Chaminade University of Honolulu

Diversity and Inclusion

Nonprofit Business Plan Competition 2022

Chaminade University’s Hogan Entrepreneurial Program and American Savings Bank are currently seeking entries in its Nonprofit Business Plan Competition. The competition, held every other year, is open to Hawaii nonprofit organizations looking to start new ventures that will benefit society. Finalists and winning nonprofits will receive grants ranging from $1,000 to $12,000 to support their proposals.

“We’re pleased to continue this important program that aims to stimulate public interest and support in nonprofit organizations and encourages excellence and innovation in socially-motivated entrepreneurs,” said Dr. Roy Panzarella, director of the Hogan Entrepreneurial Program. “We are also grateful for American Savings Bank’s continued partnership.”

Applicants must submit a statement of intent by February 1, 2022, to participate in the competition. Among the competition’s requirements:

  • Applicants must be a new nonprofit organization (in operation less than 12 months prior to entry deadline), a new program of an existing nonprofit organization, or a new for-profit subsidiary of a nonprofit organization.
  • Applicants must be located in the state of Hawaii.
  • The proposed venture must be designed to benefit society, i.e., it must generate positive social outcomes.
  • Only one business plan may be submitted for review.

The deadline for business plans is March 8, 2022. Eight finalists will then be selected to give an in-person presentation on April 12, 2022.

Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony held at Chaminade University on April 27, 2022. Grants will be awarded to first place ($12,000), second place ($10,000) third place ($5,000) and fourth place ($3,000) winners. The remaining finalists will also receive $1,000 each.

For detailed information about the 2022 Nonprofit Business Plan Competition, click here to download the entry packet. The entry packet includes eligibility requirements, entry and review process, recognition and awards, evaluation criteria and FAQs, as well as a sample business plan outline.

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Chaminade University’s Hogan Entrepreneurial Program is a one- or two-year certificate program. Students learn first-hand from experienced Hawaii business leaders and entrepreneurs about the business of getting a new idea up and running. This involves academic coursework, mentorships and internships with business leaders, weekly lectures, study trips, and programs like the nonprofit business plan competition. For more information, visit Chaminade.edu/hogan.

Partnerships and $15M Grant to Improve Health and Wellbeing in Hawaii

Research has shown Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, Filipinos and other medically underserved populations in Hawaii have disproportionately higher rates of physical ailments and mental health conditions. And the pandemic has only exacerbated those issues — and spotlighted a lack of community resources.

Addressing these health disparities will require everyone’s help.

That’s exactly the idea behind the newly-formed Center for Pacific Innovations, Knowledge and Opportunities (PIKO) — an innovative collaboration of Hawaii universities, including Chaminade, and organizations that will support critical areas of study and seek to turn research into positive change.

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences awarded the University of Hawaii PIKO a five-year, $15 million grant in which Chaminade University is a partner of the initiative. The funds will be distributed to researchers, especially those at the beginning of their careers, but will also go to professional development opportunities, outreach programming, and other opportunities.

The PIKO partnership includes the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Chaminade University and Hawaii Pacific University — along with the statewide network of organizations. PIKO is led by two UH professors: Dr. Joseph Keaweaimoku Kaholokula, who is chair of Native Hawaiian Health, and Dr. Neal Palafox, whose focus at the John A. Burns School of Medicine includes community health.

Kaholokula said PIKO is focused on improving the health and wellbeing of Hawaii’s people and supporting new research. “This is an unprecedented partnership and initiative in Hawaii to support talented junior researchers in doing culturally responsive and community-engaged research,” he said.

Faculty from Chaminade University who are part of this PIKO project include:

  • Dr. Jonathan Baker, assistant professor of Biology, who is one of the leads for tracking and evaluating the grant,
  • Dr. Rylan Chong, assistant professor of Data Science, who is the data science lead for the biostatistics, epidemiology and research design core, and
  • Dr. Claire Wright, an associate professor of Biology at Chaminade, is the lead who oversees the grant distribution and broadening the center’s reach.

Dr. Claire Wright said the pandemic has magnified the impacts of health disparities on underserved communities and underscored the need for action-oriented research.

“With this grant, we really wanted to focus on where the rubber meets the road,” she said.

In particular, the center and its partnering institutions will be working to recruit and fund more emerging researchers who come from the communities they hope to serve — and give them support along the way. There is also a strong emphasis on engaging community members, Wright said, by partnering with them for research projects and then communicating the results.

