# Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions Program

# FY 2015 Project Abstracts

## University of Alaska – Ketchikan

Contact Person:  William Urquhart, Ph.D.

Telephone:  907-228-4527; Fax: 907-225-3624

E-mail:  urquhart@uas.alaska.edu

Individual Development Project - $2,247,703.00 over five years.  Strengthening Arts & Sciences eLearning Communities.

Goal: Increase institutional capacity to deliver eLearning degree programs to Alaska Native and rural Alaskan students through:

· Increasing the number of remote rural and Alaska Native students graduating in the Bachelor of Arts in Social Science degree.

· Increasing the sense of belonging to the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) eLearning community among remote and Alaska Native Arts & Sciences eLearning students.

· Increasing the number of students in Arts & Sciences bachelor’s degrees that successfully transition from being advised by general staff advisors to being advised by faculty members who teach courses within their major.

· Increasing the number of eLearning Arts & Sciences students in internships, practicums, and related community organization placements.

· Increasing access to orientation and advising among first-year, returning, and non-degree-seeking eLearning rural and Alaska Native students.

· Increasing access to career services advising for remote and Alaska Native eLearning students.

· Increasing physical community presence of UAS staff and students through face- to-face advising of eLearning students in remote areas.

· Increasing access to educational technology needed for successful degree completion among remote rural and Alaska Native students.

· Through increased tuition revenue from meeting the above goals, to have a new faculty position and additional staff advising positions become self-sustaining with internal UAS general funds at close of the grant period.

Central strategies for reaching the above goals:

· Hire of an Assistant Professor of Government and Sociology to teach in both disciplines and offer faculty advising and social science tutoring.

· Hire of two Arts & Sciences eLearning Outreach Advisors to provide initial/orientation advising, career services advising, and internship/community service placement for remote rural and Alaska Native students; and travel for face-to-face advising outreach in students’ home communities, increasing relationships with students, community organizations, and potential employers for UAS students.

· Contract with web developers to create an online community site for eLearning students to create a sense of belonging to the UAS eLearning community, build cohorts of student peer networks, and identification with the degree program for remote rural and Alaska Native students.

Purchase and loan educational technology required for student success to rural and Alaska Native eLearning students for the duration of the project.

## University of Alaska Southeast, Sitka Campus 

**Title:**Complete to Compete:  A Holistic Approach to Student Success for Alaska Native and High-Need Students 

The University of Alaska Southeast, Sitka Campus (UAS Sitka) is committed to creating new pathways while enhancing old ones to provide an education super-highway for Alaska Natives and high-need students, both face-to-face and through outreach and online course offerings to approximately 100 communities statewide. We want students to compete with their own human potential and to gain the skills necessary to compete in the workplace. We want them to do so by completing their own individualized higher educational goals.

UAS Sitka will integrate academic affairs and student affairs to build a seamless Student Success Model which brings together Student Development (SD), Faculty and Staff Development (FSD), and Campus Capacity Development (CCD) to meet the Alaska Native-Native Hawaiian (ANNH) Performance Measures associated with this competition while increasing enrollment, retention, progress, and completion of Alaska Natives and high-need students.

UAS Sitka qualifies for this competition based on our high percentage of Alaska Native students and meets or exceeds the Absolute Priority and both Competitive Preference Priorities. This application does not address the optional Invitational Priority.

This program will be implemented through five goals and 28 measurable, realistic objectives drawn from locally-based needs assessment and strategic planning, a research-based logic model, and a strong external evaluation.

**Quick Reference—Goals of UAS Sitka Title III Application**

**Goal One:**  To establish and to promote a holistic approach to student success as the hub around which all activities at UAS Sitka revolve by integrating student affairs and academic affairs (SD, FSD, CCD).

**Goal Two:**  To build a stronger sense of UAS Sitka community and institutional identity, both within the university and externally, toward the enhancement of student success (SD, CCD, FSD).

**Goal Three:**  To increase and to enhance the Sitka campus’s capacity for and practices in data collection, analysis, and analytics to enable more data-driven decision making toward continuous improvement (CCD, SD, FSD).

**Goal Four:** To develop, pilot, evaluate, and refine research-based best practices to support historically underserved Alaska Native and high-risk students, both as a single demographic and as sub-groups within that demographic (CCD, SD, FSD).

