the gates of the Keaukaha facility to the community, providing hands-on educational activities focused on celebrating Hawaii’s ocean and coastal heritage. - Photo By William Ing/Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

Families enjoyed music, food and fun — for example, touching live octopi and sea urchins — at the second annual Ocean Day Hawaii held Saturday at Puhi Bay in Keaukaha.

The event was hosted by the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resources Center and the Marine Science Department, in partnership with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant. The site was PACRC’s 12.5-acre shorefront facility.

“It’s just beautiful; we couldn’t have asked for a better day,” said Kevin Hopkins, PACRC’s interim director and an aquaculture professor at UHH.

Subtitled “Year of the Reef,” the free, family-friendly educational event, celebrating Hawaii’s coastal heritage and resources, featured demonstrations and activities by more than 30 organizations, community groups and agencies.

The turnout was phenomenal, according to Sharon Ziegler-Chong, PACRC associate director, who co-coordinated the event with Masaki Takabayashi, an assistant professor of marine science at UHH.

“We figure we have about double the number of people from last year, which means about a thousand people,” Ziegler-Chong said.

The younger keiki, in general, seemed to have the most fun — counting fish in aquaculture tanks, interacting with scuba divers during demonstrations, directing robot-like remote-operated vehicles underwater and enjoying a close encounter with zooplankton using a powerful microscope.

“Every booth had some sort of activity, so it wasn’t just a poster telling you something. It’s truly interactive,” Ziegler-Chong noted.

Especially popular with the youngsters were the “touch tanks” — a marine petting zoo of sorts. Richard Cromwell, a UHH marine science major, said that the tanks contained “marine invertebrates collected from Onekahakaha Beach Park” in “fresh salt water, cycled — the tanks are aerated to keep them alive.”

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Chancellor’s Remarks

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business
International Conference & Annual Meeting
April 13, 2008

Honolulu

“The Role of Universities in Regional Prosperity”

Good afternoon and aloha! Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today.

This afternoon I would like to share with you some thoughts about the role of universities and business schools in workforce and economic development, tell you a little about UH Hilo’s role as an economic engine, and then share with you some strategies that I hope you’ll find interesting and useful.

Compared to other developed countries, the U.S. lags in the proportion of its population who have an associate degrees or higher. This is a gathering storm. We need to enhance our human capital, and in the new knowledge economy, universities are recognized as the engine of economic growth.

The Big Island is a microcosm of the world: an island the size of Connecticut, surrounded by water, thousands of miles from the mainland. In fact, you could say our university is at the center of a big economic experiment. UH Hilo plays a huge role in the local economy, including direct expenditures on the island, second largest employer in east Hawai‘i, and workforce development. On the Big Island, it’s easy to see the effect UH Hilo has on the economy.

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Chancellor Tseng and PISCES co-director Robert Fox (at right) visited Colorado School of Mines to sign a partnership agreement to work on space research at both campuses. CSM President Bill Scoggins is at left.

UH Hilo has partnered with the Colorado School of Mines to work on space research at both campuses and at the new space research center at Hilo, the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES).

PISCES is dedicated to developing technologies that will enable humans to sustain life on another planet. The new center is led by Frank Schowengerdt, former director of the NASA Research Partnership Centers and Hilo Professor Robert Fox, chair of the department of physics and astronomy.

Colorado School of Mines is home to the Center for Space Resources, which focuses on using the natural resources of space, also called in situ resource utilization, to make air and water, and to meet all human needs for survival on the moon and beyond.

“This partnership is a natural extension of our space-related initiatives that are made possible by the Big Island’s unique living, learning laboratory,” says Chancellor Tseng. “From the world’s most important collection of telescopes atop Mauna Kea, to our ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, to PISCES, UH Hilo has taken its place on the cutting edge in this exciting field.”

Tim Moore will be the first director of UH Hilo’s new Student Life Center. He’ll start on June 1. He currently serves as associate director of recreational sports at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He’s worked there since 1992, and played an integral role in SMU’s recreation center expansion project.

“UH Hilo’s commitment to becoming a premier residential campus is evident with the construction of the new Student Life Center,” he says. “I’m honored to have been selected for this position, and look forward to fulfilling the center’s vision of creating a comprehensive and thriving recreation program that will become the focal point of an involved and connected campus community.”

Moore has a 17-year background in college recreational sports administration. He’s worked in facilities planning, budget oversight, program development, risk management, marketing and promotions, and program assessment.

He has a BS in physical education and a MA in arts & teaching in sports administration from the University of Louisville. He also is an active member of the National Intramural & Recreational Sports Association.

The brand new Student Life Center is scheduled to open in Fall 2008. Located at the athletics complex, it will provide students with a wide range of health, fitness and recreational activities including exercise and weight rooms, Olympic-size swimming pool, classrooms, and café.

Marine Science lab. Photo by William Ing.

Jason Turner, a UH Hilo assistant professor of marine science and Jennifer Turner, a marine science lecturer, are the featured guests on tonight’s Focus on UH Hilo cable program. The show starts at 8 p.m. on channel 55.

The Turners will discuss UH Hilo’s Marine Science program, including information about the new bachelor of science degree. They also will preview the program’s course offerings for the upcoming summer session.

Focus on UH Hilo is a 30-minute show hosted by Chancellor Tseng and moderated by Ken Hupp that highlights UH Hilo teaching, research, and community service.

For more info contact Michele at the marketing and alumni office at melander@hawaii.edu.