She added the center’s goals and the overall grant align with Chaminade’s mission to help build stronger, more resilient communities and to support projects that pursue social justice, peace and equity. “There is a lot of positive impacts you can make in this type of research,” Wright said.  

Funding for the first year of the grant is already rolling out, and projects for year two are being sought.

Wright said a call for abstracts is set for December.

She added that she’s optimistic about the positive impact the collaboration is poised to bring about and excited about the prospect of helping to develop more researchers—across a variety of disciplines—who are focused on addressing health disparities. Those researchers will in turn serve as mentors.

“At Chaminade, we have a close relationship with our students,” Wright said. “To be able to show more faculty entrenched in this kind of research, showing their students how they can help with their community, that’s a massive win for Chaminade and for changing their perspectives.”

The Spirituality of Justice: Racism & Climate Change

Fr. Dan Horan speaking at the Mystical Rose Oratory during Chaminade's Marianist Lecture Series

The “Catholic response” to racism, climate change and other societal injustices — including those plaguing Hawaii communities — must be one centered in faith-based action that “ought to discomfit the comfortable, humble the powerful, and lift up the oppressed,” said noted author and speaker Fr. Dan Horan during a recent talk at Chaminade’s Mystical Rose Oratory for the Marianist Lecture series.

Horan, acknowledging his own status as a “temporary guest” in Hawaii, added that people in the islands must seek to learn from indigenous communities and understand their unique ways of knowing the world so they can help craft holistic, place-based responses to the greatest crises of our time.

The engaging talk on September 26 comes as the Marianist Lecture series celebrates 25 years of promoting Catholic responsibility and service, and launches a new honor — the Mackey Award for Catholic Thought — to recognize leaders advancing the Marianist spirit and educational mission.

Horan, a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter whose most recent book is titled A White Catholic’s Guide to Racism and Privilege, was the inaugural recipient of the Mackey Award. In his lecture, Horan unpacked the writings of scholar, social activist, and monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968).

Merton may not be a household name. But in 2015, Pope Francis highlighted him as one of four “representatives of the American people” who fought for equal rights—alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Dorothy Day. Horan said Merton’s writings from the 1950s and 1960s offer important lessons for modern America, including about the importance of respecting others.

“Merton was attuned in an unusual way for a white man of his time to the failure to honor the wisdom, heritage, beauty, value and dignity of culture, traditions and religions that are not part of a Euro-American hegemony that came with the colonization to these lands,” Horan said.

He added that Merton offers “timely insights” and opportunities for further reflection on Hawaiian history, colonialism, and the “local response to both systemic racism and climate change.” Perhaps a key point of inquiry, he said, is Merton’s belief that the “spirit of God draws near not just to human beings but to the whole family of creation. Everything that exists reflects or points back to the Creator.”

In other words, Horan said, Merton would have “nodded along approvingly” to indigenous understandings of nature as not something that is separated or distinct from human existence but as central to life, familial relationships to and to society. “The global response to climate change … can only take place with the privileged species, humanity, embracing a sense of creational humility,” he said.

Horan also elucidated three points for white Christians seeking to respond to racial injustice.

He said those in positions of privilege and power because of their race must focus on diagnosis and criticism, “embracing a spirit of praxis and engagement.” They must also step back, listening to those in diverse communities rather than seeking to prescribe solutions. And they must “get out of the way,” Horan added. “They need to follow rather than lead. They need to listen rather than instruct.”

Horan sought to do just that in his own talk, opening his speech by noting that aloha is “not to be granted but always earned” and allowing time after his lecture for a question-and-answer dialogue with the audience. “As a guest, I seek to support the various strategies that the indigenous peoples of Hawaii are using to protect their land and their communities,” Horan said, near the start of his speech.

“I come to this land with a deep respect in a spirit of openness — and with a desire to learn.”

Watch the full video here

Hokulea Navigator and Environmental Lawyer in Training

Lucy Lee '23, environmental studies major on Hokulea smiling at camera

Over the summer, Lucy Lee ’23 was one of five student navigators invited on a training expedition of Hokulea and sister voyaging canoe Hikianalia to the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

One of their big challenges: use traditional Polynesian navigation techniques to find Nihoa island.

How tough is that? Lee said Polynesian Voyaging Society President and Master Navigator Nainoa Thompson has compared the task of navigating to Nihoa—with an area of just over a third of a mile—to departing from Hawaii Island’s south shore and finding something about half the size of Diamond Head.

So … pretty tough.

On the day they were set to arrive at Nihoa, Lee had the midnight to 6 a.m. navigation run.

