Chaminade University of Honolulu

Guest Speakers

Wellness Week is a Wrap!

The first-ever Wellness Week at Chaminade University ended Friday with positive reviews from the campus community and calls for another one next year.

Organized as a way to help students reduce stress and recharge halfway through the Fall Semester, Wellness Week featured dozens of campus events organized by colleges and departments.

Instructors also organized mini wellness-themed activities with their classes, taking a break from regular lectures and instruction.

Cheryl Edelson, Ph.D., co-Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, said she heard very positive things about Wellness Week from students attending the wellness sessions. Her college organized a handful of events, including a “sound bath” in Loo Theatre, a lunch at the Conference Center featuring games and a scavenger hunt, and movie screenings.

“They appreciate the break,” Edelson said, sharing the reactions she’s been receiving from students.

“We were prepping for the midterm exam but also talking about their papers,” she added. “And so, for them, a slower pace, I think, is giving them a little bit of time to catch a breath. The idea is to basically help them kind of recharge.”

The week kicked off with guided meditation sessions at the Mystical Rose Oratory and Zuberano Lawn. Yoga lessons were on offer, along with cooking demonstrations, including lessons on making the perfect onigiri and Spam musubis hosted by Aramark Dining Services.

Carlson Fitness Center guided students on how to design suitable workouts depending on their fitness goals.

Meanwhile, the campus chapter of the Psi Chi honor society of psychology majors organized the “Plant, Paint, and Pause” event on Wednesday. The hour-long gathering was held “to support student wellness by creating an intentional moment to slow down during the semester,” Psi Chi explained.

Pizza was also offered at that special Psi Chi event.

Other Wellness Week activities were more educational in nature. “We tried to put together some arts and humanities-related and science-related activities throughout the week,” Edelson explained.

Wellness Week also saw the return of therapy dogs to Chaminade University. Organized by Campus Ministry, students were invited to the “Puppy Love” therapy dog session held over the Thursday lunch hour, an opportunity to unwind with the official therapy dogs while enjoying rock painting.

Shannon Sheehy, a junior Sports and Event Management major, said she and her friends really appreciated the week-long opportunity to unwind.

“I think it’s been very beneficial,” Sheehy said. “I play volleyball here, so I feel like for our team, it’s been nice to get out and see puppies and have time to take care of ourselves and put the students first.”

Sheehy admitted that a busy first half of the semester had her feeling a bit overwhelmed earlier, but Wellness Week was a good fix for that. “It’s been pretty stressful, but after this week, I feel that it was a good reset to have,” she said.

Mahina, a freshman nursing student, said she and her fellow students were enjoying Wellness Week but that some students suggested a simple break from classes might have been better.

“I feel like it’s going pretty well,” she said.  “But from what I’ve heard, from both my classmates and also just being around, some students preferred to just have a fall break.”

Still, Mahina said Chaminade students were happy with the schedule of activities and of the opportunity to pause mid-semester. “The events have been very well received from what I have seen,” she said. “A lot of people had fun at the events.”

Wellness Week emphasized students’ academic wellness.

Organizers hoped that the mid-semester pause would help students who may be struggling to have a chance to take a break and get the help and attention they needed. With the pause in regular course instruction, faculty members were afforded chances to reconnect with their students and lend assistance to anyone who may need additional support.

Edelson said Chaminade’s leadership plans to poll students afterwards to see what worked well, what didn’t, and how Wellness Week may be operated differently should it return in Fall 2027. She said the concept of a Wellness Week is relatively new but starting to spread rapidly at college campuses across the United States.

“It’ll be interesting to see the data at the end of it,” she said.  “This is really a time of the semester where we can help students kind of turn things around if they need to, or if they’re doing great, they can continue that way and still get a breath,” Edelson added.

Sheehy said Chaminade should definitely consider holding another Wellness Week next year.

“I think it’s very beneficial for everyone.”

Chaminade’s First-Ever Wellness Week Begins

A full week at Chaminade University is set aside to help students rest, reflect, and recharge, priming them to finish the semester strong.