**Goal Five:**  To fully execute a UAS Sitka Virtual Campus in which services are available to both online and face-to-face students at the same level of high quality (SD, FSD, CCD).

## University of Alaska Fairbanks - Interior-Aleutians Campus

**Title:  Sustaining Progress**

The Interior-Aleutians Campus (IAC) is submitting a five-year Individual Development Grant application.  IAC is a designated Alaska Native Servicing Institution and eligible for Title III grant funds. The goals for the *Sustaining Progress*application are to:  1) Increase postsecondary success; 2) Expand and improve course delivery; and 3) Maintain institutional stability.  This grant will accomplish these goals through the following activities.

It will increase student proficiency in math and English by providing faculty members and student support staff in those subjects. It will increase academic preparation in the gatekeeper subjects of math and English though tutoring. It will promote course and program completion by increasing the access to math and English, increasing the number of practical skill development courses available to students, providing travel for on-site course delivery in rural communities, and providing students with IT support.

It will provide a wide array of student services for existing and potential students.  Student Services staff supported by this grant provide information on educational opportunities,  programs and resources at IAC, information and/or aid with university processes, enrollment and financial aid, counseling and advising as well as tutoring and tech support.  Student support services will promote student achievement by helping students define their educational goals, providing follow up services, and motivational coaching that encourages students to stay on track and complete their courses and academic degrees. It will proactively seek to aid students that are falling behind in courses at the time of the low grade report or at the recommendation of the instructor.  It will provide pre-emptive tech support for new students.  It will increase access to student services in remote villages (over 90 percent of the communities IAC serves) through a Traveling Student Support Coordinator. These activities will reach high-need students and encourage enrollment, academic preparation and course and degree completion.

This grant will provide training and conference opportunities for faculty and staff members. This training and networking will be used to update and improve academic courses and delivery methods for faculty members. It will keep student support staff current with best practices, changes in financial aid and emerging issues in higher education.

It will provide campus-wide strategic planning sessions that develop annual plans and a five-year plan at the end of the grant cycle.

IAC expects to:  1) meet math and English proficiency levels set by UAF (all units); 2) provide student services to rural locations at least 20 times per year; 3) provide classes in six rural communities per year; 4) have 10 percent of students (average) per year complete their certificate or associate degree programs; 5) develop and pilot Alaska Native language classes; and 6) conduct strategic planning sessions with stakeholders and produce planning documents.

The mid-term outcomes for this project are to: increase student enrollment and persistence; increase the number of students who take multiple courses and take consecutive courses; expand faculty members skill set and knowledge and use these to improve academic quality; and to use planning to guide the campus.

The long-term outcomes are to increase the number of students who complete certificate and degree programs and maintain institutional stability.

## University of Hawai’i Maui College and Kapiolani Community College

**Cooperative Arrangement Grant**

**Project Title**:  **“*Lawelawe Poʻokela*: Strengthening Institutional Capacity for Student Success” ($4,496,726 over five years, two institutions)**

**Institutional/Student Profile:**University of Hawaiʻi Maui College (UHMC) enrolls 3,809 students, and serves the islands of Maui, Molokai and Lanai, as well as two remote locations in Lahaina and Hana. UHMC enrolls 1193 Native Hawaiian (NH) students, comprising 31.3 percent of its total student population. Kapiolani Community College (KCC) currently enrolls 7994 students, is located on the island of Oahu, the most populous of the Hawaiian Islands.  KCC enrolls 1326 NH students, or 16.6 percent of its total student population. Together UHMC and KCC serve over 2500 NH students, and both have significant performance gaps of their NH student populations including retention, degrees awarded, and transfer to higher levels of education.

**Problems:  (1) Professional development**for faculty and staff who work at Native Hawaiian-serving institutions, especially in the most isolated archipelago in the world, is limited, and system funds for professional investment have fallen significantly short in the last four of five years. To cultivate greater leadership among faculty and staff of Native Hawaiian ancestry or with an interest in Hawaiian culture, history, and language, access to high quality degree programs is required.  (**2) Institutional management**becomes constrained when funds management is inefficient and administrative time detracts from the core mission of teaching and learning.  To relieve personnel of burdensome paperwork, more efficient, streamlined, and supportive measures are needed, which may include rethinking how business gets done.

