Posted on: Wednesday, June 12, 2002
Scholastic grant program builds Hawaiian leadership
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
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| At the UH Center for Hawaiian Studies, from left: Grant project administrator Manu Ka'iama with Pomaika'i Kanaiaupuni-Crozier, Ano'ilani Ching and Kamuela Yim.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Sarah Wong has plunged into her freshman year of pre-med courses at Duke University — thanks to a woman named Manu Ka'iama at work in Hawai'i, leading a quiet revolution to create a new generation of Native Hawaiian leaders.
At Creighton Medical School in Omaha, Neb., Jason Bruce also is studying medicine — again thanks to Ka'iama.
Kamana'opono Crabbe is doing a University of Hawai'i graduate internship in clinical psychology at Tripler Medical Center in Honolulu and also visiting patients on Moloka'i and in Wai'anae to offer care in culturally sensitive ways. Again, it's the result of Ka'iama's efforts.
From Harvard University to Boston U, Claremont to Cornell, Dartmouth to Pepperdine, students of Native Hawaiian ancestry are getting the financial help their families need to push education to the highest levels.
And much of the credit belongs to a self-effacing woman who dismisses her contributions, talking instead about strides that Native Hawaiian students are making nationwide because of the Native Hawaiian Leadership Project financed through the U.S. Department of Education.
"Others have paved a path for us and we're paving one for future generations," says the former accountant who launched the project.
It was Ka'iama who finagled her way through the maze of competitive federal grant-writing, landing the money for Hawai'i and then creating a program at UH to administer it. At first it was housed in the College of Business, but this year it was moved to Hawaiian Studies, and her administrative staff has grown to four.
With two grants totaling $11 million in four years, Ka'iama's office has helped more than 400 students of Native Hawaiian ancestry earn degrees at universities nationwide.
"The first time, I got everything I asked for," she says, "so the second time around, I asked for a little more and got what I asked for again. It means I can serve so many more kids. It means more scholarships, more graduate assistants, more teaching assistants, more faculty travel."
Ka'iama calls herself a Hawaiian activist, but she does it with federal dollars, grant applications, and a fully developed understanding of how to use the process to offer a better future to a growing number of Native Hawaiian students.
Her office underwrote Nathan Nishimura's research project to assess the damage of invasive seaweed in Waikiki; Ty Tengan's work to facilitate re-interment of Hawaiian bones dug up over the past century on the Mokapu peninsula; and Mary Farias' coming summer on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to study how Hawaiians changed their environment as they migrated here.
"When I think of all the challenges that Native Hawaiians face, I try to look at what will help them immediately," says Ka'iama. "And right now that's education. With every moment that passes I think there has to be more that we can do for our people."
Michael Graves, a UH professor of anthropology who specializes in Hawaiian archaeology and has mentored scholarship students, said the program is making a crucial difference for a broad base of the Native Hawaiian community.
"One of the greatest impediments to Native Hawaiians earning their Ph.D.s is the lack of funding support," said Graves. "So many come from families that don't have the resources. And going for a Ph.D. means a real postponement of immediate earnings, and many people don't have that kind of luxury of time."
Through the grants, Ka'iama is offering students the opportunity she didn't have. As the youngest of five, she stayed in Hawai'i for college, though her two oldest brothers attended Notre Dame.
"My parents said they'd do anything to send me, including getting a third mortgage, but I didn't want to put them in debt," she says. "And besides, no other place had good bodysurfing waves."
A math whiz, she was encouraged by her father to take a path that would lead to a good job. That path led to becoming what she calls "a boring accountant." Nonetheless, she was happily ensconced teaching accounting in the UH College of Business four years ago and raising five children — the youngest are twins — when a fellow teacher enlisted her help to write a grant.
"He wanted to make sure it was culturally sensitive," she said, "and I'm Native Hawaiian. I didn't have a clue how much my life would change."
The more involved she became in developing that first proposal for $1.8 million in scholarship money, the more she realized how far-reaching the program could be. Last year she got a second award, for $9.2 million over four years.
"The only requirements are that you be Native Hawaiian and demonstrate financial need," said Ka'iama. "There's no blood quantum."
Ka'iama also recognized that here was a tool to build leaders of the next generation, who would lead in culturally sensitive ways. "The research projects need to assist the community," she says.
The first money came through in October 1998, and Ka'iama made an executive decision: "Everyone in the pool got money," she says. "It was so cool."
Ka'iama has pushed the money as far as it can go to reach as many students as possible. This year alone, 160 received scholarships. In addition, there have been 25 grants for TAs and GAs, 30 for fieldwork studies and 30 for faculty travel.
Like all college students applying for financial aid, those hoping to receive help from the Native Hawaiian Leadership Project are required to fill out the federal form called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which follows a formula in determining how much help a family is eligible for.
The program makes up the difference between the tuition and the estimated family contribution, worked out through the federal form, said Ka'iama. For instance, if the student has been accepted at UCLA, with a tuition of around $20,000, and the family can pay only $2,000, the program would come up with $18,000.
"We call it meeting their unmet financial need," said Ka'iama. "It's not based on merit and goes straight to the school."
For Kenoa Kamahele Dela Cruz, who spent a year analyzing cross-cultural misunderstandings between professors and students on the UH campus, the research money during her graduate studies in counseling helped her develop a cross-cultural training program for faculty members.
Now a counselor at Hawai'i Community College on the Big Island, Dela Cruz says the grant also gave her a sense her role was valued.
"Being nurtured and mentored and being supported as a younger Hawaiian in taking leadership was the most important factor," says Dela Cruz. "The most important thing is the mission to build Native Hawaiian leaders. There's this sense of kuleana responsibility and that it's a privilege to be able to obtain a higher education."
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
