Chaminade University of Honolulu

Faculty

Continuous Learning in Humanities

When Dr. Allison Paynter received the call for one-minute plays from the Dramatists Guild, she immediately got to work. The Chaminade English professor had only a few days to write a microplay consisting of no more than 150 words about the novel coronavirus. If selected, her play would become part of The Coronavirus Plays: A Project Created by the One-Minute Play Festival, America’s largest and longest running grassroots theater company.

Allison Paynter

She was sitting in her office with an older performance poster from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on her wall when the email came through. “It was the first play my son was in,” says Dr. Paynter. “He played Charlie.” The poster provided the perfect inspiration.

Dr. Paynter’s dark comedy emerged to tell the story of two individuals in the time of coronavirus who meet on a street corner. One is carrying a packet of toilet paper, and when the other tries to grab it, a golden ticket falls out—a ticket for a free trip to South Korea and a stay in a luxury hotel, complete with a bidet.

Her play was selected to be part of the festival that aired on Zoom from April 8-17. “Since I’m a new playwright, I wasn’t certain if I could turn something around so quickly and make it accessible,” says Dr. Paynter. “I was very proud that I was able to be part of this collection.”

Dr. Paynter also wrote a play last summer that was scheduled to be performed at Chaminade in April, but it was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions. This summer, she will spend a month participating remotely in a New York University fellowship through the Faculty Resource Network, where she plans to write her first musical.

“I’m a continuous learner,” says Dr. Paynter. “It’s such a joyful process to continue lifelong learning.”

She has that in common with her colleague, Dr. Richard Hill. The associate professor of English at Chaminade University was recently published in the journal Humanities.

Richard Hill

“Research and publishing is just something that I really enjoy and have been quite lucky with,” says Dr. Hill. “I am in a small field and it’s really rich to be able to research and do things people have never done before.”

For his recent publication, “From Braemar to Hollywood: The American Appropriation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Pirates,” he partnered with Dr. Laura Eidam from University of Virginia to explore how today’s popular culture pirate tropes can be traced back to Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel, Treasure Island.

“I look at stereotypes and try to trace them back to their source,” says Dr. Hill. “Stereotypes get created through literature, and then that literature gets forgotten and you’re left with the stereotype.” His current research explores how illustrations get turned into movies—specifically, how Stevenson’s illustrations get used to create film images.

For Dr. Hill, this historical lens on literature has been a valuable teaching tool. He enjoys taking common perceptions that his students have and tracing them back to historical literary depictions. “I’m lucky that I get to teach some of what I research, and they both feed into each other,” says Dr. Hill “I can bring [my students] through what they know and back into what I teach them.”
His new project is one that is sure to resonate with his students—it explores how the modern day Incredible Hulk is based on Stevenson’s 1886 novel, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

A Leader of Leaders

Whether it’s treating a Chaminade alumnus to lunch, spending her own time tutoring students for the nursing certification exam or serving as a faculty advisor to a student club, Chaminade professor of nursing Edna Magpantay-Monroe is notorious for going the extra mile.

Edna Magpantay-Monroe

“Once Dr. Monroe knows who you are,” says fourth-year nursing student Spencer Lee, “she won’t forget you…[she] often sacrifices her own time and money to provide services for students that better their education.”

That’s why he nominated her for the 2020 Weingarten Leader of Leaders Award. Each year, the National Student Nurses Association presents the award to a dean, faculty member or state consultant who goes above and beyond to support nursing students. Having worked with Professor Monroe as the president for Hawaii State Student Nurses Association and a former the Chaminade Student Nurses’ Association, Lee knew she was the perfect example of a Leader of Leaders.

“She was a key figure in revamping the Hawai‘i Student Nurses’ Association years ago, and since then has served as a faculty consultant and has mentored many future leaders in healthcare,” says Lee. “She has fostered the professional and academic development of all of the students she has interacted with.”

Professor Monroe was beyond touched when she learned she had won the award. “I was ecstatic when I opened my email congratulating me on this award,” says Monroe. “The nomination means a lot because it came from students.”

