The Summer Research Institute Symposium was an opportunity for undergraduate scientists-in-training to get feedback on their work. Read more about it here.
SCIENCE OUTREACH SPREADS ITS WINGS TO ALL OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, GUAM, SAIPAN AND SAMO
Thank you for spending time with us today Lori. Please tell us about ‘I am a Scientist!’ I’m sure many folks reading this do not know much about it.
It’s a free program that provides K-12 module-based science outreach to our community. We often go to the classroom during the school day so that we eliminate most barriers to access to STEM outreach. This way the school doesn’t have any transportation costs and there’s no time lost for the students and teachers. We also do after school events, so that family can join or ‘STEM nights, these events are all still tied with the school. But, we also do community events. These are in partnership with LOTs of organizations for example; Children and Youth Day, Boy Scouts events, Girl Scout events, PACT – Parent and Children together, and Boys and Girls Club.
How have grants helped you with this program?
They fund everything. Without the grant funds we would not have been able to buy all the equipment we take with us. Now we are in the situation that we have built a really good base of equipment tools and even a van to take us around Oahu. This means that we can spend most of our new grant funds on travel expenses and this is how we have been able to go to sites off of Oahu.
How did you start traveling out to the other islands to visit their communities?
That was a slow process. I think our goal was to always serve all of Hawaii, but we didn’t really have the means to in the beginning. We slowly started meeting up with teachers and by making these personal connections and build confidence with schools that our experiences were really valuable for their students. Finally, this allowed us to go to the neighbor islands and because of the strong relationships we built, folks were able to help us by actually finding schools and giving us a reference, so that we could build new partnerships with them. So far we have been to The Big Island, Maui, Molokai, Kauai, Saipan, Guam and now Samoa.
Why did you start reaching out into the Pacific, this is really ambitious for your program?
Since before COVID we have been trying to think of ways to reach out into the our Pacific Island community because we have a lot of students that come from all these island nations. American Samoa came up because we applied for a Barstow Grant. We are constantly trying to look and find new ways to fund our activities. We are still waiting to hear if we win the money but because we were able to leveraging relationships that our School of Nursing and Health Professions had recently built, we were able to go and do a few test events at schools there in December.
What is one of the things that you have learned and has impacted you most by running the program?
Our trip to Molokai earlier this year was really interesting and eye opening. We visited three elementary schools. One of the teachers at one of the public schools, impressed upon us how important it is for their students to see us come, because nobody comes from to see them. Very few people make it from Honolulu to come to visit them. I guess this is because it’s too hard, too far and so they feel it’s almost not worth it. But when we went, the students could see that these people came from Honolulu, because they felt we are important. One of the schools we went to has only around 60 students. It was really small. It’s like this because the local ranch closed down and so the population has drastically decreased. There are so many abandoned houses there and there are so very few kids. So for them to see that someone had made that effort to come to that school, that others valued them, and wanted to invest in them and thier futures was everything to them.
1) You recently received a Mellon Foundation Grant. Please tell us about the mission of this Foundation.
Mellon Foundation Mission: We believe that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and we believe that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom to be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive (mellon.org).
2) This grant provides funds to augment Chaminade’s Second Chance Pell program. What does this program currently do?
The Chaminade Prison Education program (commonly referred to as 2nd Chance Pell) is an important initiative aimed at providing incarcerated individuals with access to higher education. Our program currently operates in Halawa Correctional Facility and provides fulltime course loads of 12 credits a semester. At the completion of five semesters, students earn their Associate of Arts in Business Administration degree. In addition to credit bearing courses, we offer students opportunities for personal growth, skill development, and pathways to successful reintegration into our communities. We recently graduated our first cohort of 8 students, and are now educating a second cohort of 15 students.
3) How do you see this new grant changing what we are currently able to offer?
The Mellon Foundation Grant will significantly enhance our Prison Education program. This grant enables us to further the reach and impact of the program, creating a more robust and inclusive educational environment. The additional funds will allow us to expand degree and course offerings, add additional locations, improve program infrastructure, and provide comprehensive support services for incarcerated students. Specifically, the award provides funding for a Prison Education Director, a student success coach, technology packages to serve 60 students, mentor and mentee support for high impact practices, hosting a local conference, and the ability to build a prison to college pipeline.
4) How does winning this grant help us to emulate our Marianst and Native Hawaiian Serving University Mission?