Wellness Week, which lasts through Friday, features a series of events focused on instilling better physical, mental, spiritual, and academic well-being within students. Chaminade’s leadership was inspired to organize and launch the university’s first Wellness Week to give students an opportunity to pause and consider where things stand in their lives and studies at this point in the semester.

To help students rest and rejuvenate, the university has set aside quiet spaces for silent reflection, meditation, and prayer. The Mystical Rose Oratory’s doors are open, with students invited to use the space for quiet contemplation, introspection, and seeking inner peace.

The week will feature guided meditation and yoga, along with fitness and nutrition demonstrations. Meanwhile, the Vi and Paul Loo Theatre in Clarence T.C. Ching Hall has been transformed into a “sound bath” for students to enjoy.

Each class is holding only one session this week, with faculty using the time to guide students through tailored Wellness Week activities they’ve arranged.

Chaminade University Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Lance Askildson, Ph.D., said he initially conceived of Wellness Week after noticing how students could begin feeling a bit overwhelmed by early October.

“The idea was to intervene intentionally before relatively manageable challenges become much harder to reverse,” he said.

Planning for Wellness Week began back in February. The Office of the Provost, Academic Affairs, Student Success, Campus Ministry, and all four Colleges collaborated on planning and preparations. The concept was accepted unanimously by both the Academic Council and Senior Leadership Council.

Askildson said Wellness Week is organized with students’ academic wellness first and foremost in mind. “The overarching goal is to give students a chance to reset and reengage.”

“The week has been intentionally designed to focus on academic support, first and foremost, and alongside broader wellness activities and opportunities for reflection,” he added. “Basically, we want to give everyone a chance to catch their breath and take stock of where they are at in the semester.”

The Mystical Rose Oratory is serving as an open meditation, reflection, and prayer space during Wellness Week.

The week’s schedule is filled with activities organized to appeal to all tastes and desires.

Wellness Week kicked off with guided meditation at the Mystical Rose Oratory and on Zuberano Lawn. Aramark Dining Services hosted a demonstration on the art of crafting the perfect onigiri, or Japanese rice balls. Not to be outshone, the Marianist Center and College of Nursing & Health Professions invited students to its “Nacho Normal Taco Tuesday” event, where participants can learn how to master dorm cooking.

The Carlson Fitness Center will show students how to design a safe and satisfying workout routine through demonstrations happening there Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

Therapy dogs are even returning to campus for Wellness Week. Students are invited to unwind with the pups and perhaps enjoy some rock painting with the Student Affairs office and Campus Ministry.

Wellness Week closes with a mid-day live concert featuring The Racket Brothers & The Rackettes. Friday also features a crochet workshop and a special discussion on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies on society, led by guest speakers Kyle Ballarta and Louis Kim.

Askildson said now is the perfect time to offer some space for students to unwind, rest, and have fun.

“We see this as a targeted and useful pause at the midpoint of the semester and an intentional time for academic and personal reflection,” he explained, adding that he hopes the very first Chaminade University Wellness Week will leave students “ready to be successful for the second half of the term.”

Wellness Week may be repeated next year, creating a new annual Chaminade tradition, based on receptions from students, faculty, and staff.

New Honolulu Bishop Gathers With Young Faithful at Chaminade

A new Bishop is in town.

Last spring, Pope Leo XIV appointed Father Michael Thomas Tupou Castori as the sixth Bishop of the Diocese of Honolulu. As a way of introduction, Bishop Castori visited Chaminade University to mentor–and and learn from–young Catholics in Hawai‘i.

Bishop Castori succeeds former Bishop Clarence Richard “Larry” Silva, who retired after more than two decades as head of the Honolulu Diocese.

Accepting an invitation to the Chaminade campus, Castori dropped by on the evening of October 3 for a “meet-n-greet” with young adults.

More than 100 participants turned out to meet the new Bishop and hear his thoughts, an impressive turnout for a Saturday night in Honolulu. Organizers said they were pleased with the interest and enthusiasm of the crowd.

During his talk, Bishop Castori shared that he almost never became the new leader of the Honolulu Diocese, which oversees church affairs throughout the state of Hawai‘i.

