Chaminade University of Honolulu

Education

Chaminade in HOME RUN Initiative, Education Award for Healthcare Students

University to receive $5 million over five years for education awardds supporting healthcare professionals serving rural Hawaiʻi.

Chaminade University of Honolulu is participating in the statewide HOME RUN initiative, a major effort to strengthen Hawaiʻi’s healthcare workforce in rural and underserved communities through education awards, training and workforce development opportunities.

As part of the initiative, Chaminade will receive approximately $5 million over five years to support students pursuing graduate degrees in healthcare and behavioral health fields. The funding comes through Hawaiʻi’s Rural Health Transformation Program award, announced earlier this year by Governor Josh Green. The state received nearly $189 million in federal funding through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Rural Health Transformation Program to improve healthcare access and outcomes across rural Hawaiʻi.

HOME RUN — Hawaiʻi Outreach for Medical Education in Rural Under-resourced Neighborhoods — is designed to help recruit and retain healthcare professionals in communities facing workforce shortages. Students who receive HOME RUN education award support must commit to serving in a rural Hawaiʻi community for five years after completing their degree.

Students interested in receiving scholarship support should apply for the HOME RUN education award at the same time they apply for admission into an eligible Chaminade program.

Current eligible programs include (additional programs may be added in the near future):

  •   Master of Science in Counseling Psychology
  •   Master of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy
  •   Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy
  •   Master of Science in Nursing
  •   Doctor of Nursing Practice
  •   Post-Graduate Nursing Certificates
  •   Doctor of Education in Educational Psychology

“This initiative represents an important investment in Hawaiʻi’s future healthcare workforce and in the well-being of rural communities across our state,” said Lynn Babington. “Chaminade is proud to help prepare compassionate professionals who are committed to serving communities where access to healthcare and behavioral health services remains limited.”

According to the Governor’s Office, healthcare services in Hawaiʻi remain heavily concentrated on Oʻahu, leaving many rural residents with limited access to specialty care, behavioral health services and emergency treatment. The initiative seeks to address those challenges by building a stronger local workforce pipeline and supporting students committed to remaining in Hawaiʻi after graduation.

The initiative aligns closely with Chaminade’s mission of service and community engagement. Through graduate programs in nursing, counseling, marriage and family therapy, and educational psychology, the university prepares students to serve diverse communities throughout Hawaiʻi and the Pacific.

The HOME RUN initiative is one of six components included in the state’s five-year Rural Health Transformation Plan, which also includes investments in telehealth expansion, emergency response systems and healthcare infrastructure modernization.

Additional information about eligibility requirements and application timelines will be released as the initiative is implemented. For more information about Chaminade’s graduate healthcare and counseling programs, visit Chaminade University of Honolulu.

Second Annual Exposure Fair and Hiring Blitz

The Second Annual Exposure Fair and Hiring Blitz welcomed around 1,000 middle school, high school and college students across nine Honolulu schools and universities on April 27, 2026. It was held at the St. Louis High School Gym as a “speed-dating” style networking event for students to meet professionals in many industries across our islands. Students were given one minute to decide which organization they’d like to hear more about for the next five minutes. Each student had the opportunity to meet with about 10 local business leaders to explore careers and internships, and were encouraged to apply for open positions.

Professor Wendy Lam’s BU 470 Senior Field Experience class from Chaminade University hosted the event. The BU 470 students were responsible for planning, organizing, leading, and executing the event. There were teams for Coordination, Business Development, Logistics, Communications, Social Media, and Human Resources. The teams had different responsibilities but would all collaborate to make major decisions. 

Professor Lam said, “My favorite part of the event is seeing our team’s ability to troubleshoot, adapt, solve problems, and work together to make a difference for the community.” The BU 470 students partnered with ClimbHI and St. Louis School. ClimbHI is a nonprofit organization that inspires students to finish high school and continue their education or begin their career. 


Learn more about ClimbHI: https://climbhi.org/

Hard Work Pays Off

At 19 years old in 2014, Jasmine-Kortney Young-Gusman ’26 began her journey in the health care field as a Medical Assistant and Technician at Straub Benioff Medical Center. After working there for nine years, she found out she was pregnant. The delivery was a harrowing experience for her. She needed an unmedicated, emergency cesarean section. During the surgery, a nurse stood by Young-Gusman, holding her hand, and ensuring she didn’t feel alone in the Operating Room.