Securing this Mellon Foundation Grant aligns seamlessly with our mission as a Marianist and Native Hawaiian Serving University. It reflects our commitment to inclusivity, community engagement, and addressing social justice issues. By expanding the Second Chance Pell program, we are embodying the Marianist values of service, education, and social justice, while also honoring our commitment to serving the Native Hawaiian community who are disproportionally represented among justice involved individuals.
5) What do you envision for the future of this program?
Looking ahead, we envision the Second Chance Pell program becoming a model for transformative and inclusive education here in Hawaii. With the Mellon Foundation Grant, we aim to establish sustainable pathways for incarcerated individuals to achieve higher education, fostering personal growth and preparing them for successful reentry into society. Additionally, we aspire to establish partnerships and share best practices, contributing to the broader national conversation on the role of education in criminal justice reform.
Thanks to a $600,000 two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), Chaminade University professors developed the ‘Inana Sustainability Entrepreneurship Program, which aims to spark minority entrepreneurial innovation among Hawaii-Pacific undergraduates. Read more about it here.
Preparing and submitting your grant is an easy three-step process. Follow our directions to initiate your tailored experience.
Step One: Fill out the Proposal Development Form.
What does this do?
When you fill in this electronic form, it captures where you are in your grant development journey and what help you might need. This form asks a lot of questions, but the good news is that its very quick to fill in. It will ask you about your idea, if you have a funder in mind and then how it might align with our Marianist values and the CIFAL Sustainable Development Goals. It
does not matter if you don’t have this information, simply say where you are in your process, even if that means you write ‘I don’t know yet’ as your response. Once you are done, it will automatically email the filled in form to the OSP team. Once we have reviewed it, you will receive an email that aligns with your needs, and if needs be we will help you write it, give you
feedback, find a funder and set a timeline to your submission.
Why is it important to do this, even if you don’t need help?
Even if you are a seasoned grantee and you know exactly what you want to request, your grant is almost written and you know exactly where you are going to send your grant; please still fill this form in. The information in this form allows OSP to check your budget has been approved by the Business Office. It also gives us an idea of when the final steps of submission are likely to need be completed. Finally, this form also provides the office with information about what kind of help folks need most often, and who do not end up submitting a proposal. This is very useful to us so we can continue to help the faculty and staff prepare their grants and consistently evolve our processes and services.
Step Two: Organize your finances, you may also need to fill out the IDC Waiver Request-Survey .
What does this do?
You will need to have a solid financial plan that is in line with what you would like to achieve with your grant. This means having both a budget and a budget justification. These are important so that reviewers can see that you have accounted for everything you will need to make your project a success and that you have justified how you will spend every penny of the funds. To achieve this step you will need to work with both OSP and the Business Office. Thus, as soon as you are forming your aims you are ready, this is the time to start this step with OSP. The indirect cost waiver is only for those folks who are requesting a lower indirect cost rate than the 45 percent that has been negotiated by our University. If you need more information on what IDC is, check out our frequently asked questions (on the bottom of our home page). This means that if you are permitted by the funder to request our IDC rate, then there is no need to fill in this form, you can happily skip this form!
Why is it important to do this?
Having a good financial plan and justification is often one the most impactful parts of writing a grant. It can make the decision of a grant making the funding cut or not. In addition, there are often many financial rules to adhere to, that are very specific to each funder. This means working closely with your OSP support team is crucial. Obtaining indirect costs are important for the sound fiscal running of any research entity. It is expected that the monies from the IDC are used by the research institution to support its researchers. This means that this money does not go to the PI of the grant to perform the grant activities, but is used by the research facility to provide all of the wrap around services that are needed to run the grant and adhere to the granter’s reporting requirements. A waiver for those grants that do not permit the negotiated rate is important because administration needs to track the number and magnitude of grants that the research facility holds, this is to ensure that they are fiscally robust enough to support them.
Step Three: Fill out the External Funding Request Approval Form and (b) submit a copy of your ‘final’ grant by email to OSP.
What does this do?