Castori said it seemed that a higher power had other plans.

He initially asked to be taken off the list of candidates for Bishop of Honolulu given that he recently started work at Seattle University. That request didn’t go well for him, he said.

“The way God works with me is, when I’m acting contrary to his will, I can’t sleep,” he explained.

After fussing all night, he recalled how he prayed on the matter and ultimately decided to keep his hat in the ring. Following that, he managed to get one hour of sleep, and then rescinded his request that morning.

“Once the appointment was confirmed, I felt a lot of peace and salvation and joy,” he said.

The Pope’s selection of Castori may stem from his long experience in Oceania.

Ordained in 1996, Castori ministered in Tonga, Fiji, Guam, and the Marshall Islands. His appointment as the newest Bishop of Honolulu marks his return to the Pacific region.

While at Chaminade, Bishop Castori was interviewed by the EPIC Ministry Podcast host Malcolm Zara.

In the interview, Castori confided that he originally sought to become a lawyer. That changed after he attended a retreat with his college campus ministry during his senior year. There, he had a profound and life-changing experience.

At the retreat, he recited a prayer from Psalm 131, “and I felt God was right there with me,” he recalled.

Later, he found himself alone walking down the stairs in front of a Jesuit high school in Boston wearing a long black coat when he experienced the calling again.

“Suddenly, I found myself looking around, and I felt like a priest.”

An exchange with young Catholics

Young adults from O‘ahu, Kaua‘i, Maui, and Hawai‘i Island traveled to the Chaminade campus to meet the new Bishop. After a lively exchange with Zara, the audience had a chance to pose questions to him.

Asked about the difficulties younger Church members are having breaking into leadership roles as they face resistance from older members, Castori advised patience and presence, and perhaps gentle reminders to established authorities that they were once young Catholics seeking a place in the Church hierarchy. “Don’t give up, don’t run away,” he said. “I think presence is important.”

Some in the audience asked how they should approach friends and family members who have fallen away from the Church. Castori said the best approach to take is to be a “loving presence” as “that can be the most powerful way of evangelizing.”

Keeping youth engaged in the Church may be becoming less difficult with time.

Toward the end of the evening, the discussion turned to the apparent revival of interest in Catholicism among young adults, including those who have no familial history with the Church. Taking his turn to ask questions, Bishop Castori asked the audience of young Church-goers if they could provide an explanation for this sudden surge of interest in joining the Catholic Church, particularly among young adults and younger men.

Audience members shared that it likely stems from the isolation and loneliness many felt during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also explained that there is a great dissatisfaction with modern technologies that offer poor substitutes for genuine human interaction. Another audience member said youth are increasingly seeking authenticity, and the Church provides that.

Bishop Castori praised this development but also challenged the audience members to set positive examples for new Church members and their peers to follow.

“There are unlimited opportunities every day to do the good right in our midsts,” he said.

Poet Laureate of Hawai‘i Shares Stories, Spoken Word, and Fun Life Lessons

Chaminade University freshmen need to “keep things in perspective,” according to a celebrated pidgin poet and writer.

Lee A. Tonouchi is the author of several books, including the award-winning “Significant Moments in da Life of Oriental Faddah and Son: One Hawai‘i Okinawan Journal” and “Okinawan Princess: Da Legend of Hajichi Tattoos,” a children’s book that won the Skipping Stones Honor Award. He’s also edited an anthology of Hawaiian and Okinawan literature and wrote a renowned play.

Earlier this week, Tonouchi was invited to Chaminade’s campus to deliver a special lecture, the second in the CUH 100 course series. The CUH 100 seminar, required for all freshmen, is designed as an orientation to Chaminade life and scholarship in Hawai‘i.

Tonouchi kicked things off by entertaining the crowd with a lengthy retelling of one of his short stories, delivered entirely from memory. His specialty is literature that celebrates pidgin, the unique dialect endemic to these islands.

With wit and a sharp memory, he shared the story of when he first submitted his writing to a fiction contest held by Honolulu Magazine. He was the runner up, which he thought was pretty impressive, until a famous local writer informed him that he was “never going to win” because of his emphasis on pidgin words and phrases, as he recalled.

