Remembering and Honoring “Mr. I”
The Chaminade University family is celebrating the life and legacy of a popular professor who left an indelible mark on his students and the campus community and who exemplified the high standards of academic excellence that is part of the University’s promise.
Ronald M. Iwamoto was a long-time biology professor at Chaminade. “Long-time” is putting it rather mildly: Mr. I, as his students called him, called the university home for 47 years, or nearly five decades. It’s not an exaggeration to say that he helped mold the university into the place it is today in very real, tangible ways.
Sadly, Iwamoto passed away in October of 2025, but his legacy endures both in the memory of Chaminade’s alumni, in the fund organized in his honor, supporting a teaching fellowship that bears his name.
Chaminade alum Angela Maroun ʻ76, who majored in biology during her time as a student on campus, remembers Iwamoto fondly. She says she first met “Mr. I” after enrolling in his Biology 203 course.
“It was his class that made me decide to be a Biology major and love science,” Maroun shared with us. “He made biology fun. He was a tough but fair and caring teacher.”
Iwamoto graduated from Punahou School in 1959, earned a BA in history from Northwestern University, and later an MS in Zoology and an MEd with a focus on Educational Foundations from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He joined Chaminade’s faculty in 1967, barely a dozen years after the University’s founding in 1955.
The long track of his academic career means Mr. I literally touched the lives of thousands of Chaminade University students, mentoring them through their studies and coursework and lining them up for successful careers post-graduation.
Though she originally hails from Syracuse, New York, Maroun said Iwamoto helped her experience the best of Hawaiʻi and its natural beauty as a local would. He went out of his way to help me feel at home, she said.
“He went the extra mile to both challenge and support each student so that they could succeed,” she recalled.
Maroun said she took other biology courses that he taught and also worked as a laboratory assistant for several of his classes. She babysat his children and introduced Mr. I to her family when they visited from Syracuse. In fact, he shared time with her and her family on a number of occasions. “He always made time for lunch, dinner, or just a visit,” she said.
Maroun said she especially remembers the island adventures Mr. I took her and her classmates on for his ecology course, the ultimate experiential learning opportunities.
“Ecology was a favorite since we went on many field trips, hikes, and ocean adventures,” she recalled. “Through him, I experienced nighttime on the reef collecting specimens for the lab, catching crabs in the mangroves, and walking during low tide for a picnic.”
Iwamoto was recognized for his excellence by both students and faculty alike.
He was honored with a prestigious Heritage Award during Founders’ Week 2000, bestowed with the Chaminade Award that year by his fellow faculty and staff members.
Later, Dr. Iwamoto helped establish a legacy that would endure well past his own lifetime.
In 2018, he and other Chaminade community members formed a committee and established the Ronald M. Iwamoto Teaching Fellowship in Biology, the first teaching fellowship established at the university.
Donors came forward to seed the fellowship with a $50,000 endowment. The fellowship was first awarded to Chaminade Assistant Professor Frederique Kandel in 2019, recognized for her commitment to professional development in teaching and pedagogy.
Ron Iwamoto left our world on October 21, 2025, but he lives on through the mark he left on Chaminade University, his legacy establishing the university’s science curriculum, and in his students and colleagues’ cherished memories.
“He was just so much fun and a joy to be around,” Maroun said. “How lucky I was to cross paths with Mr. I.”
If you would like to make a gift in support of the Ronald M. Iwamoto Teaching Fellowship in Biology, please click here.