The award was to be presented at the annual National Student Nurses’ Association convention this month, but the gathering was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions. The Hawai‘i Student Nurses’ Association, for which Dr. Monroe serves as the faculty consultant, also won both the national Newsletter Contest and the State Excellence Award.

 won in our category of schools for both the Newsletter and State Excellence

“Seven years ago, when a group of students asked me to help rejuvenate the state’s Student Nurses Association, I said yes but I did not have a clue what laid ahead,” said Monroe. “I have ended up loving this role as a faculty consultant and advisor. I feel proud as I see the students grow in front of me.”

Dr. Monroe serves as the president of the Sigma Theta Tau International Gamma Psi-at-Large Chapter, co-adviser of the Chaminade Health Occupations Schools of America (HOSA) club, and co-adviser of The Filipino Club at Chaminade University. Additionally, she was recently a co-author of an abstract publication, “Student Perceptions of Just Culture in Nursing Education Programs: A Multi-Site Study,” that received the 2020 Generating Evidence for Nursing Education Practice Award presented by Sigma and the National League for Nursing.

Secondary Education Student Wins MLA Student Essay Contest

Jennifer Nguyen '22 with author Viet Thanh Nguyen
Jennifer Nguyen ’22 with author Viet Thanh Nguyen. Jennifer cited his work multiple times in her essay.

Jennifer Nguyen ’22 calls herself a “history fanatic.”

She’s an online undergraduate student studying Secondary Education at Chaminade and hopes to one day teach history. So when her English professor, Dr. Brooke Carlson, assigned her class an argumentative essay designed to be something of a self-exploration she knew instantly what she would write about.

She took on nothing less than the Vietnam War, a topic that has haunted her since childhood.

“I find many reasons to be proud of my American heritage,” Nguyen said, in a recent interview. “On the other side, I find myself drawn to the stories, the struggle, and the memory of a war that has affected not only my family but all those who were lost, displaced, resettled, disturbed.”

Her essay explores the problematic way in which Americans collectively remember the war, offering a powerful alternative for recalling a bloody and protracted conflict that Nguyen said is meant to reflect her “love for the American value of expression and a love for cultural identity.”

Her powerful perspective didn’t just impress her professor.

It also garnered a national award: Out of hundreds of submissions from around the country, “The Vietnam War, the American War: Literature, Film, and Popular Memory” was selected as a winner in the MLA (Modern Language Association) Student Paper Contest. A committee of judges said Nguyen’s essay not only had a clear thesis and excellent sources, but the topic and her argument were “compelling.”

In winning the award, Nguyen’s essay will also be published on the MLA Style Center, a hub geared toward students from high school to graduate school that’s meant to demonstrate how to correctly use MLA style – and, of course, write a good essay.

Nguyen said the essay was a “passion project” that was made possible thanks to her partnership with Carlson. Nguyen said her professor suggested she submit the essay to the MLA and then helped her cut the word count and offered other suggestions for tweaks.

“Without him, I would not have even known or considered submitting my work to the MLA contest,” Nguyen said, adding that “This essay really was a joy to research and write. I hope to continue on this path and produce more work that sheds light on important issues.”

Building a Framework for School of Nursing Excellence: A Marianist Way

Chaminade Nursing Professor Dr. Edna Magpantay-Monroe presented her research on building a Marianist framework for nursing education at a national conference in the nation’s capital recently.

Edna Magpantay-Monroe

More than 2,000 nursing professionals attended the Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society biennial conference in November. Magpantay-Monroe was among those invited to present her research in a poster presentation. She also attended the conference as a nursing honor society delegate.

Magpantay-Monroe’s research came out of an 18-month project with the Sigma Theta Tau International’s Emerging Educational Administrator Institute, a highly-selective program designed to mentor experienced faculty who aspire to become administrators in higher education.

