Leeward CC announced the upcoming season presentation of Holomua i ke ao hou (Move onward to a new future), as the college prepared for the long-awaited 50th-anniversary celebration. This season, a special emphasis will be on showcasing the dynamic talent within the local community. Through thought-provoking content and captivating performances, Holomua i ke ao hou aims to inspire audiences, sparking meaningful conversations and igniting collective introspection. In addition, it will be a celebration of the incredible alumni, who have played an integral role in shaping the theater’s legacy. The college is excited to share this remarkable season with its cherished audience, as everyone comes together to celebrate the power of theater and the deep-rooted ties to the community at large.

“Leeward Theatre has always been a gathering place for the community, and what better way to celebrate 50 years than by offering this milestone event for free,” said Elisa Olson, theatre manager. “We want to fill our theatre with the energy, appreciation and love from the community that has supported us for half a century.”

Accreditation Update

Six of our seven community colleges are accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), and they will be submitting their Institutional Self-Evaluation Reports (ISERs) by December 15, 2024. The ISERs are the result of two years of review and evaluation of the college’s evidence of meeting the accreditation standards. Each college convened self-evaluation teams made up of faculty, staff, and administrators to conduct the review and evaluation. Additionally, each college shared the ISER with the campus community in order to ensure broad engagement and input on the final report. I would like to acknowledge and thank our college ALOs and their self-evaluation teams for dedicating many hours to the development of the ISER. See UHCC Systemwide Team Spotlight below for more information on the ALOs.

Next Steps: An evaluation team will be assigned to each of the six colleges. The evaluation teams will review the college ISERs and create a Core Inquiries Report by March 2025. Each college will respond to the Core Inquiries Report in preparation for the Focused Site Visit in September 2025. The Commission will announce a decision in January 2026. 

Annual Report of Program Data  

University of Hawaiʻi Community Colleges Policy 5.202 outlines review of established programs under the overarching commitment to continuous quality improvement. UHCC Academic Affairs prepares quantitative data reports to support campuses’ processes for program review. 

• Attached is the VPCC memo announcing the timeline and process for 2024 reports. 
• Completed analyses will be posted publicly on December 15.
• Preliminary program data for ARPD 2024 is available online now.

If you have questions about the ARPD, please contact uhccdata@hawaii.edu or Joshua Kaakua (jkaakua@hawaii.edu).

OVPCC Campus Presentations    

Mahalo to all of the campuses we have visited so far this month. Mike and I appreciate your support and kindness as we talk about system initiatives, the budget and legislative requests, and college data. If you are interested in reviewing the slides we presented, you can find them all in one location in this shared folder that includes presentations since Spring 2023. If you need access to the PowerPoint slides for use in your own presentation, please contact your chancellor.

Please join me in recognizing the outstanding work of our ALOs! The ALOs have the responsibility to collaborate with the chancellor to prepare the campus for accreditation reviews, including the ISER. The ALO works with the college community to ensure the ISER is accurate and thorough. Additionally, the ALO serves as the primary point of contact between the institution and the Commission and facilitates reports to the Commission such as annual reports and substantive change proposals. Each ALO has the support of team members on their campus, so I also want to recognize everyone who has assisted in the self evaluation process for our colleges. 

UH Maui College is accredited by WASC Senior College and University Commission and is reaffirmed until spring 2030. The remaining community colleges are accredited by ACCJC and are submitting ISERs for consideration of reaffirmation in December 2024.

• Hawaiʻi CC: Kalani Flores
• Honolulu CC: Jeff Stearns
• Kapiʻolani CC: Michaelyn Nakoa
• Kauaʻi CC: Valerie Barko
• Leeward CC: Jayne Bopp
• UH Maui C: Laura Nagle (WASC Senior)
• Windward CC: Nalani Quinn

2025 Hawaiʻi Student Success Institute (HISSI)

Save the date for the 2025 Hawaiʻi Student Success Institute! We will be back on the first Friday in March for this systemwide professional development day, so mark your calendars for Friday, March 7, 2025. We will send more information as planning will begin soon.

It is with mixed emotions that we say aloha to Mike Unebasami. We will miss him deeply, but his retirement is also well-deserved. Mike will be leaving the University of Hawaiʻi on December 1 after 56 years, with 31 years as the AVP for Administrative Affairs in the Office of the Vice President of Community Colleges and 13 years as Director of Administrative Services at Leeward Community College. His extensive knowledge and experience will be missed though not as much as his quick smile and youthful spirit. His passion and dedication to the community colleges is unsurpassed, which means his retirement will leave a big hole within the UHCC System. He does tell me he will be a phone call away. I hope he will pick up his phone when he is on the golf course. 😂 With much love and aloha, we wish Mike the best!

Request for Proposals for 2025 HISSI coming soon! 

