Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 30, Number 4, 1 April 2013 — Chaminade's leader in Native Hawaiian Partnerships [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Chaminade's leader in Native Hawaiian Partnerships

lnterviewed by Mary Aliee Ka'iulani Milham Having earning her doctorate exploring the dark business of Native Hawaiians' overrepresentation in prison, RaeDeen Keahiolalo-Karasuda, Chaminade University's new director of Native Hawaiian Partnerships, is relishing the ehanee to work on the brighter side - seeking ways to increase the number of Native Hawaiians attaining higher education, and to intervene through education in the lives of children of incarcerated parents so that they never have to see the inside of a prison. Keahiolalo-Karasuda, who took on the role in February, spoke with KWO days into her new job. KWO: What were the key experiences that influenced your path to higher education? RK:My father grew up in Kalihi, fairly poor. When he was in the 10th grade, he went to apply for Kamehameha Schools, and actually never told his parents until he was admitted. . . . He decided in his senior year he was going to go the continent to pursue his higher education and ended up with a bachelor's of science in hnanee from San Diego State University. And he had a full ride to go all the way to a Ph.D., but he decided that he wanted to eome back home . . . to go to work and support his family, because by that time me and my brother right helow me were born. He started his own insurance brokerage and heeame very successful. He was the first Native Hawaiian to make it to the Million Dollar Round Table. ... Because of all his experiences - growing up and going to college and having his world open - he really raised us to value higher education. . . . That was something my father was very strict about: make sure that you go to school, you get good grades, you do well. KWO: Was this a nalui al path for you? RK: In a way it was, but after high school I decided that I didn't want to go that straight path to college. I wanted to go to work; I wanted to be independent. ... I didn't go back until I was 30 years old. At the time, I was living in Maui, so I started at Maui Community College. ... I had been in the trenches working in a plaee called Alternatives to Violence and . . . doing a lot of community education and direct services and really wanted to go back to school. ... I didn't really have the luxury, by then, of having my parents' hnaneial

support to help me. And a key event in my life was I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and then a month later the agency shut down. . . . And that desire to obtain a higher degree was what led me on my path. I started working on my core courses in ' 93 and remained a full-time student and a fulltime employee until 2008 when I got my Ph.D. from UH-Mānoa. KWO: What is the mission of Chaminade's Native Hawaiian Partnership program? RK: The beauty of Chaminade is, the Marianist community and their values are very aligned with Hawaiian values. There is such a sense of community and family on campus. Chaminade doesn't just look into the intellectual health but we look at educating the whole student, so it's mind, heart, hands, feet. We prepare people not just to get an education but to go out there and serve their community, to make a livable wage. KWO: What wiii you he doing in this new position? RK:We are a Native Hawaiian-serving institution . . . part of that means that we want to recruit more Native Hawaiian students to campus. And on my end, I do want . . . to attract more Native Hawaiian faculty. A big part of my position is to act as a liaison between the campus community and our external community, and so establishing and initiating program grants, recruiting, retention, creating partnerships. For instance, in our nursing program we have partnerships with Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Kamehameha Schools and Queen's hospital. They're all giving matching contributions for six students to go through the nursing cohort. . . . That's something my predecessor (the late Henry Gomes) created and built and it's coming to fruition now. . . . They're going to go through four years of nursing education and eome out debt free. ... And it's also tied in to Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive ( Heahh Center) and Windward Community College, so that we're creating a pathway model for people to go from their CNA, certified nursing aid, education to nursing. We also have a 50 percent tuition discount scholarship for people who are in Hawaiian civic clubs. ... And we have $1,500 scholarships for students who have eome through the charter schools or immersion schools and those $1,500 scholarships are in addition to institutional aid. The fact that we have so many Hawaiians who

are getting educated ean only contribute to the heahh of our people, our nation. I think that's part of the movement within the movement, especially over the last 10 years. KWO: How will your experience and passion working in the ī ealm of Native Hawaiian imprisonment inloi ni your work at Chaminade? RK: I really believe it's undeniable that education ean act as a strategy for intervention and prevention. For one, it ean be the way out for people who have been incarcerated. ... (As something dear to my heart), I'm going to start to hopefully build something for adult children of incarcerated parents who often go through the foster care system and age out and have nowhere to go, but who are highly motivated. . . . My passion in that area points to education as a way out. It's also a way to prevent people from going into prison and break the intergenerational cycle of incarceration. ... I always have that in my mind . . . that creating access to higher education for Native Hawaiians is vital to our heahh, to our well-being, politically, intellectually, spiritually, physically, mentally - creating that access and having people stay in school and graduate and heeome productive leaders in our community. ■ Mary Aliee Ka'iulani Miīham, a Portland, Oregon-based freelance journalist, is a former newspaper reporter and columnist from California's Central Coast.

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Courtesy photo: Ctiaminade University