Her research project ― “Building a Framework for School of Nursing Excellence: A Marianist Way” ― focused on the unique ways Marianist institutions like Chaminade University can prepare aspiring nurses for successful and fulfilling careers in healthcare and inspire them with a strong public service mission.

Magpantay-Monroe is a founding faculty member at Chaminade’s Honolulu School of Nursing, and has more than 30 years of experience in the field. Her research focuses on emotional intelligence, mindfulness and coaching, along with a number of patient-centered areas in healthcare. She also serves in a number of professional organizations, including Sigma Theta Tau International’s Hawaii chapter, which was founded in 1978 and is comprised of members at nursing schools statewide.

“Forensic Microbiology” Goes International

In 2017, Chaminade Professor Dr. David Carter co-authored a textbook on the emerging (and groundbreaking) role of microbes in forensic science. Three years later and “Forensic Microbiology” is not only a seminal text in the field, but an Arabic version is slated to be published in December 2021.

Dr. David Carter

Carter, director of the Forensic Sciences program at Chaminade, co-wrote and served as one of the book’s four co-editors to focus on the emerging role of microbiology in forensic science investigations.

As he notes, microbes (or microorganisms) don’t replace more mundane forms of evidence – think fingerprints or cell phone records – but they can prove vital in establishing a cause of death, estimating when a person has died, and analyzing changes to a body after death along with evidence at a scene.

Using microbes – one of the “trendiest” areas of forensic science – can involve cutting-edge DNA analysis or tools and procedures that were invented more than a century ago, Carter previously told Campus News. ““There were folks using microbes in the 19th Century as evidence,” Carter said, adding that some of those techniques were forgotten and then recently unearthed to determine their efficacy.

Why microbes? Because they’re “present everywhere a human goes,” Carter said.

They’re always on us – and in us – “and not all forms of evidence do that.”

Forensic Microbiology Book

The planned Arabic translation of “Forensic Microbiology,” which is already in use at institutions nationally and around the globe, underscores the growing utility of microbiology in forensic science – and how Chaminade’s Forensic Sciences program is at the forefront of that effort.

Indeed, the focus of Carter’s research is the structure and function of the postmortem human microbiome and the process of human decomposition, especially in tropical environments. In his decades of work analyzing crime scenes, Carter has consulted with investigative agencies around the globe, published in high-profile scientific journals, and served as a leader in the academic field.

He has also mentored scores of Forensic Sciences students, including two Chaminade University graduates who contributed to “Forensic Microbiology”: Emily Junkins (’16) went on to pursue a doctoral degree in microbiology while Whitney Kodama (’17) joined the Honolulu Office of the Medical Examiner.

Dr. Eurina Cha Receives Bright Society Award

An international organization on a mission to promote peaceful, healthier communities recently honored Chaminade’s Associate Professor Dr. Eurina Cha for her years of work in public and community health.

Dr. Eurina Cha receives 2019 Bright Society Award

Cha was the recipient of the 2019 Bright Society Award from the Global Cooperative Society International-Hawaii chapter. Leaders from the non-governmental organization presented Cha with the honor at a special gathering in December at the Waialae Country Club.

Global Cooperative Society (GCS) was launched in Korea and is well-known across Asia.

A number of Korean and Korean-American community leaders attended the GCS awards ceremony, including representatives from the Hawaii Korean Chamber of Commerce, Hawaii Korean Association, National Unification Advisory Council, and Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Honolulu.

Dr. Eurina Cha receives 2019 Bright Society Award

Ronald Moon, former chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court, presented Cha’s award.

Cha, a certified advanced public health nurse, has more than 25 years of experience in nursing and frequently volunteers her time at community events. She’s also the lead faculty member at an annual event on Hawaii Island that provides health screenings and education in a culturally sensitive way.

The Bright Society Award is presented to community leaders working to make society “brighter.”

Cha said she was honored to receive the award. In her acceptance speech, she said, “I shared my pride in being a nurse educator at Chaminade and public health professional to serve the community, particularly Korean-American communities, to promote a happier and healthier community.”