Chaminade University of Honolulu

Communication

Annual Conference and Assembly Meeting

Judges Praise Silverswords for Their Creative Results

A 15-year participant in the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education’s (IACBE) Annual Conference and Assembly Meeting (ACAM)—which took place in Memphis, Tennessee this year—Chaminade University has consistently fared well against other mainland and international institutions, often winning several competitions or placing in the top three.

“As the coach, I help set up the teams and select the students who will compete in the Case Competition,” explained MBA Director and Program Advisor, Eddie Merc, Ph.D. “I oversee all the logistics for the trip, as well as help prepare the students to excel in their final presentation delivery.”

This year’s Spring 2024 IACBE’s Live Case Competition featured Tennessee-based organization Viralish, which set forth the challenge to students with this theme: “The 90 Day Creator: A Fast-Track Program and Planning Tool to Help Content Creators Generate $5,000 per Month.” The project tasked student teams to develop an innovative way for Viralish to help business owners and content creators monetize their digital content effectively. Among the participants from schools all around the U.S., Chaminade’s team included seniors Liz Devine, Alexander Hernandez, Ross Reeves and Kelsey Sablan. They were mentored by professors Wera Panow-Loui and Richard Kido. “The  team of four undergraduate business seniors delivered creative results that were actionable, unique and thought provoking,” according to the competition’s judges.

Wera Panow-Loui and Dr. Eddie Merc flank students, from left, Alexander Hernandez, Liz Devine, Kelsey Sablan and Ross Reeves.
Wera Panow-Loui and Dr. Eddie Merc flank students, from left, Alexander Hernandez, Liz Devine, Kelsey Sablan and Ross Reeves.
Dr. Eddie Merc presents his research during the Peregrine Best Practices Poster Competition.
Dr. Eddie Merc presents his research during the Peregrine Best Practices Poster Competition.
Chaminade team members included, from left, Alexander Hernandez, Liz Devine, Kelsey Sablan and Ross Reeves.
Chaminade team members included, from left, Alexander Hernandez, Liz Devine, Kelsey Sablan and Ross Reeves.
Dr. Eddie Merc stands prepare to present his research findings in the Peregrine Best Practices Poster Competition.
Dr. Eddie Merc stands prepare to present his research findings in the Peregrine Best Practices Poster Competition.
Wera Panow-Loui and Dr. Eddie Merc were mentors to students, from left, Ross Reeves, Alexander Hernandez, Liz Devine and Kelsey Sablan.
Wera Panow-Loui and Dr. Eddie Merc were mentors to students, from left, Ross Reeves, Alexander Hernandez, Liz Devine and Kelsey Sablan.
Dr. Eddie Merc gives two thumbs up after winning the Peregrine Best Practices Poster Competition. Students, from left, Kelsey Sablan, Liz Devine, Alexander Hernandez and Ross Reeves congratulated their professor.
Dr. Eddie Merc gives two thumbs up after winning the Peregrine Best Practices Poster Competition. Students, from left, Kelsey Sablan, Liz Devine, Alexander Hernandez and Ross Reeves congratulated their professor.
Chaminade School of Business and Communication faculty members, from left, Asoke Datta, Richard Kido, Wera Panow-Loui and Interim Dean Annette Santos attended the IACBE Annual Conference and Meeting Assembly with students, from left, Ross Reeves, Alexander Hernandez, Liz Devine and Kelsey Sablan.
Chaminade School of Business and Communication faculty members, from left, Asoke Datta, Richard Kido, Wera Panow-Loui and Interim Dean Annette Santos attended the IACBE Annual Conference and Meeting Assembly with students, from left, Ross Reeves, Alexander Hernandez, Liz Devine and Kelsey Sablan.
Students, from left, Alex Hernandez, Liz Devine, Ross Reeves and Kelsey Sablan rehearse their presentation in their hotel room.
Students, from left, Alex Hernandez, Liz Devine, Ross Reeves and Kelsey Sablan rehearse their presentation in their hotel room.

