Chaminade University of Honolulu

FLEX Program

Graduating With a Bachelor’s—While in High School

Veronica “Bonnie” Nagahisa ’25 doesn’t believe in wasting time.

On May 3, the 18-year-old will graduate from Chaminade University with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. And three weeks later, she’ll walk again at Kapa’a High to accept her high school diploma.

Hawai’i Department of Education officials say she is the first student on Kaua’i to be awarded a high school diploma and bachelor’s degree at the same time.

“For most students, earning a high school diploma is the goal. But for Bonnie, it was just the beginning,” said Kapaʻa High Principal Tommy Cox. “She’s a great example for our students, showing them that nothing is impossible with the opportunities available at Kapaʻa High.”

Nagahisa’s college journey began after eighth grade, when she started taking online courses at Kauaʻi Community College.

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Her mother, Kimi Nagahisa, an early college counselor at Kanu o ka ʻĀina Charter School, helped guide her through the process.

“We try our best to mold and raise our kids but in many ways, they teach us patience, grace, and kindness. I am just so proud of her,” Nagahisa said.

By the end of her sophomore year, Bonnie had completed the requirements for her high school diploma and associate’s degree.

Still “super young,” as she put it, she enrolled full-time in Chaminade’s FLEX program to pursue her bachelor’s degree fully online.

“I’ve always loved school, reading, writing—all things education,” she said.

Bonnie, the oldest of seven siblings, says she was able to tackle her advanced studies along with her family and social life by maintaining a good balance.

“That balance looks different for everyone — the key is to find what works for you, especially when chasing big goals. At the end of the day, whatever you’re striving for, it’s essential to make space for joy, peace, and connection. Those things help ease the stress that often comes with pursuing your goals.”

Despite her demanding schedule, Nagahisa stayed active at Kapaʻa High, taking electives and study halls to stay connected with friends and campus life.

She is a National Honor Society member and a regular at volunteer events like Relay for Life, Toys for Tots, and campus beautification. She also made time to support nearly every school sporting event. “Staying engaged and showing school spirit was important to me, even with a full plate,” she said.

After graduating with her bachelor’s degree, Bonnie plans to continue her studies at Chaminade. She has been admitted into the Master’s of Arts in Teaching program.

True Calling

As a Zoo Camp instructor, Sara Aliza Sahagon finally found her true passion—to teach.

Sara Aliza Sahagon ’24 holds down two jobs: her regular day job as a long-term substitute teacher at Kauai High School and what she defines as her “heart job,” which is taking care of her community service programs, a passion she has maintained since she was a young Chamorro in Guam.

“I wanted to become a social worker when I was younger,” says Sahagon, who will walk in the May 2025 Commencement Ceremony. “I was volunteering with Youth for Youth LIVE! Guam, which is a non-profit community-based, youth-centered, youth-driven drug prevention program for teens between the ages of 11 and 17. This is what I thought I was going to do for the rest of my life.”

Sara Aliza Sahagon serves as the head advisor with Kauai High School's Key Club, which focuses on community service.
Sara Aliza Sahagon serves as the head advisor with Kauai High School’s Key Club, which focuses on community service.

Her mom, Stacey Coletta, had other plans for her daughter. Although accepted into Stanford, Coletta was restrained from attending the private research university due to tuition and board costs. Understandably, she wanted Sara and her older sister, Hanna, to move off island, and to explore and experience the world through another lens.

In her senior year at Notre Dame in Talo’fo’fo’, Sahagon applied to the University of Hawaii–Manoa and Hawaii Pacific University (HPU). Unfortunately, she admittedly missed the Chaminade University application deadline.

“I wanted to find an open world,” Sahagon says. “I wanted to meet new people who weren’t related to me. I wanted to experience new things, but I still wasn’t ready to leave the island lifestyle all behind, like my older sister did when she went to school in San Diego. So, Oahu was perfect for me.”

Accepted to HPU, Sahagon was excited to go to college … until she got there. The classrooms, she says, felt like they were closing in on her and doubts of her academic knowledge crept in, incapacitating her from thinking and constantly intimidated by her fellow classmates. It was a shock to Sahagon because she had always been at the top of her class back in Guam, earning As and merits for her work.

“I couldn’t deal with traditional college,” Sahagon says. “I felt dumber than everyone in the room, and it really brought me down. So, I dropped out after my first year.”

After bouncing from job to job, from Kate Spade to Bath & Body Works, Sahagon landed an instructor position with the Honolulu Zoo’s “Zoo Camp.” After years of searching, the 23 year old finally found her true calling. She flourished, and learned and absorbed everything she could about zoology—from the various species to their different habitats.

“I worked at the Zoo for three years until COVID hit,” Sahagon laments. “I loved teaching and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I did find another position with After-School All-Stars Hawaii, which provides school-based, after-school and summer programs for underserved communities and students. I ran my own site.”

As fruitful and satisfying as the experience was at After-School All-Stars Hawaii, constantly nagging in the back of Sahagon’s mind was college. By now, her mom—a lifetime educator and the current vice principal (Academy of Human Services) at Kauai High School—had moved to the Garden Isle, and they would frequently speak of Sahagon returning to college. Sahagon, though, was trapped in that circuitous 9-5 cycle on Oahu. She would constantly tell herself that she was going to be a teacher and no one was going to stop her—except herself.

