The fall 2009 opening enrollment for the University of Hawaii System reached an unprecedented 58,157, the highest in the institution’s history.  It surpasses fall 2008’s record enrollment of 53,5 09 by 8.7 percent.  For the second year in a row, UH’s fall opening enrollment has experienced an increase after remaining at 50,000 for five years.

Image Courtesy University of Hawaii

“Our record high enrollment is both good news and bad news.  It’s a positive sign that people are recognizing the value of higher education, but growth is coming at a time when we are least able to handle it financially.  Our campuses are doing their best to accommodate students who are knocking at our doors,” said UH Vice President for Academic Planning & Policy Linda Johnsrud.

All 10 UH campuses experienced an increase in enrollment.  Compared to two years ago, there are 7,000 more students enrolled at UH campuses.

UH West Oahu enrolled its third freshman class and increased enrollment to 1,355 students, with a gain of 192 students or 16.5 percent, relative to a year ago. UH Hilo’s enrollment increased to 3,996, with a gain of 210 students, or 5.5 percent, over the previous year.  UH Manoa increased its enrollment to 20,360, with 391 or 2 percent more students as compared to last year.

The UH community college enrollment also peaked at 32,446, with an increase of 3,855 students, 13.5 percent above last fall.  All seven campuses reported increases ranging from 9.5 percent to 26.2 percent.  Kapiolani Community College posted the largest numerical gain with 879 students, while Maui Community College boasted the greatest percentage gain at 26.2 percent.  Specific figures per campus follow:

• Hawaii CC recorded 3,315 students, a gain of 406 or 14 percent;
• Honolulu CC enrolled 4,585 students, a gain of 397 or 9.5 percent;
• Kapiolani CC enrolled 9,206 students, a gain of 879 or 10.6 percent;
• Kauai CC recorded 1,344 students, a gain of 243 or 22.1 percent;
• Leeward CC registered 7,585 student s, a gain of 695 or 10.1 percent;
• Maui CC totaled 4,085 students, a gain of 849 or 26.2 percent; and
• Windward CC recorded 2,326 students, a gain of 386 or 19.9 percent.

Separately, approximately 28,000 registrations in non-credit programs are expected throughout the UH system.

(Information provided by the University of Hawaii, Posted by Wendy Osher)

Ellice Flores, reporter for Kapiolani Community Collegeʻs Kapio Newspress, wrote this great story about a blood drive at KCC:

For every person that donates blood, three people are saved. Hawai‘i patients count on a healthy flow of blood supply for their survival.

Typically a donor’s blood is used for patients from surgical procedures, treatment of accident victims, ulcers, anemia and cancer.

The Blood Bank of Hawai‘i, a non-profit organization, provides blood to all civilian hospitals throughout the state.

The Blood Bank holds blood drives at KCC usually four times during the year, according to Randall Kusaka, communications assistant for the Blood Bank of Hawai‘i. For this year, the Blood Drives are scheduled to be held on Jan. 26, April 13, Sept. 28 and Nov. 23.

For each blood drive, the blood bank sets a goal as too how much blood they want to receive. “The goals differ for every drive and they range from 30 to 50 pints,” Kusaka said. “Because each person donates one pint, you can say that from 30 to 50 students and faculty members participate in each drive.”

There are a few basic donor requirements. All donors must be in good health, be 18-years-old or older (minors must have parental consent), have a valid photo identification and weigh 100 pounds or more. Some factors may require a waiting period which includes a one-year wait upon getting a tattoo or body piercing. Also, donors who have traveled internationally may need to wait before donating depending on the length of the stay.

The procedure of donating is very safe. Donors are given a mini-physical, which includes checking blood pressure, pulse, temperature and weight. All equipment used for the blood donation is sterile and disposable.

“It’s not that scary. It’s just a little poke,” said Marcus Smith, 22, computer science major. “I like to watch the blood drip. Sometimes they give you food after.”

Student Anthony Newman has never given blood before, but if there was ever a time he needed to, he would do it. “I would donate blood because I’ve been in situations where I needed help and nobody helped me,” said Newman, 23, American Sign Language major. “So if anybody ever needed my help, I want to be there to help.”

According to Kusaka, 60 percent of the population will need blood sometime in their lives, but only two percent of Hawai‘i’s population donates blood.

“It is important to give blood because there is no substitution for blood,” Kusaka said. “Because each pint of whole blood is separated intro three components–platelets, red blood cells and plasma–a single donation can help save the lives of three people. So the 40 people who donate blood at KCC’s Jan. 26 drive will help save the lives of 120 people.”

© Copyright 2009 The Kapio Newspress

By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

The following ETC interview with Bert Kimura, coordinator of the annual TCC (Technology, Colleges and Community) Worldwide Online Conference, the longest running virtual conference, was conducted via email on April 7-8, 2009. Dr. Kimura, a professor at Osaka Gakuin University, orchestrates the completely online event from Japan. The theme of the 14th annual conference is “The New Internet: Collaborative Learning, Social Networking, Technology Tools, and Best Practices.” It will be held on April 14-16, 2009. TCC is a conference designed for university and college practitioners including faculty, academic support staff, counselors, student services personnel, students, and administrators.