“Chaminade finished in third place, but I think our students had the most comprehensive business analysis of the company,” Merc said. “The synergy of the team was excellent, and they were proud of their research and their presentation delivery.”

The IACBE accredits business programs—including Chaminade’s—that lead to degrees at the associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels in institutions of higher education nationwide and around the world. Specialized programmatic accreditation by the IACBE is a means by which students, parents, the business community and other stakeholders of the institution can be assured that the academic business unit complies with high principles of excellence and follows best practice in business education.

“The number one priority for attending the IACBE Competition and Conference is to stay in touch with students,” Merc said. “It allows me to gauge what our students excel in and the areas where we may have gaps in our curricula.

“It’s a great conference to determine if our program is up to date,” Merc added. “It’s also a good thermometer of current trends at business schools around the world and U.S.”

For the second consecutive year, Merc walked away with the top prize. And for the second year in a row, he hasn’t kept the winnings, instead donating the prize money to two local nonprofit organizations.

Merc’s first-place finishing poster competition at the IACBE’s ACAM looked at “The Role of Social Integration and Sense of Connectedness in Online Courses, and Their Influence on Learning and Academic Performance Among Military Students.”

“I wanted to focus on non-traditional students who were serving in the military and pursuing their degrees,” said Merc, who serves in the Hawai’i Air National Guard during weekends. “I myself was a non-traditional student when I was obtaining my doctorate in education, so I can definitely relate.”

Early College Exposure

Sacred Hearts Academy students experience university-level courses

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Lindsey Dimaya takes college-level communications and history classes. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she attends biology lab and expository writing courses. And in between, the 16-year-old Sacred Hearts Academy Lancer still has to juggle the requirements for her high school diploma.  

While the rest of Dimaya’s classmates decided to participate in a dual enrollment program between Sacred Hearts Academy and Chaminade University in early March, the Aiea resident didn’t render her final verdict until mid-summer. For the high school junior, the question of finishing high school and simultaneously earning college credit was one of the toughest decisions she has had to ever make in her 16 years.  

“It was a big decision,” says Dimaya, an inspiring journalist interested in the media industry. “I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the college experience and the added workload.”  

Lindsey Dimaya is glad she enrolled in the dual enrollment program between Sacred Hearts Academy and Chaminade.

Finances, however, also played a major role in Dimaya’s mind. Since she is one half of fraternal twins, her parents would have had to pay for college for two kids at the same time. And that adds up quickly. Earning college credits in high school could reduce the financial barrier to college for many students—and help address the student debt crisis. Indeed, it can be a faster, cheaper way to get a college degree.

“My parents encouraged me to participate in the dual enrollment program because it was a more affordable option,” Dimaya says. “In addition to getting a head start in college, I could also save my parents a lot of money.”  

States—including Hawaii—have prioritized college and career readiness as a key goal of high school, reflecting the reality that most jobs require postsecondary education. The Early College High School Initiative (ECHSI) was established in 2002 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Over the past two decades, Early Colleges have expanded rapidly nationwide.

In a 2019 American Institutes for Research (AIR) study, researchers found that, over four years, Early Colleges cost about $3,800 more per student than traditional high schools. However, the estimated return on that investment was about $33,709 in increased lifetime earnings for each student. Furthermore, a cost-benefit study by AIR found that Early College programs pay off with lasting benefits for students and the broader population. (Chaminade’s program is separate from this consortium of Early Colleges, which are partnerships among school districts, charter management organizations or high schools, and two- or four-year colleges or universities.)

Also called concurrent enrollment, dual enrollment programs offer many cost-saving benefits, making these types of options popular among high schoolers. But many students, particularly those who are low-income and/or of color, lack access to a well-rounded high school education. Inadequate preparation in high school leaves high school graduates with fewer choices and pathways to postsecondary education. As a result, postsecondary enrollment and completion gaps persist. Early College High Schools focus explicitly on overcoming these challenges.  