**Strategies:***Lavelave Poʻokela*, which means “quality service,” addresses significant institutional challenges for NH student success. Working together, UHMC and KCC will:  1) Support professional development, and faculty/staff fellowships to assist in attaining advanced degrees; and 2) Strengthen funds management and administrative management by creating “shared services centers.”

· Professional Development.  UHMC and KCC will provide professional development opportunities by leveraging technology to provide high-quality online courses, learning communities, and advanced degree programs. Higher education of faculty and staff translates into greater ability to provide leadership and meet the challenges of a rapidly changing workforce and society with academic programs and student support services that integrate Hawaiian tradition and culture within modern contexts. Outcomes include a 20 percent increase in faculty and staff pursuing advanced educational and training opportunities. This addresses Competitive Priority Preference #2.

Shared Services Centers.  These centers will access new technologies and processes that streamline day-to-day business and personnel activities, allowing these institutions to respond to faculty, staff, and student needs in a more nimble and cost-effective manner. By focusing on management of external funds, these shared services centers will create greater institutional capacity to develop and implement innovative programs and learner-centric initiatives, thus allowing the institution to make the transitions necessary to become the indigenous-serving institutions they aspire to be. Outcomes include 20 greater efficiency in business services, 25 percent higher satisfaction rate of services by campus personnel, and potential cost savings in terms of more efficient use of time, staff, funding, and technology resources.

## Chaminade University

**Title:**  Strengthening Student Retention, Advising and Career Preparation and Expanding Faculty Development at Chaminade University

This proposal is an effort to restructure and focus the areas of academic advising, student services and faculty development to significantly increase the retention, graduation rate and career preparation of Chaminade students. Our goal is to increase fall to fall retention rate to 75 percent and the six-year graduation rate to 50 percent.

At present, advising, career counseling and tutoring services are in separate units. Our experience shows that academic success, clarity of academic and career goals and selection of coursework and a major are all closely linked.  Therefore, we propose to form a single new unit that addresses all these concerns in a unified manner. The significantly expanded resources will allow for “intrusive advising,” actively seeking out students who are exhibiting warning signs (e.g., missing classes, poor fourth week grades, on academic probation, have completed 30 credit hours or more and not declared a major).

One specialized form of academic advising/career preparation is for those of our students seeking entry to a health profession school upon graduation (e.g., dental, medical, veterinary).  In 2010 we established an Office of Health Professions Advising and Undergraduate Research.  We are now at the point where each year over 50 of our new students indicate an interest in pursuing a health profession after graduation.  In the fall of 2015, nine of our graduates will begin studies in a health profession – more than all in the period 2000 to 2009.  To support this success and increasing demand, we propose further expansion of this office and the forms of assistance it provides to our undergraduates.

Both for its intrinsic value and in support of our initiatives in retention, advising and career preparation, the second focus is on faculty development. This spring, Chaminade recruited an Associate Provost for Faculty Development, Assessment and Research.  The activities detailed in this proposal will allow this Associate Provost to provide a broad range of services in support of our faculty.  A key activity is the staffing and programming of our Center for Teaching and Learning.  (Note that the renovations needed to prepare the space for this center are being funded by a Title III Part F ANNH renovation grant awarded to Chaminade last year.) This will allow faculty to learn of and gain experience with both alternate classroom and virtual teaching strategies.  It will be a gathering place for members of the faculty to share ideas/approaches with their colleagues and reflect on presentations of best practices in university instruction.

Recognizing the importance of demonstrating that our graduates have an appropriate mastery of their discipline as well as of core competencies (e.g., written and oral communication, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and information literacy), a second responsibility of the newly appointed Associate Provost is the dissemination, monitoring and the application of the findings of our institution-wide assessment activities to curriculum and faculty renewal.  This will be an essential support to achieving our goal of fully “placement-ready” graduates.  Finally, the Associate Provost will be responsible for working with faculty to assist in developing and achieving a plan of scholarship and publication, seeking grant support as possible.  Increasing the proportion of our faculty actively involved in scholarship will enrich the campus academic culture as well as provide our undergraduate students with additional opportunities for on-campus research experiences.

