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Growing as a Writer and Learner

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Sami Eastwood published her first book at 17, when she was a freshman at Chaminade.

Three years later, she’s completing final edits on a sequel and has already started working on a third novel in her science fiction series. She’s also the co-founder of a boutique publishing house, helps her parents grow their business in her spare time and is a year away from finishing her bachelor’s degree.

If that’s not impressive enough, Eastwood decided to double major in English and History.

Sami Eastwood, an online undergraduate student who lives in Oregon

Eastwood is an online undergraduate student at Chaminade, taking classes, completing assignments and communicating with professors and her peers remotely. While she lives in Oregon, she said she counts her professors as close and valuable mentors who have helped her grow as a writer and a learner.

“Every term I’m learning new things that contribute to sparking my creativity,” Eastwood said.

She said she decided to pursue her degree at Chaminade after taking a few classes at a large public university that she said wasn’t a right fit. Chaminade’s Marianist tradition of helping others and building a better world was an especially important element to her and her family, Eastwood said.

“I decided on an English major because I want to write books for a living and it’s good to know the rules of any trade you go into and how to analyze other works of fiction and nonfiction,” Eastwood said. “I chose history as well because I’ve always been fascinated by it, especially American history.”

In fact, Eastwood said she’s also interested in pursuing a future career in museums.

Her first love, though, is writing. And she has no plans to give that up. “My goal is to stay as closely connected to both worlds as possible,” Eastwood said. “The literary world of writing books along with the historical world, and I’m hoping my degrees can help me with that process.”

To publish her first book, Eastwood worked closely with another online undergraduate student at Chaminade–English major Jodi Clark. The two are good friends (and Oregon residents) and have found the university’s online program has allowed them to pursue their passions.

Clark even served as Eastwood’s editor for her first book, “Blackstone Asylum.”

The book is set 100 years in the future in a world in which superpowers are common and misunderstood. The novel’s heroine, Andrea Rosales, was born with the ability to heal. It’s that power that makes her a target for a villain who kidnaps paranormal children to turn them into weapons.

Eastwood said all she’s learned at Chaminade has given her a multitude of new story ideas and techniques for tackling them. “I learn endless amounts of information from both my English and history classes,” she said. “Even the smallest fact can blossom into (yet another) story idea.”

There are No Boundaries When Pursuing Your Passion

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Jodi Clark knew by the time she was 10 that she wanted to be a writer.

“I wrote a 400-page manuscript that has never seen the light of day,” said the English major, who’s minoring in History and Political Studies. “I fell in love with writing dialogue and complex characters.”

Jodi Clark, online undergraduate student

Fast forward a decade and change and Clark is still as inspired by words as she was back then. The difference? They’re central to her job now, and not just a hobby. In addition to seeking her undergraduate degree at Chaminade online, Clark is a content editor for a small publishing house and social media manager.

She says that being able to attend class remotely — she lives in Oregon — has allowed her to feel connected to her Chaminade professors and to the university while completing her coursework on her own schedule. “The online program at Chaminade is fantastic because despite weekly deadlines, there are no strict requirements for when and where you have to ‘show up’ for class,” Clark said.

She added the flexibility allows her to arrange her schedule in a way that makes sense for her.

Clark enrolled at Chaminade in winter 2018, after doing research about universities nationwide. She knew that she wanted to opt for an online program because she wanted to remain near her family. She was also looking for an institution that honored her religious values and belief in giving back to others.

“After much thought, we decided on Chaminade because of its religious values and because of its location since the Hawaiian Islands are very dear to my family and me,” Clark said, adding that what’s surprised her the most is how warm and welcoming the university community is — even from afar.

“Even from a distance, the family spirit of the school puts me at ease,” she said, adding that she’s planning to spend her senior year on campus. “My time at Chaminade feels so well spent and I am looking forward to the day I can visit … the people who have helped me pursue my education.”

People like Dr. Brooke Carlson, one of her English professors, who has helped Clark learn the “technicalities of writing” and challenged her to think more critically. Professor Justin Wyble, who encouraged Clark to take more risks in her writing. And Professor Karla Brundage, who worked with Clark on poetry.

Clark has also brought her own contributions to courses as a “beta reader.” She works for MaileKai Publishing, where she’s helped fellow Chaminade student Sami Eastwood publish her debut young adult novel “Blackstone Asylum” on Amazon and is in the revisions process for a sequel.

“Sami Eastwood came to me with the idea for ‘Blackstone Asylum’ as she wrote it,” Clark said. “I provided ideas and advice when and if she needed them. I started providing content editing for the book in about 2018, and by 2019, I helped plot and point out issues in large-scale revisions.”