To complete this final step you: (a) At least 7 days before your grant deadline) fill in the External Funding Request Approval Form (EFRS form). This form looks quite similar to the proposal development form but its purpose is very different. Instead of letting us know where you are with your grant ideas, it is there to capture what your final grant looks like. By the time you fill this in you will know all the answers to the questions of what you want to do and where you will submit it. It also allows OSP to determine which pieces we need to prepare if you are funded. For example, if you plan to employ anyone, if you will partner with another institution or if you plan to have student internships as part of your grant. This form is automatically sent to OSP and then after review will be sent to your Dean (or direct report) and then the Provost for signatures. The Dean will check that they know and approve of the time you would need to perform the work in the grant, and the Provost will check that it is in line with the universities policies etc. Once the signatures are completed a copy will be returned to you. (b) Finally at least three days before you submit your grant you will need to share your final copy by email to OSP. OSP should be expecting it (as you have completed steps 1 and 2) and will have therefore ensured they are able to work with you to help you meet your deadline. OSP will review the grant to ensure its completeness, and that all of the elements are approved and accounted for. Once this is complete, it will be watermarked, a copy kept in the OSP archive and another copy returned to the PI. The grant will then be ready to submit, this can sometimes be by the PI but if it needs to be done by OSP, they will then upload it for you and send you a copy of the acknowledgment of receipt by the funding agency.
Why is it important to do this?
This final step is important to make sure that all grants are reviewed, archived and reach our standards for the ethical conduct of research. It is also important that all parties involved from the School level to the Provost’s office have the opportunity to acknowledge and approve the proposed grant. This means that if funded, all of the execution logistics are in place and all are in agreement that the grant should proceed.
If you would like to know more about grants and how Chaminade supports granting activities, please refer to our ‘Grants Management Manual’ on our home page – https:// chaminade.edu/academic-affairs/office-of-sponsored-programs/
Can you please introduce the ‘SPICE’ program for those who have not yet heard of it?
The Chaminade University of Honolulu SPICE program, short for Supporting Pacific Impact through Computational Excellence program. It is a month-long summer data science training and education program that focuses on developing data science capacity in the Pacific. It also advances several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This program is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) ALL-SPICE, NSF EPSCoR, and Pacific Intelligence and Innovation Initiative. The primary investigator for this grant is Dr. Helen Turner. Students in this program train with student mentors and experts on a real, current, and relevant data science project to empower, to inform, and to create change in our community. Projects are based around three themes, including the environment, health, and social justice.
What is your role in this program?
My primary role is to lead a team of faculty and staff in developing the curriculum and activities of the SPICE program. The activities in this program are meant to empower the students to understand the process of research, perform some analytics, learn how to do some coding, and be able to share data science with others in their community. I also severe as the primary mentor for some of the students currently in the program, advising and guiding them towards the completion of their project.
How many students have you trained through this program?
This year (summer 2023) we had 30 undergraduate student participants and 5 undergraduate student mentors. We had the largest cohort of student participants since the start of our program. Our average student participants is about 20.
What kind of projects do the students work on and why
During SPICE this year, students trained on 1 of 3 projects from our community partners that were placed within the fields of health, environment, or social justice. All three projects aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Examples of projects students trained on would be like misinformation and disinformation (social justice), Birds and mosquitos and Hawaii’s ecosystem (environment), and fetal and maternal mortality and morbidity (health). However, over the years we had students trained on projects that included Native Hawaiian fishpond sustainability, COVID-19 in Hawaii, and food security/food desserts, equity of health services, recidivism, internet access, education equity, surfer microbiome, and so forth. Students usually select a particular project to provide a framework for their training based on their personal interests, career development and goals, and/or the skills they want to gain. Each project therefore has its own unique set of skills in research, analytics, and programming. For example, a student who selected a project that meant they could focus on their career development and was pursuing a career in criminology and criminal justice, selected a project on recidivism. This project helped her get into the Hawai’i Department of the Attorney General. In another example, a student selected a particular project to learn about Geospatial Intelligence, so he could share and use it at his organization.
What role do you see for data science as a way to serve our community in the future?
This is not happening in the future, but it is happening now. Data Science is serving communities by using data and analytics to address a range of challenges and opportunities, to improve decision making, to enhance quality of life, to identify innovations and alternatives, and to empower communities to have a voice in decisions being made on them. Through our Data Science Program at Chaminade University, we are also seeing data science support the workforce in Hawai’i by emerging new job positions. It facilitates the procurement of good paying jobs for our graduating seniors, helps students get into top tier graduate school programs. We have also seen that it provides a choice for our students to be home with family while working in a data science job, enabling our students to pursue leadership and decision making positions or positions where people and organizations rely on them, thus keeping local talent here in Hawai`i.