“This is really a part of Chaminade’s service-oriented mission, which is to make higher education accessible to all Hawai’i students,” says Janet Davidson, Ph.D., Vice Provost of Academic Affairs and the driving force behind the University’s early college initiatives. “We launched a similar program with Kapaa High School in 2021. But unlike this new early college program, Kapaa participants only had the opportunity to earn high school and college credit at the same time. Sacred Heart students can actually earn their Associate’s degree in Liberal Arts.”  

Since this trend began, AIR researchers have conducted a number of comprehensive studies on their impact, finding overall that Early Colleges show strong and lasting evidence of effectiveness for all students. Promoting postsecondary access and success can be an effective policy strategy for improving postsecondary enrollment and completion rates.  

“Early college exposure is inspiring and formative,” says Kim Baxter, Chaminade’s Early College Director. “Sacred Hearts students will earn their Associates degree in May 2025, and two weeks later, they’ll graduate from high school.”  

Dimaya’s grateful that she opted in this program, which will prepare her to be better equipped when she continues to pursue her bachelor’s degree either at Chaminade or Portland University.  

“At first, I was afraid of the workload, but now I see that I can handle it,” Dimaya says confidently. “I think that this early college exposure has helped me manage my time, as well as taught me to be more independent and disciplined.”  

Read Lindsey’s story in the Sacred Hearts Academy newspaper.

Celebrity Emcee

’96 alumna and former Miss Universe to host Silversword Reunion

How a young wahine who rode the #53 Bus from Pearl City every day to get to school landed on the international stage is a Cinderella story. At 26 years old and 128 days, Brook Meahealani Lee became the then-oldest woman to be crowned Miss Universe in 1997. It was as much a surprise to her, as it was to a worldwide audience of more than 600 million viewers.

“It was a lot to process at the time,” said Lee, a ’96 alumna who majored in English with a minor in Communication. “One moment I was in Shreveport, Louisiana, the next I’m in Miami, Florida. Next was Toronto, Canada and then back to Los Angeles. It was a whirlwind that year.”

Of mixed Hawaiian, Korean, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese and Chinese ancestry, Lee became the first indigenous person and Asian American to wear the crown. It was a sparkling moment, for sure, preceded only by equally memorable answers to two of the Miss Universe Final questions.

However, before getting to what made Lee’s remarks so memorable, there’s a bit of backstory. At that time, Lee’s predecessor, Miss Universe 1996, Alicia Machado, came under public scrutiny for her weight gain, drawing considerable press attention. So when host George Hamilton asked, “Miss Universe has recently been the subject of a lot of press attention about her weight. If this happened to you, how would you handle it?”  

Lee perfectly offered up one of the best answers in pageant history. “I would take a good hard look at myself and I’d look from the inside out and I’d know that I was the same girl that was crowned that day,” Lee said. “So if I go up or go down—I get taller, I get shorter. My nose gets bigger… smaller. I’m still who I was when that crown was on my head and I’m a good representative no matter what.”

Yet, it was her response to the Miss Universe Final Question #3 that drew the loudest cheers and hysterical laughter from the audience and Hamilton. If social media existed then, her answer surely would have gone viral. And not for the unfortunate reasons most pageant answers make the social media rounds these days—Lee’s was amusing, frank and completely authentic in a very Hawaiian sense.

Asked: “If there were no rules in your life, for one day, and you could be outrageous, what would you do?” Lee unhesitatingly responded with: “I would eat everything in the world. You do not understand. I would eat everything twice.”

“It was a little bit of a jab at the President of Miss Universe Organization, who was the one who criticized the weight gain of my predessor,” said Lee, recalling that moment on stage. “But I don’t think he ever got it.”

Prior to winning Miss Hawaii USA and then being crowned Miss USA, Lee had minimal pageant experience. She said the first Miss Hawaii Competition she competed in, she lost big time. She would go on to win the title in 1997, which earned her a scholarship to Chaminade University. Walking through Henry Hall, Lee reminisced about her time on campus, pointing out Room 227 as the classroom where she sat for her English classes.

“I feel like I’m Jane Jetson; everything is so new,” quipped Lee, who will emcee the Silversword Reunion in October. Gesturing to the Sullivan Family Library, she pointed out that it didn’t exist when she was around, nor did the Athletics Coaches’ Office Complex below the parking structure.