“I was really nervous because we wanted to be at a certain place at sunrise,” the Chaminade Environmental Studies major said. Once Lee conducted some calculations as day broke, she and the other student navigators concluded they were close to where they wanted to be.

They woke Thompson up to share the news and he didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

Lucy Lee '23, environmental studies major navigating on Hokulea

“He smiled. We were about a degree and a half off (course)—about as close as you can get without using modern tools,” said Lee, adding that her first deep sea navigation on Hokulea was an awe-inspiring experience. “Papahanaumokuakea is not a place people typically get access to. It’s super special. I think going anywhere by canoe is awesome, and pulling Nihoa out of the water was definitely the highlight.”

While the Papahanaumokuakea voyage was a major milestone for Lee, it’s also only a start. She is training to navigate during Hokulea’s next major voyage: a 41,000-mile trek to circumnavigate the Pacific Ocean, stopping at 46 countries, 345 ports and 100 indigenous territories.

The launch date is tentatively set for summer 2022.

The Pacific Voyaging Society has called the massive expedition, coming on the heels of Hokulea’s worldwide Malama Honua voyage, an opportunity to focus on the vital importance of oceans while developing young crew members, navigators and leaders. Lee said she’s honored to be training as a student navigator, “learning and watching and being taught what it takes to be on the crew.”

“It’s learning how to change lines, how to change knots. But it’s also learning what it means to be a helpful and active crew member,” added Lee, who had only navigated on inter-island and coastal sails before the 10-day voyage to the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. “I feel very fortunate to be … learning the skill and the art of traditional Polynesian navigation.”

And she’s balancing all that learning on the water with her studies at Chaminade.

Lucy Lee '23, environmental studies paddling on Hikianalia

“School is really important for me,” said Lee, who graduated from Kamehameha Schools and is interested in going into environmental law. She said she chose Chaminade because she wanted to stay in Hawaii and was interested in a university with an individualized approach to instruction.

Lee said she applied and got into several colleges on the mainland but knew they weren’t a right fit. “You know in all those cliché college movies where they walk into the lecture room and there’s like 200 people?” Lee asked, laughing. “I was like, that’s not for me. I like how Chaminade is small.”

Lee was also interested in an option that wouldn’t break the bank.

At Chaminade, she is receiving the Regents Scholarship (a merit scholarship), which covers about half of her tuition.

And, Lee said, she was looking for an environment-focused program that incorporated policy and advocacy. The Environmental Studies program at Chaminade was perfect. Lee said her ultimate goal is to offer legal expertise and representation to sustenance fishing and farming communities in Hawaii.

“They are ingenious, but they struggle in literacy when it comes to law and defending themselves in justice systems,” she said, pointing to decades-long legal challenges over water rights for small farmers on Maui. Lee added, “I started hearing about that case when I was in elementary school.”

But before heading to law school (and after graduating from Chaminade), she’ll be taking a break.

Because around that time, she plans to be sailing on Hokulea—on its pan-Pacific voyage.

Chaminade University No. 21 in Annual ‘U.S. News’ College Rankings

Chaminade University was again recognized as a top regional west university in the annual U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 Best College rankings. U.S. News and World Report produces the longest-running assessment of U.S. colleges and universities. The most recent rankings assessed 1,466 universities on 17 measures of academic quality.

The latest U.S. News and World Report rankings, released September 13, placed Chaminade University No. 25 in Regional Universities West, moving up four spots from 2021. Chaminade shares the No. 25 spot with California State University, Monterey Bay.

Chaminade University was also ranked No. 21 as a Best Value School. The ranking is based on four indicators:

  • academic quality;
  • percentage of all full-time undergraduates receiving need-based scholarships or grants;
  • average discount from the school’s total sticker price for full-time undergraduates; and
  • among 2020–2021 full-time undergraduates who received need-based aid, the percentage of that group that who also received a grant or scholarship—aid that students don’t have to pay back. 

U.S. News and World Report also recognized Chaminade University this year as a Top Performer on Social Mobility at No. 38. The Social Mobility ranking is measured by the percentage of students who received federal Pell Grants graduated. Chaminade shares the No. 25 spot with Sul Ross State University.

In individual program rankings, Chaminade’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree program ranked in the top 42% at No. 288 out of 690 schools. Chaminade’s Nursing program launched in 2010 with its first cohort graduating in 2014.