Question: What’s the theme of this year’s conference and, more specifically, why did you choose it?

The Internet world is abuzz with social networking and Web 2.0 technologies and, recently, its impact on teaching and learning. We thought that this focus would be appropriate for faculty along with what their colleagues have been doing with these technologies in their (i.e., the early adopters’) classrooms.

TCC coordinators pay attention to the Horizon Report published annually by the New Media Consortium and EduCause. Two years ago, the report cited social media as a technology to have short term impact on teaching and learning.

Question: What are the primary advantages of online vs. F2F conferences?

1. Ability to “attend” all conference sessions, including the ability to review sessions and content material.
2. No travel expenses or time lost from the workplace.
3. No need to obtain travel approval and submit complex documents to meet administration and/or business office requirements.

Question: What are some innovative or new features that you’ve added to TCC?

1. Live sessions have made the conference alive, i.e., people seem to like knowing that others are doing the same thing at the same time. Through these sessions they can interact with each other through the “back door,” a background chat that is going on simultaneously; this is the same as speaking to your neighbor when sitting in a large plenary session at a conference. Additionally all sessions are recorded and made exclusively available for review to registered participants for six months.
2. Collaboration with LearningTimes. The LearningTimes CEO and president are very savvy technically and hands-on, and they understand how educators work, how tech support should be provided, and they provide an excellent online help desk to conference participants, especially presenters. Their staff support responds quickly and accurately to participant queries. They also respond graciously and encouragingly to those with much less technical savvy.
3. Paper proceedings (peer reviewed papers). We believe that this is one way to raise the credibility of this event and make it accessible to a broader higher education audience. Research institutions still require traditional (and peer reviewed) publications for tenure and promotion. However, by publishing entirely online, we also promote a newer genre. Proceedings can be found at: http://etec.hawaii.edu/proceedings/
4. Inclusion of graduate student presentations. We feel that we need to invest in the future and that TCC can also become a learning laboratory for graduate students. Grad students, especially if they are at the University of Hawai`i, may have much greater difficulty in getting to F2F conferences than faculty.

Question: What’s the secret to TCC’s success?

1. Great collaboration among faculty, worldwide, to bring this event together. We have over 50 individuals that assist in one way or another — advisory panel, proposal reviews (general presentations, e.g., poster sessions), paper proceedings editorial board, editors (writing faculty that review and edit descriptions), session facilitators, and a few others.
2. Quality of presentations — they are interesting, timely, and presented by peers, for and about peers.
3. Continuity and satisfaction among participants. Our surveys (see Additional Sources below) consistently show very high rates of satisfaction. We have managed to persist, and TCC is recognized as the longest running online (virtual) conference.
4. Group rates for participation — i.e., a single charge for an entire campus or system.
5. TCC provides a viable professional development venue for those that encounter difficulty with travel funding.

Question: What are the highlight keynotes, presentations, workshops, etc. for this year’s conference?

See tcc2009.wikispaces.com for the current conference program, presentation descriptions, etc. For keynote sessions, see http://tcc2009.wikispaces.com/Keynote+sessions

Question: What’s the outlook for online conferences in general? Are they growing in popularity? Will they eventually surpass F2F conferences? If they’re not growing or are developing slowly, what are some of the obstacles?

At the moment, I’m not sure about the outlook — there are more virtual individual events or hybrid conferences, but not many more, if any, that are entirely online. One thing that is clear is many established F2F conferences are adding or considering streaming live sessions. Some openly indicate that a virtual presentation is an option.

The biggest challenge is the view that online events should be “free,” i.e., they should use funding models that do not charge participants directly. For an event that is associated with a public institution such as the University of Hawai`i (Kapi`olani Community College), it is impossible to use “micro revenue” funding models because institutional business procedures do not accommodate them easily.

Likewise, there is no rush among potential vendors to sponsor single online events. I have been talking with LearningTimes, our partners, to see if a sponsor “package” might be possible, where, for a single fee, a vendor might be able to sponsor multiple online conferences.

Even with 50+ volunteers, a revenue stream is vital to assure continuity. We operate on a budget that is one-twentieth or less of that for a traditional three-day F2F conference. Without volunteers, we could not do this.

Question: What are the prospects for presentations in different languages in future TCC conferences? If this is already a feature, has it been successful? Do you see it growing?

At the moment and with our current audience, there has not been an expressed need for this. However, if we were to target an event for a particular audience (e.g., Japan or China), then we would need to provide a support infrastructure, i.e., captioning and/or simultaneous interpretation.

On the other hand, the Elluminate Live interface that we use for live sessions does allow the user to view the interface and menus in his native language. Elluminate is gradually widening its support of other languages. Having experienced the use of another language interface, Japanese, I find that it makes a big difference to see menu items and dialogue boxes in your native language.

Question: Tell us about your international participants. Has language been a barrier for their participation?