The 2025 Hawaiʻi Student Success Institute will be held on Friday, March 7, 2025 at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center. After reviewing feedback from the last HISSI, we will be reducing the number of breakout sessions offered and adding a keynote speaker. This change means we will be limiting the number of proposals that will be accepted for the 2025 HISSI. An email with the requests for proposals will be sent by October 31. Deadline for submissions will be December 1, 2024.

If you are interested in presenting at HISSI, please remember these recommendations:

• Each presenter will be accepted for one breakout session. If multiple proposals are submitted, we recommend you indicate your first choice breakout session.
• Each breakout session will be limited to no more than 5 co-presenters. 
• Breakout sessions will be selected based on the information provided, so be clear about your intended session outcomes and engaging activities.

Transition from Laulima to Lamakū

The UH System is moving its LMS from Laulima to Lamakū this year. The UH Community Colleges are on track to move all courses to Lamakū by January 1, 2025. This transition will occur for both credit and non-credit course sites in Laulima, and Laulima will be “turned off” for UH Community Colleges for the Spring 2025 courses. (Older courses in Laulima will be accessible to faculty for a few more semesters.) In order to accomplish this, all faculty and lecturers need to teach their courses in Laulima in fall 2024 while also transitioning the courses to be taught in Lamakū in spring 2025.

All Cohort 1 faculty and staff now have a Lamakū account. 

• All UHCC faculty have been provided with one Sandbox site.
• Additional sandboxes (up to 5 total per person) for faculty and staff can be requested via Cohort 1 (UH Hilo and UHCCs) Lamakū Account and Sandbox Request Form.
• UHCC faculty can request migration of courses from Laulima to Lamakū. This form requires a UH login.

Lamakū Training and Resources

• Sign up for the Lamakū Discovery Series and Support Sessions to learn about Lamakū course-building essentials like content development, assessment setup, and gradebook management.
• All faculty have been auto-enrolled into the Lamakū Instructors Essentials course, and it can be found under your list of courses on the Lamakū homepage. The course acts as a reference guide for mastering the basics of Lamakū.
• Visit the Discover Lamakū website for updated news about the Laulima to Lamakū transition.
• Visit the Knowledge Base: Lamakū Tutorials and Resources website to explore a collection of Lamakū tutorials and resources.

Lamakū for Students 

• UHCC Instructional Designers and Windward CC will create How-to videos designed for students.  These videos will be accessible for all CC campuses to use and will also be emailed to students. 
• UH Online has a website for students to access resources. 

• Institutional and Student Responses to Free College: Evidence from Virginia
  This Community College Research Center (CCRC) Working Paper reviews the academic literature on the design features and impacts of tuition-free college policies aimed at reducing attendance costs and incentivizing enrollment. The CCRC also analyzes the Get a Skills, Get a Job, Get Ahead initiative implemented in Virginia, which provides tuition-free community college to students enrolled in eligible associate degree, certificate, and noncredit occupational training programs in five high-demand fields. Research shows that overall, students increased their enrollment in tuition-free-eligible programs by 4 percentage points, corresponding to a more than 30% increase compared to the baseline year.
• Colleges See Alarming Rates of Fake Applications. So They’re Turning to AI.
  Practices aimed to increase accessibility to education, such as open admissions, no application fees, and low-cost tuition, can increase community colleges’ vulnerability to fraudulent “ghost student” admissions applications. In an effort to combat the multiple consequences of this problem, some colleges have turned to AI software that can be integrated into application-processing systems to cross-reference applicant information with public records and commercial data. Flagged applications can then be reviewed by human beings who can change the application status if appropriate. The technology is not foolproof and must be adjusted to consider multiple variables.
• What Do Dual Enrollment Students Want?: Elevating the Voices of Historically Underserved Students to Guide Reforms
  This Community College Research Center brief investigates the experiences of students historically underserved in dual enrollment and shares student perspectives and research-based practices around six themes, which include alignment of dual enrollment courses with career and academic pathways and balancing the high school and dual enrollment experiences.
• Innovative Educators’ Go2Knowledge
  • Take advantage of our free UHCC systemwide Go2Knowledge membership for all CC campuses.
  • Contact: uhccids@hawaii.edu
  • Innovative Educators’ Go2Knowledge offers training on a wide range of topics that are timely, practical, and relevant for higher education. The format includes both live webinars and a digital library for on-demand access. Sign up for a UHCC Go2Knowledge account (or log in if you had an account with a CC campus before), and take advantage of quality professional development from anywhere. Here are a few samples of upcoming live webinars. Recordings can be viewed on demand later:
    • 10 Creative Online Assignment Ideas That Promote Critical Thinking, Engagement & Deep Learnin (On Demand)
    • Designing & Delivering Engaging Asynchronous Video Lectures Live: Thursday, November 7: 8:00-9:00 am HST