## University of Hawai’i Maui College

The purpose of this proposal is to increase academic success for Native Hawaiian (NH) Students the University of Hawai‘i Maui College (UHMC), a tri-island college with its main campus situated in Kahului Maui, Hawai‘i. UHMC is one of seven colleges in the University of Hawai‘i Community College system, and offers certificates, associate degrees, baccalaureate degrees, and through its University Center baccalaureate and graduate degrees.

In fall 2014, UHMC had a total enrollment of 3,809 students, of which the greatest percentage was Hawaiian/ Part Hawaiian (29 percent). As evident by these statistics UHMC far exceeds the 10 percent Native Hawaiian student population set by US DOE to qualify for this grant.

Although NH students are the College’s largest ethnic group, they are achieving success at much lower rates than other groups on several measures including below 100 Math and English course success, fall to spring and fall to fall retention, graduation and transfer rates.

The design of the proposal is to assist underprepared and at-risk students in getting them college ready prior to them beginning their first fall semester. To that end the College is proposing to increase college-going through pre-college preparation, create a successful First Year Experience, and establish a Native Hawaiian and Non-NH Faculty & Staff Professional Development Program, and Native Hawaiian Student Leadership Program.

The proposed activities target three groups of at-risk students:

· Qualified Hana high school students will be well prepared to succeed at UHMC because they will have taken college courses before they earn their diplomas and will easily transition into their first year with support from the proposed summer bridge program.

· Two UHMC college cohorts: 1) new full time freshmen; and 2) full and part-time non- traditional students will use also use a summer bridge program to take developmental and college level math and English courses, a will start a foundations course to be completed in the fall, that includes an immersion experience, and an orientation course, that combined, will be the catalyst to ignite their motivation and start them well on the road to achieving purpose in their lives, succeeding in their classes and earning their college degrees.

· Finally, to support a UH priority to indigenize the College, a Native Hawaiian and Non-NH Faculty and Staff Professional Development Program, and Native Hawaiian Student Leadership Program will be established to allow students and faculty to dialogue about ways to increase student engagement, communication, improve learning and develop strategies to decrease barriers and increase the institution’s capacity to serve NH students.

UHMC lab space will be made available to the program to create a *pu‘uhonua*, a NH Place of Learning for program participants to get a sense of place and belonging to gather, socialize and study with students who share similar backgrounds. Looking at students as whole people with real problems outside of the institutions, the program will make office space and desk time available to offer wraparound services to close the distance between needy students and campus, community, federal and state service providers.

## Kapiolani Community College

**Title:  Phase II - Kauhale Ke Kuleana (the Responsibility of the Whole Village)**

**Strengthening Kapiolani’s Campus and Culture for Student Success**

The University of Hawaii – Kapiolani Community College (KapCC) is the largest two-year institution in the Honolulu urban area, serving nearly 7,994 students in fall 2014; of which 1,326 (16.6 percent) are Native Hawaiians.  Native Hawaiians have lower persistence (fall-to-fall), transfer and graduation rates in comparison with all students. KapCC’s project is a Phase II to its Title III Part F renovation project, which establishes the physical infrastructure through targeted renovations to provide an environment conducive for student success. Title III Part A investment will provide the necessary funding to create a campus culture of success which advances research-based high impact student support and teaching practices, improved evaluation systems, and fiscal stability.  Coupled with the Title III Part F renovations, this Title III Part A project directly addresses Native Hawaiian student achievement gaps in persistence, transfer, and graduation rates through one activity – Increasing Native Hawaiian Student’s Access to Success – thereby employing strategies which will increase the success, progression, degree completion and transfer rates of full-time college students.****The project will provide highly structured pathways for students to advance from basic skills to an associate degree and/or transfer.  The activity will address four institutional goals and 24 performance measures through three major component objectives:

· Objective 1 - Improve Academic Program Support for Native Hawaiian Students: Strategies to strengthen academic program support to assist in persistence, transfer, and/or graduation within three years. Programs: Develop, implement, assess, and improve research-based high impact student support and teaching practices to: 1) achieve strategic institutional goals and performance measures identified above; 2) reduce achievement gaps for Native Hawaiian students; 3) strengthen student engagement as measured by CCSSE; and 4) strengthen student learning as measured by qualitative and quantitative methods.