“Having her [the nurse] there with me was a comfort in probably the scariest moment I’ve ever experienced,” Young-Gusman said. “After going through that I realized, I could be someone’s comfort and hold their hand and help them,” she explained.

That experience motivated her to apply to and start nursing school even with a ten-month-old son. 

“It took a lot for me to come back to school because I think if I didn’t go through that with my son, I would have just returned to my job,” Young-Gusman reflected. 

Her son is now four years old and will be cheering his mom on at Chaminade University’s Spring 2026 Commencement Ceremony at the Waikiki Shell on May 9. She is graduating with her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and receiving Latin honors. She was also selected for Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, which has criteria of a minimum 3.0 GPA and being within the top 35% of their graduating class.

Young-Gusman says her biggest struggle in the past four years was balancing being a present mom for her son while also ensuring that she was meeting her goals in school. 

“I had a lot of doubts even though I’m a very confident person and I know I’m smart and I’m capable. It took a lot of sleepless nights, crying and praying,” she said.

There were times she had to miss bed time with her son or was unable to go to his baseball games because she had clinical or needed to study. She said it was very draining but she kept in mind that the sacrifices were temporary. 

“It all paid off because not only am I graduating with my bachelors, I was the first person in my whole family to go to college so I’m a first generation,” Young-Gusman stated. 

Completing nursing school can be daunting. Young-Gusman couldn’t have done it without her support system.  

“I‘ve had professors that have been so loving and supportive,” she said. 

While working towards her degree, Young-Gusman did her nursing preceptorship in the ER. She says she thrives in the ER environment because it’s fast-paced, very demanding and she loves it. 

Young-Gusman has already started working on the next step in her career. She has accepted a job offer from The Queen’s Medical Center – West Oʻahu for the Emergency Technician position and will start soon. She hopes to transition to the Queen’s Hawai‘i Nurse Residency Program in September or January.

She says she’s made life-long friends through Chaminade University. Her advice to incoming students is to believe in yourself, find people that believe in you and hold onto them.

“I didn’t think I could do this, and I did and it’s only because I found the right people. I found the right friends and the right professors who rally behind me,” she said.

Marketing Students Drive Nonprofit to Thrive

Re-Use Hawai‘i has been serving the community on Oahu for 20-plus years.

The innovative nonprofit is a living, breathing example of the circular economy put to good use. Describing itself as an “employment social enterprise dedicated to reducing waste and expanding green job opportunities,” Re-Use Hawai‘i creates meaningful jobs and community good will by rescuing abandoned construction materials from work sites or demolition projects to resell them at bargain prices for do-it-yourself handytypes across the island.

They’re “turning Hawai‘i’s waste into reusable materials and green jobs” as they say on their website, but Re-Use Hawai‘i recently ran into a problem: their newest store front wasn’t generating the kind of foot traffic they were hoping for. That’s where Chaminate University marketing students came in.

Chaminade marketing professor Wera Panow-Loui recently issued a challenge to her students: create a marketing strategy and presentation that can help Re-Use Hawai‘i re-introduce itself and its newest location to the community – revive a business model that’s been proven successful for two decades.

Her students more than met the challenge.

“I believe it was a standout student project for Re-Use Hawai‘i highlighting experiential learning, community impact, and our students’ excellence in their work,”Panow-Loui said.

Chaminade students Christopher Cody, Cory Alfred, Kyla Castro, Madelynne Knowd, and Tessa Stanley joined forces to see if they could aid Re-Use Hawai‘i using the skills they learned in Professor Panow-Loui’s class.

After talking with the nonprofit’s staff, conducting some research, quizzing store patrons, and assessing the situation, the five marketing students devised a strategy that they felt could help Re-Use Hawai‘i solve their conundrum. Re-Use is now using their presentation and training for future business planning.

First, they had to identify the problem. This was fairly straightforward: as their final presentation notes, the nonprofit was contending with “low foot traffic at the new Re-Use Hawai‘i Salt Lake location.”

The goal? Bring the customers back, and improve the experience of the customers who were visiting the new site. So, the students put their market research skills to work. 

They surveyed 97 customers to the new site, quizzing the visitors about what was working and what wasn’t. They broke the survey respondents down along demographic lines, noting gender identities, ages, and where they came from. They then asked them a set of questions designed to measure how familiar they were with Re-Use Hawai‘i, how often they relied on the nonprofit for their do-it-yourself projects, and what they thought of the newest storefront.