While a lot has changed and improved since Lee’s time at Chaminade, some things remain the same. The Kalaepohaku campus is still as inviting, and students still need to climb all the steps to reach “Mount Kiefer.”

Brook Lee with her son Fynnegan, daughter Bailey and husband Tory Mell.
Brook Lee with her son Fynnegan, daughter Bailey and husband Tory Mell.

After her reign as Miss Universe, Lee made several cameo appearances in movies and television shows, and has hosted many television shows in Asia and the United States. She has also been a judge at Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, and served as a color commentator for past Universe Pageants.

After permanently returning to Oahu from Los Angeles three years ago, Lee now juggles her time between being a mother of two, a supportive spouse and three gigs. She is the host of KHON2’s “Modern Wahine Hawaii;” she is the co-host for the Podcast “It’s a Hawaii Thing;” and she dances hula at Halekulani’s House Without a Key.” She also believes in service to the community, taking on the Artistic Director role with the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame, where she produces the annual Lei of Stars installation of Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame inductees, and serves as the secretary for the nonprofit BEHawaii.

“My work with BEHawaii has been deeply meaningful as we started around a simple dining room table in Kapālama committed to elevating musicians in Hawaii and branching out in ways I would have never imagined,” Lee said. “BEHawaii is committed to finding solutions for our Lāhui in diverse ways, and holding fast to our Kūpuna and their wisdom.”

The group also launched the Lei Poinaʻole Project, which aims to revitalize, strengthen and support the Hawaiʻi lei industry. Lei Poina‘ole means “the never forgotten lei,” and the project is committed to this vision, so that the Hawaiʻi lei industry and its people are never forgotten.

To increase awareness and generate demand for locally grown flowers, materials, and lei, program leaders said the message is simple: “When you buy locally produced lei, you are nourishing our ʻāina, supporting Hawaiʻi farmers, preserving local traditions, and sharing aloha throughout our community.”

And aloha is what Lee has shared and breathed ever since she was a keiki riding the #53 Bus to school.    

Walking the Walk: Creating a Sustainable Hawaii

Cara Gutierrez pouring old food onto composting pile

Cara Gutierrez doesn’t just want to learn about leaders in the green movement. She wants to be one.

The senior at Chaminade, who is majoring in Communication with a minor in Environmental Studies, is passionate about helping build a more sustainable Hawaii and has gotten involved in a number of projects on and off campus designed to do just that—from food waste audits to composting.

“I’m just trying to make an impact,” Gutierrez said.

And along the way, she’s hoping to inspire others to do the same.

Gutierrez, who transferred to Chaminade from St. Mary’s College in California as a sophomore, has created a Campus Sustainability Council Club at the university in addition to serving as vice president of the Surfrider Club and a resource recovery specialist at Windward Zero Waste School Hui.

She said her community service efforts grew out of an Environmental Ethics course at Chaminade, where she learned just how important a single person can be in making a positive difference. “I really felt called to help and did different types of volunteering. I wanted to do my part,” she said.

Sustainability Council Club a the beach picking up trash

So she started in her own backyard—by looking at sustainability at Chaminade.

In addition to launching her new club, she also conducted a food waste audit at the university to determine how much is thrown away that could instead be redirected to productive composting. That work led her to connect with the agricultural director at Saint Louis School for an innovative zero-waste project now underway and he in turn connected her with the Windward Zero Waste School Hui.

Gutierrez said she when she first reached out to the hui, which works with five public schools to turn their food waste into composted nutrient-rich soil, the director warned her the work wasn’t glamorous. She would be gathering food waste into huge compost piles, the hui told her, turning and watering them as worms break up the organic materials, and then selling that rich compost to the community.

“She told me, ‘This is really hard work. You’ll have dirt everywhere,’” Gutierrez said.

After working for a day, Gutierrez was hooked. “I said, ‘OK, sign me up!’”

If her volunteering and work with the hui wasn’t enough, Gutierrez is also an intern focused on sustainability projects at Chaminade’s new CIFAL Honolulu Centre, part of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. She said through CIFAL and her sustainability club, she’s planning an educational Earth Day event and a gathering on Oahu’s North Shore to promote agriculture.