Sara Aliza Sahagon's experience as a Zoo Camp instructor led her to finally find her true calling.
Sara Aliza Sahagon’s experience as a Zoo Camp instructor led her to finally find her true calling—to teach.

Although Coletta initially discouraged her two daughters from becoming teachers—only because she knew how hard it is to be a teacher— having been one herself for years—she was now supporting Sara’s dream. It was now or never.

“My mom told me that if I wanted to become a teacher, now was the time because there’s a shortage of teachers every where,” Sahagon recalls. “She had one stipulation: I had to move to Kauai. She said to me, ‘You’re going to get it done and you’re going to do great things.'”

It was enough of a push to motivate Sahagon to move with her mom and stepdad. She began researching various programs and colleges, and looked into the online programs at University of Phoenix. In the end, Chaminade’s Flex option won her over.

“I chose Chaminade because it keeps spirituality at the forefront, which helps keep me grounded,” asserts Sahagon, now the head adviser of the high school’s Key Club, which focuses on community service. “I also hold the same Marianist-Catholic values. I know that everything I do has a purpose; every exam, every activity and every paper has meaning.”

Now in her second year of the Flex program, Sahagon’s Chaminade experience is the antipode of HPU. These days, it’s just her in the competition, and she feels she has “strong support” from the University’s faculty and staff. Sahagon says, with her Chaminade education, she will be well prepared to have her own classroom. She has already applied concepts that she has learned in her classes with her students. And she has learned different teaching strategies that are effective. 

“I wish I had applied to Chaminade earlier,” Sahagon says. “It’s been a very positive experience and I love being a Silversword. I feel truly blessed to be able to finish my college degree at Chaminade.”

Adult Education

Carlos Escuza ’23 describes Flex as an ‘awakening experience’

Call it a 40-year college plan. And when Carlos Escuza graduates in December with a B.A. in Business Administration, he will finally finish what he started decades ago when he was an undergraduate student at University of Phoenix in Riverside, Calif.

Like then, Escuza doesn’t represent the typical college student. He was in his 30s when he started, and he is now in his 60s as he completes his degree. As the nation’s baby boomers age, their influence continues to reshape the economy, the labor force, infrastructure and institutions. Some have called the demographic shift a “silver tsunami.” And that shift is apparent in higher education as a new wave of older students—like Escuza—return to college in pursuit of new opportunities.

“I stopped going to the University of Phoenix in 1992 because I got promoted as National Account Manager with the United States Postal Service,” Escuza says. “And I also had U.S. Army obligations.”

Since walking in a U.S. Army recruiting office in Chicago in 1979, Escuza has been all that he can be, a riff on an old Army slogan that prompted the then-20-year-old military veteran to enlist in the first place.

“The military gave me structure in my life,” says the native Peruvian. “Just like Chaminade University has taught me discipline in my pursuit of my bachelor’s since I started in January 2021.”

Jacob Escuza attended his dad Carlos Escuza’s retirement ceremony aboard the Mighty Mo in October 2019.

A new report by Lightcast, a leading company that provides labor market data, found that going back to college is an especially sound investment for adult learners. An analysis of more than 125 million online career profiles found that this group was 22 percent more likely to achieve upward mobility and earned annual salaries 140 percent greater than peers who didn’t return to college.

“When I retired from the Army on the deck of the Mighty Mo back in October 2019, I wasn’t sure of what I was going to do,” Escuza admits. “That’s when I turned to Cassandra Kam, a former educational counselor with the Veterans Affair. She was the one who told me about Chaminade University.”

Born in Chicago but raised in Lima, Peru, after his parents decided to move back to their native homeland when he was a 1-year-old baby, Escuza immediately returned to Chicago after graduating from high school. His formative years spent in the South American nation meant growing up with an extended family of cousins, aunts and uncles, and embracing a Hispanic culture.

“When I first moved back to Chicago, I was living at the Y, which is all I could afford,” Escuza recalls. “I received a grant and wanted to go to school, but I later decided to enlist in the U.S. Army.”

Escuza has no regrets enlisting in the Army and making it a career. He has been deployed to Europe, Afghanistan and Iraq, joining the ranks of thousands who were part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). In Iraq, he was part of the Multi-National Security Transition Command’s convoy security team known as the Rough Riders. Contrary to the sound of its name, the Rough Riders participated in goodwill missions to provide school supplies, gifts, candy and toys to Iraqi children in Baghdad.

“I was already in my 40s, but I was told I was needed because of my maturity and experience,” Escuza says. “Being involved in a war changed me profoundly in so many ways.”

When he returned from Iraq in 2008, Escuza manifested his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  “When I went through Kuwait, on a post-deployment, I saw outside the Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) compound, this long wall with the names of soldiers who had died in the line of duty,” Escuza recounts. “They were listed in alphabetical order, and when I saw my friend’s name on it, I broke down and cried uncontrollably.”

Today, Escuza enjoys the support of his wife, Pam, his son Jacob and daughter Jaclyn Mills. He also appreciates the encouragement and understanding of Chaminade staff and faculty, whom he describes as inspirational. After he graduates, he says he plans to enroll in the M.S. in Counseling Psychology (MSCP) at Chaminade.

“This has been an awakening experience,” Escuza says. “If I were to put down in words all the positive feelings that I have collected and digested during my time at Chaminade, I would be writing an essay. The Flex program has truly met my spiritual and intellectual goals, and I’m grateful for this experience.”