U.S. News and World Report is now in its 37th year of ranking colleges and universities. The rankings evaluate more than 1,400 colleges and universities on up to 17 measures of academic quality, including graduation and retention rates, undergraduate academic reputation, social mobility, graduation rate performance, faculty resources and alumni giving.

In August, Niche released its 2022 Best College Rankings. Chaminade University was ranked:

  • No. 1 Best Value Colleges in Hawaii
  • No. 1 Best College Locations in Hawaii
  • No. 1 Colleges with the Best Student Life in Hawaii
  • No. 51 Best Colleges for Criminal Justice in America (top 8%)
  • No. 123 Best College Locations in America (top 8%)
  • No. 138 Safest College Campuses in America (top 10%)
  • No. 176 Most Diverse Colleges in America (top 11%)

Alumna Motivated to Reframe Literacy

Only 9% of students at Waianae High School can demonstrate competency in English Language Arts.

It’s an alarming statistic.

Shay Zykova, MEd '00

But for Shay Kaleo’oluho’iloliokawaipahe Zykova, MEd ’20, it’s also a motivator.

The ninth-grade English teacher says she’s on a mission to not only bolster her students’ reading comprehension and literacy skills, but help them develop a passion for words. That’s why she joined forces with her colleagues in 2020 to form a literacy team at her school with the intention of reshaping the Language Arts curriculum at Waianae High. She hopes to eventually take the model statewide.

“There’s a big need for literacy intervention and development,” said Zykova, who has designed her curriculum to put students at the center of their learning. They get to choose—as a class—what novels and other texts they want to read and what topics they want to write about. And along the way, they get intensive literacy instruction aimed at dramatically improving their reading and writing skills.

“We couldn’t stick with the status quo,” she said. “How can we read Shakespeare if I’ve got kids struggling to read words like ‘cat’? I want to give my students complete control over the novels they’re reading in class. It’s really exciting, a little bit stressful and 100% student-directed.”

Zykova’s work hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The National Council of Teachers of English recently named her a recipient of its 2021 Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award. The recognition includes mentorship support, career development opportunities and an invitation to attend and present at upcoming NCTE conferences.

Zykova is delighted at the chance to build her skills—and build out her program.

“The real goal is to reframe what literacy is. I want my students to read things for fun,” she said.

Zykova started teaching in Hawaii in 2018, after a stint as an ESL instructor in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Her husband is Russian.) “It really was the starting point for everything,” Zykova said, of teaching English overseas. “I got that job and realized, ‘I don’t really know English as well as I thought I did.’

“That was my introduction to teaching.”

At the same time, Zykova was in contact with friends back in Hawaii who were teaching in public and charter schools. She said she realized that she needed to return to the islands—and pursue a degree in teaching. During her first year in Hawaii schools, she served as a long-term substitute at Kuuelawela Elementary in Kalihi. The following year, she was selected for the Teach for America (TFA) program and assigned to Waianae High. At the same time, as part of a partnership with TFA, she enrolled in Chaminade’s Master of Education in Instructional Leadership cohort program.

She said that first year of teaching was anything but easy. “I had high school students reading at the kindergarten and preschool level. I thought, ‘What is going?’ I was completely lost,” she said. But she got through it, thanks to the relationships she was building at her school and at Chaminade.

She quickly realized that the “prescribed curriculum” would need some tweaking.

And she started to look for ways to make reading and writing relevant to students. For her students’ argumentative essays, for example, she encouraged them to choose topics that were of consequence to them. Some considered the debate over the Thirty Meter Telescope at Mauna Kea. Others wrote about being multi-ethnic in Hawaii. One student wrote about the benefits of slippers over shoes.

As Zykova continuously tweaked the trajectory of her class, she says she was thankful to have Chaminade peers and mentors who could offer additional insight and guidance. She said Chaminade instructor Ralph Keahi Renaud inspired her to reflect on her Native Hawaiian identity and how it informs her teaching. After his course, she enrolled in Hawaiian language classes (and is still taking them).

Zykova also found mentors in Chaminade instructor Jessica Martinez, who taught language development, and Associate Professor and Director of Teacher Preparation Programs Katrina Roseler, who oversaw her capstone experience.

The preparation helped Zykova through 2020, a tough year for everyone—especially students and teachers. She said remote learning allowed her to throw her old plan out the window entirely and try a new direction aimed at getting students engaged (and keeping them engaged).

It worked.

“My attendance was 85 to 95%. The majority of students were in class every single day,” she said, adding one of her many future goals is to help her students not only expand what they’re reading but start telling their own stories. “I’m hoping my students will publish,” Zykova said.