With all the hats she wears, Guteirrez doesn’t have much downtime.

Cara Guiterrez winding a lever on the Golden Rule Peace Boat

But that’s OK. What she has instead, she said, is a community that believes in her—and her mission.

“Climate change is so important and our generation has a responsibility to act. I’m only here for a limited number of years and I want to leave the lightest footprint possible but also have an impact on younger generations,” she said. “Everything I do is for the people who came before and after me.”

She added that her CIFAL Honolulu internship has also helped her zoom out and think about the value of sustainability policy and climate change work at the international level. “In the future, I would be really interested in working toward those bigger goals to make a greater positive difference,” she said.

For now, though, she’s focused on her grassroots work—and on graduation just around the corner. She said she plans to pursue a graduate degree, but will first take a year off to travel. “I’ve learned so much in Hawaii,” she said. “Now I want to go to different communities to learn even more.”

Silverswords Business Competition

Students and faculty who participated in the Silversword Business Competition

It started with a suggestion.

Private wealth advisor Eric Fujimoto, MBA ‘94, who is chair of the School of Business and Communication’s Advisory Board, encouraged the university to craft a real-life business experience for undergraduates. The idea: help them understand all the skills required to run their own venture.

At first, the plan was to have students open and manage a pop-up concession on campus.

But then another approach was decided: in Fall 2021, the School invited students to participate in a business competition that would allow them to show off their creativity, their ability to work with others and their aptitude in everything from marketing to accounting and customer service.

Student teams came from accounting, economics, marketing and social media courses.

Dr. Bill Rhey, School of Business and Communication dean, said each team got $250 in start-up money—which was paid back at the end of the competition—and were told they’d be judged on their net profit, their “business for good” approach and their social media impact. Each of the four teams also had a faculty coordinator and mentor during the competition, which ran from October to December.

And the winners were promised a big reward: $2,500.

Washed Ashore with their $2500 check for winning the Silverswords Business Competition

That winning team was called Washed Ashore, and they created jewelry out of microplastics reclaimed from Hawaii beaches. The idea was an instant hit, and they plan to keep the business alive.

“Living in Hawaii, you go to the beach often,” said student Kelsie Inoue, who was on the five-student Washed Ashore team. “While you’re there, you usually see trash and plastic washed up on the beach. We thought about how these microplastics could be repurposed in a way that would bring awareness to keeping our beaches clean and the impact we make. By making necklaces sourced from the microplastic and sea glass found on the beach, our customers wear a reminder of the difference we can make.”

From the outset, Inoue said, the team wanted to create a business with a strong mission.

And they knew their environmentally conscious message would appeal to lots of younger people, including their peers. That’s why they started by creating an Instagram account with college students as their target audience. Their @washedashore808 handle kept hundreds of customers updated on their product lines, upcoming sales, environmental impact and when they were sold out of certain items.

“The biggest takeaway from this competition was that you always need to adapt,” Inoue said. “Sometimes, you need to think on the spot or adjust to situations that aren’t the most comfortable for you, but by doing so it provides newfound skills and confidence in yourself.”

Rhey said while there was only one winner, all the student participants got something out of the competition. They applied concepts of pricing, operations, marketing, management and leadership.

And along the way, they got to imagine themselves as small business owners and entrepreneurs.

“The idea behind this competition was to give our students a greater appreciation for what they are learning in business, how it is applied in the marketplace and the importance of relationship-building,” Rhey said. “The students showed resilience and resourcefulness that was surprising and gratifying.”

Silversword Sweets' s'more brownies

He said all four participating teams took very limited resources and created “impressive micro-businesses.” One of the other teams, Silversword Sweets, was popular on campus right as the holidays rolled around. Another team, We Over Me, sold beach clean-up bags. And 3rd Avenue Attire created custom art design shirts and got more than 3,000 hits on their social media page from potential buyers.