- So far language has not been a challenge. It might be that those who suspect that it will be don’t register. Some, I think, see this as an opportunity to practice their English skills.
- International participants are much fewer in number (less than 10 percent). We’ve had presenters from Saudi Arabia, UK, Scandinavia, Brasil (this year’s keynoter), Australia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Canada, Israel, Abu Dabi,  Greece, India, as well as other countries.
- In some regions such as Asia (Japan is the example that I’m most knowledgeable about) personal relationships make the difference in terms of participation. On the other hand, it is difficulty for a foreigner, even if s/he lives in the target country, to establish personal networks. I have been able to do this gradually over the past seven years — but it is still, by far, not enough to draw a significant number (even with complimentary passes) to the event. In Japan, it also coincides with the start of the first semester (second week of classes) and, consequently, faculty are busy with regular duties. If we were to hold this event in the first week of September, the effect would be the same for the US. We would have difficulty attracting good quality presentations and papers that, in turn, will draw audiences to the event.

Question: What’s in the works in terms of new features for future conferences?

- Greater involvement with graduate students as presenters and conference staff. It provides TCC with manpower and, at the same time, TCC serves as a valuable learning laboratory for students.
- Events, either regional or global, on occasion, to keep the community interacting with one another throughout the year.
- Some sort of ongoing social communications medium to keep the community informed or to share expertise among members on a regular basis (e.g., a blog, twitter, etc.)

[End of interview.]
_________________________
The official registration period for TCC 2009 is closed, but you can still register online at https://skellig.kcc.hawaii.edu/tccreg
The homepage for the event can be found at http://tcc.kcc.hawaii.edu

Additional Sources: For additional information about the annual TCC conference, see the following papers presented at the 2006 and 2008 Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) Distance Learning and the Internet (DLI) conferences at Toudai and Waseda: Online Conferences and Workshops: Affordable & Ubiquitous Learning Opportunities for Faculty Development, by Bert Y. Kimura and Curtis P. Ho; Evolution of a Virtual Worldwide Conference on Online Teaching, by Curtis P. Ho, Bert Kimura, and Shigeru Narita.

It was a privilege to join with members of Hawaii’s legendary Japanese American World War II military units, who gathered recently at Central Pacific Bank’s main branch in downtown Honolulu.

The occasion was the unveiling of an exhibition of World War II memorabilia, “Honoring the Legacy.” It was more like a family reunion.

More than 50 Nisei veterans were there to talk story, reminisce, and pay tribute to all those who fought for their country at a time when their loyalty was questioned.

The story it tells is the story of “unflinching patriotism,” said William Thompson, current president of the 442^nd Veterans Club. The collection includes items rarely on display—like the steel pot helmet complete with bullet holes (in and out)—courtesy of the owner, Cpl. Sueo Sakamoto of the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team, who was hit by sniper fire in Italy and survived.

Modest to a man, the stories these vets recounted were all about ordinary folks doing extraordinary things, proudly recalled their unit mottos: “Go for Broke” (442^nd Regimental Combat Team), “Remember Pearl Harbor” (100th Infantry Battalion), and 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion’s unofficial handle—the “Pineapple Express.” The Army’s Military Intelligence Service is probably the least known—their work as translators and code-crackers went unheralded for many years because it was classified.

Rtd. Col. Bert Nishimura, who as a young lieutenant headed up several thousand Hawaii volunteers, was there; also a McKinley High School teacher who quit his job to volunteer—along with one of his former students.

“I love these guys,” said Bob Jones, Midweek columnist and honorary member of the 100^th Infantry Battalion. Other print and TV reps and members of the Japanese language press were there too.

Also on hand was Pam Funai of the national Go For Broke Education Center, who works with schools to tell the story of Hawai‘i veterans’ valor at a time when there as plenty reason not to volunteer.

Central Pacific Bank, whose founders were among those veterans, offered the venue. CPB EVP Denis Isono talked about the bank’s humble beginnings—veterans eating plate lunches under a tree at Ala Moana Park, looking for a bank that would help finance homes and businesses for everyone in Hawai‘i, and who ended up starting one of their own. “More than anything else, this is a chance for me to say thank you for what you did for my generation,” he said.

The exhibit was developed by Shari Tamashiro of Kapiolani Community College, Leeward Community College, and the AJA Veterans Council. Other services were donated by Takayuki “Chilly” Sasaki, Jay Kadowaki, Inc. and A-1 A-lectricians, Inc. Members of the 442^nd Sons and Daughters were on hand, along with members of the Japanese language press.

Kayleen Polichetti

The past week at work has been extremely stressful with many people being laid off. It is always hard to hear stories about people being let go…especially when you know many of them have families to support. 

Luckily, earlier today I came across the Ali’i Kula Lavender. They have so many great products, many organic- all incorporate lavender. My tops 3 picks are the Travel Candle $16, Lavender Citrus Hand Soap $6, and the Lavender Lime Lip Balm with Mango Butter, $8. 

Then I found out they set up shop at Kapiolani Community College’s Farmers Market held every Saturday from 7:30am- 11am.

Check out the entire line and more about Ali’i Kula Lavender here