· Objective 2 - Improve Student Support Services for Native Hawaiian Students (Addresses Competitive Priority 1 & 2): Strengthen assessment, evaluation, and improvement systems to: 1) better manage course, program, and institutional learning outcomes assessment and deepen student learning; and 2) improve cohort tracking of student progress from entry, through first and second years, transfer to UH four-year campuses, jobs and careers by sector (private, public, non-profit); and integrate new measures into three year Comprehensive Program Review and Institutional Effectiveness Measures to guide budget and resource allocation.

· Objective 3 - Improve Fiscal Stability and Capacity: 1) increasing tuition and fee revenue through enrollment management strategies more sharply focused on student success and persistence to completion, transfer, employment, and community engagement; 2) improving grants management and business office functions.

This project addresses the Absolute Priority, meets both Competitive Preference Priorities, and the Invitational Priority.  We will improve student support services through professional development of current faculty, counselors, and staff, and hire new personnel to focus on academic pathways, access to financial aid, career exploration and professional development for Native Hawaiian students.  The project will strengthen Native Hawaiian language preservation and revitalization by developing a Hawaiian 290 course – Hawaiian Language and Culture through Application – which will prepare students to serve as Hawaiian language and culture resources as interpreters on campus and in the community through volunteer experiences.  Ultimately, we seek to close and eliminate achievement gaps and better prepare Native Hawaiian students for productive persistence to transfer and career opportunities.

## Windward Community College

**Title:  Kahua Hoonaauao: Foundations of Knowledge Building**

Despite strong student support initiatives like our First Year Experience, Windward Community College (WCC) continues to experience low course success in developmental education, particularly for Native Hawaiians. Enrollment has peaked and is decreasing. This has resulted in fewer evening offerings for working adults. WCC also has low persistence, and graduation rates, particularly for Native Hawaiians. Persistence and success are significantly lower for online courses, which creates further issues for working adults who choose online courses for scheduling flexibility and due to lack of evening courses. Based on an analysis of institutional strengths and weakness, this project proposes three goals and three associated activities:

*Goals:*

· Increase ... the participation and completion of students, particularly Native Hawaiians, low-income students and those from underserved regions.... (Hawaii Graduation Initiative)

· ...develop... research, education and training enterprise that addresses the challenges and opportunities faced by Hawaiʻi and the world. (Hawaii Innovation Initiative)

· ... provide a diverse student body throughout Hawaiʻi with affordable access to a superb higher education ..., being a foremost indigenous-serving university and advancing sustainability. (High Performance Mission Driven System)

*Activities:*

1. **Kahua Hoʻonui ʻike**:  **Foundation of Increasing Knowledge**

Building a foundation of success, as measured by successful course completion, for underprepared students through specific targeted interventions using a coaching paradigm to increase self-efficacy and effective resource utilization.

2. **Kahua Paʻa:  Solid Foundation**

Building a foundation of success, as measured in graduation and transfer rates, for Native Hawaiian students through Hawaiian language based coursework.

3. **Kahua ʻoihana:  Workforce Foundation**

Building resources, which use technology and flexible scheduling, to increase access and success to postsecondary education for working adults, as measured by enrollment, course success, and graduation rates.

Successful completion of this project will result in real and positive change for this Native Hawaiian serving institution and our community. Through implementing the activities and their associated tasks, we will increase success in Developmental Math (projected 15 percent increase) and Developmental English (10 percent), enrollment of Native Hawaiian adult learners (10 percent), online course success (five percent), Associate in Arts Hawaiian Studies degree awards (50 percent), overall degree completion (25 percent), and graduation and transfer (15 percent). This impact on graduation is so strong because our current graduation rate is low (13 percent). Associate in Arts Hawaiian Studies degrees are particularly impacted through activity 2 as it reaches an underserved population (Hawaiian immersion school graduates) and because this degree is relatively new (nine graduates last year). The immersion coursework created will be the first of its kind in our community college system. This institutional improvement is done sustainably, achievably, and effectively, working toward institutionalization throughout the project.