The research proved invaluable to Re-Use.

Overall, respondents said they were satisfied with their shopping experience. But there were issues that could use some attention, the students soon discovered.

“Many customers said the new store location took some getting used to,” they reported. That’s not all. Survey participants told them, frankly, that the parking and new store layout was somewhat difficult for them to navigate. They complained about a lack of tools on hand to use at the new store location. “Even long-time customers mentioned it took several visits to feel comfortable,” they reported.

The students’ presentation lays out in detail what the customers themselves were saying, thus informing Re-Use Hawai‘i of the likely reasons for the fall in foot traffic. In short, the 20-year old standard bearer of Hawai‘i’s circular economy had become something of a stranger to the island’s residents again.

The solution? Reintroduce themselves to the DIY crowd, a community in need of a centralized home or hub, one that Re-Use is well positioned to become.

Having identified the problem, Christopher, Cory, Kyla, Madelynne, and Tessa were in a good position to identify good solutions, as Professor Panow-Loui explained.

Her students were assigned “to help the client identify effective promotional strategies to increase foot traffic at a newly opened retail location, using data-driven insights to inform strategic marketing decisions,” she explained.

Their presentation lays out in careful detail proposed strategies that Re-Use should adopt.

They proposed Google Ads, a relatively inexpensive way to improve local customer engagement and re-establish their brand. They also recommended targeted marketing focused on those parts of the island where most of their customer base seems to be located, in particular Kaneohe, Kailua, and Honolulu.

Their boldest recommendation was that Re-Use Hawai‘i create a specialized Facebook page designed to organize the island’s community of DIY enthusiasts. Currently, there isn’t one. Thus, Re-Use Hawai‘i is in a unique position to organize that community and support it through the nonprofit business model that it’s already pioneering, the students discovered.

“It became evident that there were not very many DIY Hawaii Facebook groups despite demand,” the student marketing team noted. “Creating a Facebook group would allow Re-Use Hawai‘i to connect with the DIY community.”

Panow-Loui says that the five students’ market research and consulting initiative has become far more than just a class project. Re-Use is putting their recommendations into practice.

“The client indicated that their leadership team is using the report to actively guide their current marketing decisions,” she said.

The students’ marketing research results are professional, insightful, impressive, and useful.

Re-Use Hawai‘i has been creating jobs and saving Hawai‘i residents money for over 20 years, and thanks to Chaminade University students, they’ll continue their important work for many years to come.

As Panow-Loui put it, her students “completed a professional-grade marketing research project for a real community client, applying strategic marketing and consumer research methods,” and the client and Hawai‘i are grateful for their hard work.

Celebrating National Nutrition Month with Proclamation and Health Partners

Chaminade University brought together healthcare professionals, students, and community partners this evening on the steps of Clarence T.C. Ching Hall to celebrate National Nutrition Month and a formal proclamation issued by Gov. Josh Green recognizing the importance of nutrition in building healthier communities across Hawaiʻi.

The proclamation marked a collaborative moment between Chaminade University and local health leaders, including registered dietitians from across our state, nurses, and academic partners such as University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Attendees participated in an official group photo highlighting the shared commitment to advancing nutrition education, prevention, and whole-person health.

In Hawaiʻi, health is something built  together. Nutrition is foundational to that effort, reflecting our shared values of connection, stewardship, and caring for our communities across generations. This proclamation not only recognizes the work being done across Hawaiʻi but also reinforces our responsibility to educate, collaborate, and serve our communities,” said Dr. Melissa Cline, Program Director of Nutrition and Dietetics and Assistant Professor at Chaminade University of Honolulu.

The event underscores Chaminade University’s continued leadership in developing future healthcare professionals through its Nutrition & Dietetics programs. With a focus on interdisciplinary education and community engagement, the university is expanding opportunities for students to enter high-impact fields that address chronic disease, health equity, and preventive care.

Chaminade also recently announced the addition of its B.S. in Nutrition degree program. The program will go beyond human nutrition and explore social impacts of food, sports nutrition, current diet trends, behavioral nutrition, food science, and sustainable food systems.

National Nutrition Month®, observed each March, is an annual campaign that promotes informed food choices and healthy eating habits. Chaminade’s recognition reflects its growing role in supporting Hawaiʻi’s health workforce and fostering partnerships that extend beyond the classroom.