Can you please introduce yourself?
My name is Guanlin Gao, and I am an Associate Professor of Economics in the School of Business. I am honored to serve as the inaugural Director of the Economic Education Center for Excellence (EECE) at Chaminade University. Our center’s mission is to advance prosperity and economic justice in Hawai‘i and the US-affiliated Pacific through integrated economic education, training, and community-based research. I have been a part of the Chaminade ohana since 2017, and I am deeply committed to contributing to our university’s vision of service, leadership, and positive impact on society.
You have recently won several grants, can you please tell us a little about your different projects?
I have been fortunate to secure several grants to support my educational and research programs, which align closely with the mission and values of Chaminade University. Currently, my work focuses on three significant projects.
The first project involves building resilience and promoting vital equity in underserved Indigenous communities. Through this initiative, we aim to empower these communities with economic knowledge and tools that can foster economic growth and social well-being. The second project centers on providing accessible and sustainable economics and personal finance training for K-12 teachers and students in Hawai‘i. By equipping educators with the necessary skills and resources, we empower them to impart valuable economic and financial literacy to our future generations. The third project is dedicated to incorporating Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders’ cultures and values into economics education. By embracing diverse perspectives and integrating cultural elements into the curriculum, we create a more inclusive and culturally responsive learning environment and share the invaluable Indigenous wisdoms with the rest of the world.
In the upcoming academic year (AY23-24), my research and service focus will be on providing professional development opportunities for local K-12 educators, supporting students in economics and personal finance enrichment programs in local Title I schools, and promoting the provision and consumption of healthy, culturally appropriate foods within the food sovereignty framework. These projects represent my dedication to positively impact our community and align with Chaminade University’s core commitments.
How do you see your work impacting yourself and our community?
As an educator, I truly believe we make a difference. The privilege of serving our wonderful students and the community keeps me humble and motivated to move forward every day. I would like to see my programs provide quality economics and personal finance education and prepare our next generation for life, service, and successful careers. By engaging with Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders’ cultures and values, we foster a multicultural learning environment that draws on our unique Pacific Island location, enriching our educational community.
Witnessing the positive impact on our students and the community reaffirms my belief in the transformative power of education. It is a rewarding journey, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of shaping the future of our students and making a meaningful contribution to the community we serve.
How do you see your grant work aligning with the mission of our school?
I see my grant work as an integral part of Chaminade’s “mission in action,” particularly in the areas of community service and reflecting the character of our university. All my efforts are dedicated to supporting EECE’s mission on advancing prosperity and economic justice in Hawai‘i and the US-affiliated Pacific.
Moreover, all my programs involve Chaminade students. I take great pleasure in mentoring my students and witnessing their growth into holistic individuals. I believe in “laulima”, the Native Hawaiian phrase saying that many hands make light work. Through our collective efforts, we actively contribute to the creation of a more just and peaceful society while fulfilling Chaminade University’s mission to serve our students, communities, and the Pacific region.
Why do you apply for grants?
I may sound like an economist here. Simply, we cannot create something out of nothing. By securing external funding through grants, I can undertake initiatives that would be challenging with limited institutional resources alone. For instance, all my programs involve Chaminade students, and securing grants enables me to provide student stipends. This way, my students can pursue their academic goals and give back to the community without facing financial dilemmas.
Moreover, applying for grants has two positive spillover effects. Firstly, successfully securing grants enhances Chaminade reputation and demonstrates our commitment to scholarship and community service. Secondly, by obtaining grants, we actively contribute to the broader goals of the university, ensuring transformative educational experiences for our students and making a positive impact on our community. Grants are a vital resource that empowers us to achieve our mission of service and leadership in society.
How has the OSP helped to support your grant work?
The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) has played a crucial role in supporting my grant work, including but not limited to, identifying funding opportunities, providing training and assistance on proposal development, budget preparation, and compliance with funding agency requirements, and mentorship on grant management and post-grant works.
The OSP’s expertise and guidance have been instrumental in the successful acquisition of grants. I would strongly encourage my colleague to collaborate with OSP starting from the very beginning of their grant application stage and explore funding opportunities and how OSP can help.
K-12 teachers participated in the Economics and Personal Finance Literacy Summer Institute, led by Dr. Guanlin Gao, Associate Professor of Economics in the School of Business and Director of the Economic Education Center for Excellence (EECE) at Chaminade University. Read more about it here.