Tonouchi would go on to win the Honolulu Magazine fiction prize in 2004. He took those top honors again in 2006.

Regarding that famous writer he met and her discouraging words, Tonouchi said she never unfazed him; rather, he came out of that exchange more determined than ever to keep pursuing his passion for pidgin and the local culture.

“Can we fault her?” he asked the students of this famous writer. “Yes, you can still fault her,” he said, saying she not only behaved rudely, but she was also at fault for restricting her own imagination of what’s possible in local Hawai‘i literature.

His determination and hard work has paid off.

This past February, the State of Hawai‘i named Tonouchi the Hawai‘i Poet Laureate after a competitive review of contestants held by the Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities, the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, and the Hawaiʻi State Public Library System.

He’ll carry the title of state Poet Laureate until 2029.

The honor comes with a stipend that funds his travels across Hawai‘i to share his poetry and lead writing workshops.

Tonouchi was also granted a fellowship by the Academy of American Poets.

Despite his long list of accomplishments, Tonouchi came across in his lecture as affable, funny, relaxed, and supremely confident. That energy resonated with the student audience.

“Da Pidgin Guerilla” (the nickname given to him by a former professor) spent the Wednesday lunch hour sharing stories, poems, and anecdotes from his childhood growing up in Hawai‘i to his eventual pursuit of a career as a poet, book author, and playwright.

He recalled how, as a child, he once tried looking up the pidgin word “bumbai” in the dictionary because his classmate didn’t know what it meant. Bumbai is a pidgin word that loosely translates to “later” and sometimes “or else.”

The pidgin poems and stories he shared with the Chaminade community celebrated rice, spam, relationships, and a zeal for life and art.

Noted for his activism in linguistic justice, Tonouchi shared that, growing up, it never dawned on him that he was a pidgin speaker or speaking pidgin; he was simply expressing himself, and he understood that he had the right to share this part of himself with the world, and not hide it.

“I was born pidgin, but I never know I was talking pidgin,” he said.

Employers Offer Options to Chaminade Students at Campus Career Fair

Private sector employers, state agencies, federal government offices, and nonprofits all turned up in force to the campus’ latest showcase of career opportunities, sizing up Chaminade students while advertising job openings and career paths.

The Chaminade University Career fair was held at Hale Hoaloha on Wednesday, and it was well-attended. Hundreds of students turned up for the three-hour gathering, spending time at dozens of employers’ booths to learn more about the positions state and mainland employers are trying to fill and the types of candidates they’re looking for.

Jeri Mara-Berger, Business Development Manager at Altres Medical, said she came to the Career Fair to set up an information and recruitment booth in the hope of making connections with students in Chaminade’s renowned nursing program.

“I’m here specifically for medical, because Chaminade has RN programs,” she explained. “A lot of RNs have difficulty finding jobs when they graduate, so we’re here to kind of let them know that there are options.”

Mara-Berger confirmed that there is an acute shortage of nurses in Hawai’i. Thus, Chaminade University’s nursing students are in a strong position to locate work post-graduation. All they need to do is reach out, she said.

“We’re always short staffed,”  Mara-Berger said.

Altres Medical was hardly the only medical and mental-health related employer represented at the fair.

Representatives at ‘Ike Loa Therapeutic Services said they were busy recruiting future counselors and were interested in speaking with psychology majors. Officials with Hale Kipa, an Ewa-based nonprofit that supports and empowers at-risk youth and families,  also said they were on the lookout for crisis counselors and mental health professionals soon to graduate from Chaminade.

Meanwhile, Chaminade’s criminal justice and forensic science programs drew in representatives of state and federal law enforcement agencies.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation set up a booth at the fair, as did the U.S. Secret Service and Maui County Police Department. FBI representatives said they were there to tout internship opportunities and the bureau’s efforts to recruit new trainees even among students still in their junior year in college, part of a new Collegiate Hiring Initiative that aims to foster new FBI recruits through its training and promotion system for years.

Employers looking for technically qualified candidates also turned up to the Career Fair in strength.