She said working as a content editor, she enjoys “untangling knots in stories in their earliest stages.”

And her time at Chaminade has helped her become even more adept at that untangling, providing inspiration and feeding her creativity to as she works to develop her confidence in editing and writing. “When I was younger, my work ended up being either very formulaic or very scattered,” Clark said. “Thanks to my time in Chaminade’s online program, I feel that I have the tools … to take creative risks and see them through. My degree will be helpful for pursuing a variety of jobs in the writing world.”

Secondary Education Student Wins MLA Student Essay Contest

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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.”

English Professor Receives Outstanding Mentor Award

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“No research topic is too unachievable.”

That’s one of the greatest lessons recent graduate Nicole Sagapolutele learned from professor Wyble, her mentor. “You can do research on anything you want…even though it’s something that not everyone knows. You shouldn’t be afraid to do a research topic that interests you just because you’re not sure how it will be received.”

Nicole Sagapoluetele, Justin Wyble (President Mackey Prize winner) and Dr. Lynn Babington
Nicole Sagapolutele, Justin Wyble and Dr. Lynn Babington

Sagapolutele recently nominated Wyble for the 2019 President Mackey Prize, otherwise known as the Outstanding Mentor Award. The annual award recognizes a Chaminade professor who has provided students with research experiences that go above and beyond the classroom experience. Wyble was named this year’s recipient at Na Liko Naʻauao, the university’s undergraduate research conference on April 26.

“My philosophy of teaching is a student-centered one and I definitely carry that over into any sort of mentoring that I do, so I think it only makes sense that Nicole is in the spotlight,” Wyble said. “I think it’s as much her award as it is mine.”

In her nomination letter, the Sagapolutele highlighted the various ways that Wyble went above and beyond in helping her with her research project, titled “The Importance of Hawaiian Representation in American History Textbooks According to Avatar: The Last Airbender,” which explored the connection between how Native Hawaiian history is often inaccurately depicted in American history textbooks and how a genocide is depicted in the fictional children’s show, “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

She shared how Wyble used his knowledge of Pacific Island literature to offer feedback and revise her research paper, introduced her to secondary sources he had used for his own research, helped her apply and prepare for conference presentations and encouraged her to pursue graduate school. But what really stuck with Sagapolutele about Wyble’s mentorship style was the creative freedom he gave her to explore topics that interested her.

Prior to mentoring Sagapolutele, Wyble had never seen “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” but did his research when she voiced that it was a topic she was interested in.

“That’s what a student-centered classroom means to me. I always try to start with where the students are, what their interests are,” Wyble said. “I’m constantly searching for those stories that I think they might enjoy reading and then trying to push their thought a little bit higher. I definitely start with them and see where I can take them.”

Throughout the mentorship, which officially lasted from fall 2018 to spring 2019, Wyble helped Sagapolutele prepare to present her research at two undergraduate conferences: Na Liko at Chaminade and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

But the research partnership is not over yet. With the support of Wyble, Sagapolutele will be presenting her project at the Science Fiction Research Association Annual Conference 2019, which Chaminade is hosting in June. Unlike her experiences at Na Liko and NCUR, she’ll be presenting alongside professional scholars even before she has begun graduate school—though, she will start soon.

A week before graduation, Sagapolutele received the news that she was accepted into Chaminade’s Master of Arts in Teaching program where she plans to study secondary education starting in the fall and eventually become a high school teacher. However, her time at Chaminade and the mentorship she received from Wyble has also opened her up to the idea of getting her doctorate and teaching at the university level.

“I’m very honored to receive [the President Mackey Prize],” Wyble said. “It’s nice. It feels good. I really like that this award is focused on the teacher-student relationship and it really foregrounds the importance of mentoring, of that close teacher-student relationship we have at Chaminade.”

Chaminade Students Inspire School Children at Annual ‘Astronaut Lacy Veach Day of Discovery’

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By sharing their knowledge and love of science, two teams of Chaminade University students encouraged children to pursue STEM educations and careers at the “2017 Astronaut Lacy Veach Day of Discovery.”

Held Oct. 28 at Punahou School, this 16th annual event honored the life and legacy of NASA astronaut Charles Lacy Veach, who flew on Space Shuttle missions in 1991 and 1992 and developed robotics for the International Space Station. The Punahou alumnus and U.S. Air Force Academy graduate died of cancer in 1995 at the age of 51.

2017 Lacy Veach Day - anchialine pools activity

One team of Chaminade students conducted a workshop on the tiny opae`ula Hawaiian red shrimp and the ecologically fragile anchialine pools where they live. Anchialine pools are enclosed bodies of water with underground connections to the ocean.