Dr. Guanlin Gao, an associate professor of economics at Chaminade and mentor for the Silversword Sweets team, said it was wonderful to see students working together to create a product line and seek to entice customers. “Students learn so much from this high-touch, high-impact activity,” she said. “Their biggest challenge was juggling between school, work and this business competition.”

Gao added that she was especially impressed with how well students worked together.

“I hope they gained experience of developing soft skills in team-working,” she said.

Wera Panow-Loui, a marketing lecturer at Chaminade and mentor for Washed Ashore, was also excited to see just how much students got out of the experience. “I am all about teaching theories and models in a way that makes them interesting, relevant and practical for students,” she said. “This was a great opportunity to engage the students and connect classroom learning with practical application.”

She said her favorite part of the competition was getting to see her students’ creativity.

And she is very excited about the future of Washed Ashore. She’s wearing the upcycled necklaces and said the students received interest for their products from people around the state and as far away as Germany. “I strongly encourage my students to keep going and even try to find some investors,” she said.

3rd Avenue Attire t-shirt design

Jackie Martinez, a junior in Communication, was captain for the 3rd Avenue Attire team and really enjoyed getting the chance to bring her artistic skills to the business competition. “I’ve always wanted to see my hand-drawn designs on tangible, wearable articles of clothing,” she said, adding that the “birth of the brand” came after a conversation among team members about the need for positive change.

The name, she added, was a nod to Chaminade and Kaimuki.

“My biggest takeaway from all of this is that anything is possible,” Martinez said. “This business competition gave me the confidence I needed to take on more challenging roles in both academic and employment settings. After seeing what I was capable of in such a short amount of time, I realized that I could realistically accomplish anything I set my mind to if I just approach it the same way.”

She added the clothing line is still taking orders under a new name, “World on Fire.”

And that is music to Rhey’s ears.

He said the competition had students doing everything from handling production to tackling group dynamics to showing off their leadership skills. Rhey added he’s grateful to Fujimoto for his vision and is looking forward to the next steps for the competition. The hope is that it will become a regular fixture at the school. “We’re discussing how we can weave this competition into our future curriculum,” he said.

School of Business and Communication Receives Reaffirmation Accreditation

IACBE logo

Chaminade University is proud to announce the International Accreditation Council for Business Educators recently granted reaffirmation of accreditation to all the University’s School of Business and Communication business and management programs for seven years.

“We are honored to have been granted reaffirmation of IACBE accreditation for seven years. It’s a testament to the School of Business and Communication’s rigor and high academic standards and something only made possible by the incredibly hard work and dedication of our faculty, staff and students,” School of Business and Communication Dean Bill Rhey said.

“The accreditation process is rigorous and includes not only a months-long self-evaluation, but a comprehensive independent peer review. The reaffirmation of IACBE accreditation means our School is continuing to meet nationally recognized standards of academic quality and public accountability.”

In achieving reaffirmation of accreditation, the School had to show it was meeting compliance with nine critical IACBE accreditation principles, including those dealing with quality assessment and advancement, resources for programs and innovation in business education. 

Chaminade President Lynn Babington said the reaffirmation of accreditation is incredibly well-deserved and underscores the School of Business and Communication’s commitment to providing a hub for excellent, relevant and innovative business and management education in the islands.

“Across its undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs, the School of Business and Communication demonstrates an unwavering commitment to not only excellence but continuous improvement and growth,” Babington said. “Congratulations to the entire School for this and special thanks to Dr. Rhey and his team for their tireless efforts to ensure quality programming while continuing to think outside of the box to meet existing and emerging community needs.”

Indeed, the School of Business and Communication is preparing to launch its new One Year MBA program this Fall. The innovative offering, with a hybrid schedule that includes Saturday instruction and online coursework, is geared toward working professionals seeking to take the next step in their careers.

The program is built on a “business for good” philosophy that encourages community partnership. The School also offers a host of other programs, including undergraduate degrees in Business Administration, Communication, International Studies and more. Its traditional MBA program includes several timely concentrations—from Healthcare Administration to Science and Technology Innovation—that allow students to pursue their passions as they seek to maximize their positive impact.