The celebration concluded with informal networking among attendees, reinforcing the importance of collaboration in advancing public health initiatives across the islands.

Doctoral Students Gain Practicum, Serve Community Needs

With practicum, internship, and dissertation requirements, hands-on learning and intensive scholarly inquiry are critical parts of Chaminade’s Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology. 

And thanks to the University’s assessment center, graduate students can tackle some of that patient-focused work right on campus.

The Chaminade Assessment Center (CAC), launched in Fall 2023 gives PsyD students the chance to conduct psychological evaluations and fill a community need at the same time.

Dr. Sean Scanlan, director of the Clinical Psychology program at the University, said the CAC started off small but with a strong mission: To offer children and young adults psychological evaluations so they can get the right  treatment and educational accommodations.

“We had Chaminade PsyD students searching for practicum sites, and we saw community members needing these psychological assessments,” Scanlan said.

The center’s first clients were Chaminade students. From there, the clientele was expanded to include students referred from nearby private schools. Scanlan said the center was able to serve about 30 patients in their first year and almost 50 in their second.

Meanwhile, about three PsyD students at any one time work under a supervisor at the CAC. Scanlan said each client requires six to 15 hours of testing, which may include an interview and cognitive, personality, and learning assessments. From there, the psychologist and PsyD students synthesize the findings and issue a report with a diagnosis and recommendations.

“For our PsyD students, it’s a lot of work,” Scanlan said. “Because it’s not just the student preparing  to be with an actual client; they have to be prepared to sit and listen to real world problems, all the while trying to conceptualize a diagnosis.” 

But Scanlan said that this real-world, experiential learning experience is critical to their training, similar to that of trainees in the medical fields. He stressed, their clinical supervisor is always there to offer expertise and guidance. The supervisor also handles initial and critical client interactions so students can see practiced psychological evaluations and interactions at work.

Sammie Wilkinson, PsyD ’27 was one of Chaminade’s first PsyD students to serve at the center following its launch and has since put in additional time there as an administrative and assessment specialist. She summed up her practicum experience at the center in one word: “Rewarding.” 

“I learned about comprehensive psychological evaluations and assessment, which are major components of the role of a clinical psychologist and a focus of the PsyD program,” Wilkinson said.

“During my practicum, I was able to support both Chaminade students and clients in the community by conducting assessments, identifying and diagnosing various challenges that often impact academic performance and social functioning. Since completing my practicum, I have continued to support the CAC with scheduling and helping clients access services.”

Wilkinson explained that assessment and diagnosis help clients put a name to specific mental health challenges they’ve been experiencing and provide a starting point for healing and support. 

“It has been a privilege to work with clients from diverse backgrounds, which has deepened my appreciation for taking a comprehensive and thoughtful approach to assessment,” she said. “One of the biggest challenges is determining an accurate diagnosis, as many conditions can resemble one another. For example, trauma may present similarly to ADHD. Therefore, it is so important that we are thorough, take our time to rule out diagnoses and consider each client holistically.”  

She added that helping to broaden access to community-based services has been especially meaningful—and she’s excited about the center’s continued growth. “Psychological assessments are in high demand but often come with long waiting lists or high costs so it has been wonderful to be part of a center that provides these services in a timely and affordable way,” she said.

Scanlan noted that the center started to accept insurance in 2025.  In the program’s first two years, services were free and mostly referral-based. “I think we have the foundation now where we can begin to increase the number of PsyD students we can take and, as a result, the number of clients we can see,” Scanlan said. “We’re happy to be providing this service to the community.”

The center’s growth comes as Chaminade’s School of Education and Behavioral Sciences also launches another win-win program for aspiring mental health professionals and clients in need of services. In spring 2026, the University’s Marriage and Family Therapy program launched its new MFT Training Clinic, where graduate-level MFT therapists in training provide care under the supervision of licensed clinicians. Services are affordable and open to anyone on Oahu. 

“This clinic is a training ground for future marriage and family therapists,” said Blendine Hawkins, Ph.D., LMFT, director of the Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy program at Chaminade. “By focusing on couples and families and embracing culturally humble, evidence-based approaches, the clinic is a meaningful new resource for our local community. We’re excited to share this development with those who value strengthening relationships and supporting families.”