Shay Zykoba, Corporate Engagement Manager at Hawaiian Telecom, said this was her first year to recruit at the Chaminade University Career Fair.

Zykoba said the rising frequency of storms and related service outages in the state has her company mindful of the need to hire more personnel.

“There have been a lot of storms recently,” she said. “That’s why we need these positions filled. It’s very important to keep people online during bad weather.”

Zykoba said Hawaiian Telecom knows what it is looking for in new recruits. She was confident that Chaminade’s students meet those expectations.

“We’re looking for folks who are go-getters, who have the attitude to be given a task and complete it on their own without much direction but to ask for help when they need it,” she said.

State government representatives also turned up to remind continuing and graduating Chaminade students that the State of Hawaii is in an ongoing drive to streamline its hiring process while working to quickly fill long-open civil service and non-civil service positions alike.

They advised Chaminade students to check out the website jobs.hawaii.gov for information on the state’s latest openings.

The Fair featured employers large and small, from the U.S. Navy to Waikiki Community Preschool. Kamehameha Schools was on hand to recruit students, as was the Make-A-Wish Foundation and other notable nonprofit organizations.

Jill, Talent Acquisition Specialist at Enterprise, said she turned up in the hopes of recruiting candidates interested in management positions, potentially ideal for business students, though she stressed that she was interested in hearing from students of all backgrounds.

“We have our summer internships and our management training programs, and so they are open to any student,” she said. “We are looking for juniors who may be interested in learning about how to run a business.”

Scholars Need ‘Eight Eyes’: Kristiana Kahakauwila Shares Her Story at Inaugural Lecture

“I hate everything I write, but I write anyway.”

Those were just some of the unexpected words of encouragement author and English professor Kristiana Kahakauwila offered to Chaminade University freshmen earlier this week.

She meant that aspiring writers should write as much as possible, even if they worry that their prose or storytelling isn’t particularly good. It’s not meant to be perfect the first time, she said. The point is to pour your thoughts out–perferably on paper the first time, she recommended–and later craft the language more carefully. Over time, this exercise will hone one’s writing skills.

Prof. Kahakauwila was the featured speaker for the inaugural CUH 100 guest lecture series. She spoke in front of a packed, standing-room only audience of mostly freshmen students enrolled in the CUH 100 course.

CUH 100 is a single-credit course open only to first-year students. The class is designed to be a general introduction to college life oriented toward helping students develop better academic skills.

Currently the director of UH Mānoa’s Creative Writing Program, Kahakauwila is the author of two books: This is Paradise: Stories (Hogarth 2013) and Clairboyance (HarperCollins 2024). The latter title is about a young girl who gains the power to hear what boys are thinking.

Kahakauwila covered a lot of ground. In her lecture, titled ‘Ways of Seeing: Becoming a Scholar,” Kahakauwila retold stories of her time in Maui, Long Beach, California, and at Chaminade.

She noted how her career trajectory involved a series of twists and turns, at times working as a bar tender, other times teaching as an adjunct. She went on to study literature at Princeton University and creative writing at the University of Michigan.

Kahakauwila seemed to particularly enjoy recounting tales of her time taking The Bus back and forth across the island between jobs. She told the student audience that they should all try to take the bus to the North Shore and all around Oahu at least once. “It will take you all day,” she admitted, but she argued that it would be worth it for the chance to meet some interesting characters who would tell them fascinating stories during the ride.

On the larger theme of her talk and the CUH 100 course, what it means to be a scholar, Kahakauwila said students should strive toward achieving Makawalu, ‘eight eyes’.

She explained that Makawalu is a traditional Hawaiian expression that means people should aspire to broaden their horizons, learn to see things differently, and gain new perspectives on their journeys through life.

“The liberal arts education is one aimed at giving you more ways of seeing,” Kahakauwila explained.

In other words, you chose to become a scholar “so you can grow more eyes.”

“I added a lot of new eyes during my time at Chaminade,” she recalled.

However, aspiring for Makawalu should not end at graduation from Chaminade, Kahakauwila cautioned.

“If all you do is leave with Makawalu you haven’t done enough”