“The kids we worked with made a habitat for the shrimp and were really excited to take them home,” said English major Kalei Ehlers from the Hogan Entrepreneurs Program. “Kids are excited by science and I had a blast teaching them something new.”

Also conducting the workshop were students Aulani Oka, Martina Segura, Tara Supit and Luwella Leonardi.

A team of students from the “I Am A Scientist” mobile outreach program showed children how to dust and “lift” latent fingerprints.

2017 Lacy Veach Day - fingerprint activity

“We got to educate kids and parents about the different characteristics in fingerprints that are unique to the individual person,” said Nursing major Heather Carvalho. “We also taught them that fingerprints are how they catch criminals.”

Carvalho said she enjoyed encouraging parents and children “to engage in science education together as a family.”

“It was an awesome way to get the kids outdoors,” she said, “instead of in front of the television and internet devices.”

Forensic Science major Kaitlyn Castillo said she initially thought young children “wouldn’t really think about doing science-related things.”

“After this event, I know that I was wrong and that some kids really do enjoy science so much,” Castillo said. “A few parents I talked to said they had bought their kids fingerprint kits and they would be dusting for prints all over the house.

“I liked knowing there were kids that got interested in forensic science by actually doing things related to forensic science,” Castillo added, “rather than from a TV show.”

Working with Carvalho and Castillo at the fingerprint booth were students John Aiwohi, Chante Carter, Doris Sanborn and Samantha Williams, along with alumna Cassandra Song and biology lecturer Dr. Eric Umemoto.

Future STEM Teachers Inspired by Leading Scientists, Engineers at NASA Institute

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For the second consecutive summer, future teachers studying at Chaminade University gained a behind-the-scenes look at America’s space program. This during a five-day professional development institute conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The training program, funded by NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project, helped pre-service teachers enhance their STEM instructional practices. Field trips and other interactive events focused on the International Space Station, a planned mission to Mars and other major NASA initiatives.

Dr. Katrina Roseler, an associate professor with the Division of Education, applied for the program and took seven Chaminade students to Ames Research Center, a major NASA facility in California’s Silicon Valley.

Education students at NASA Research Park“For me, the most memorable part of the trip was watching the excitement of the students as they engaged in new activities,” Dr. Roseler said. “They developed their engineering design skills and had firsthand learning opportunities with some of the leading U.S. scientists and engineers.”

She pointed out that many elementary schools emphasize mathematics and language arts – because they’re highlighted on standardized tests – at the expense of science education. Moreover, pre-service teachers are only required to complete six hours of science-related coursework in their undergraduate studies.

“As a science educator, to me, this is unacceptable,” Dr. Roseler said, emphasizing that “science knowledge and practices are essential tools for engaging with the world.” NASA addresses this issue, she said, by providing learning experiences for future teachers “that can be directly applied to their future classrooms.”

Danielle Friend ‘18, a double major in Elementary Education and English, said she and the other six Chaminade students “got to go inside a wind tunnel, see how the NASA engineers prepare to send things up to the space station, and so much more.”

“I am excited to share what I learned at NASA with just about anyone who will listen to me,” Friend said. “But mostly, I hope to take what I learned and help encourage students to love science. Teach them that if they work hard, they really can become astronauts or even rocket scientists.”

Katie Grywczynski ‘18, an Elementary Education major, said she wanted to attend the training institute “because it sounded like a really fun opportunity to learn about NASA, their resources and STEM activities I can use in my future classroom.”

Education students at NASA Research Park“My most memorable part of the trip was getting to tour the facilities/labs and learning about everything that NASA does in our world,” Grywczynski said. “My biggest takeaway from the program was learning about all the amazing and free resources NASA has to offer.”

Elementary Education major Sara Castillo ‘19 said the training program was “jam-packed with so many sessions, tours and lessons.” This included meeting an astronaut, experiencing a mega-computer “that took up a whole upstairs building,” and exploring numerous NASA sites.

“I think my biggest takeaway – literally – is all the physical resources that we were given on the last day of the conference,” Castillo said. “Everyone was given pamphlets, lesson plans, posters for the classroom, stickers and just so many heavy resources – 20 pounds to be exact.

“Many of us were struggling to put it in our luggage without going over the airline’s weight limit,” she added.

Other Chaminade students participating in the training institute were: Angelica Louise Concepcion, Hannah Parker, Marisa Paz and Samantha Tufaga.

Chaminade’s Division of Education offers undergraduate programs in Early Childhood Education, Elementary Education and Secondary Education. The division also offers graduate programs leading to a Master of Education degree or Master of Arts in Teaching degree.