## University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and University of Hawai’i Maui College

**Title:  Kekaulike: A Collaborative Partnership between the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College**

*Kekaulike:  To share equally, equality, equity, justice, mutual, to equalize, balance*

This proposal is for a collaborative grant between the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH Mānoa) and the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College (UH Maui).  UH Mānoa serves the largest number of Native Hawaiian students engaged in higher education across the University of Hawaiʻi System (UH System), which consists of 10 campuses, three universities and seven community colleges.  UH Maui, on the other hand, is the newest university within the UH System and the only institution of higher education within Maui County, which includes the rural islands of Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi.

This proposal includes the following overarching goals to increase, improve and expand:

· Multi-disciplinary research and networking opportunities for Native Hawaiian students, faculty, and staff.

· Academic access between the two campuses, by providing transfer bridge support for UH Maui students transferring to UH Mānoa, as well as pre-transfer online academic and co- curricular support for UH Maui students.

· UH Maui Native Hawaiian faculty and staff support to obtain advanced degrees at UH Mānoa through fellowships that will strengthen the knowledge base of UH Maui faculty and staff.

· Place-based and for-credit learning experiences for Native Hawaiian students at both campuses through the support of place-based, Hawaiian language, and culture-based practicum and field school opportunities.

In 2014, Native Hawaiians comprised 31 percent of the student body enrolled at UH Maui, more than any other ethnic group.  Together the two institutions serve 30.1 percent of Native Hawaiians in the UH System (4,088 of the total 13,579 in the UH System). Among many other indicators, the rise of UH Maui college transfers into UH Mānoa, and UH Maui’s transition into a four year university, make this collaborative partnership an impactful prospect.  This partnership will promote individual student success for Native Hawaiians at UH Maui by strengthening the educational pipeline between UH Mānoa, the system’s only Research I institution, and UH Maui, the systems newest baccalaureate offering institution.  While Native Hawaiian student success, and access, are key principles to this proposed partnership, the grant proposal also includes institutional strengthening components that aim to increase access to advanced degrees at UH Mānoa for Native Hawaiian faculty of UH Maui. For these reasons, and many others, we believe this to be a fruitful collaborative partnership.

UH Mānoa serves more Native Hawaiian students than any other campus in the UH System reaching 2,895 individuals in 2014.  UH Maui, on the other hand, is the only institution of higher learning in Maui County, which consists of the large rural communities throughout East Maui, as well as the predominantly Islands of Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi.  This proposed project is unique in that it meets the absolute priority, both competitive priorities and the invitational priority, which is testament to the uniqueness and strength of the partnering campuses and institutional departments involved in this proposed project.

## Honolulu Community College

**Title:  Hoʻāla hou – Renewing a Pathway to Student Success Through Culture-Based Learning**

Through two foundational goals Honolulu Community College proposes to increa**se**access, enrollment and successful completion of academic credentials of Native Hawaiian students.  The first goal is to establish an enrollment pathway to Honolulu Community College for Native Hawaiian students and create a sense of place at the college for Native Hawaiians that is culturally significant and relevant. This will be done through a series of four activities which include:  (1) Developing and implementing a culturally appropriate outreach and recruitment plan focused on increasing access and enrollment to the college by Native Hawaiians; (2) Creating a team of peer mentors to outreach to the community and establish community based partnerships; (3) Erecting a *hālau*(community gathering space) through traditional community building practices; and (4) Creating a digital cultural and historical bilingual (Hawaiian and English) tour of the campus and native plant species.

The second goal is to create a culture and place-based training program for faculty, staff, and administrators aimed at infusing Hawaiian culture, traditions and values in teaching, learning and service in order to support student success and completion. This will be done through a series of three activities which include:  (1) Creating a culture and place-based training program based on the Hawaiian resource management system of *ahupuaʻa*and *ʻIke ʻĀina*; (2) Establishing a cohort of mentors to sustain what is learned through the training program; and (3) Using technology to deliver the training materials for future use.

## University of Hawai’i at West Oahu and Maui College

**Title:  Building and Bridging Hawaiian Futures**

Cooperative Arrangement Development Title III Proposal

**Need**.****Two relatively new four-year institutions of the University of Hawai`i System join forces to work on improving and extending services to Native Hawaiians. Besides concerns of the target group’s low performance statistics, this Title III, cooperative arrangement proposal proactively addresses current and anticipated needs of Native Hawaiian students in order that they may succeed in postsecondary education.  Success will be measured primarily by increases in retention and graduation rates in degree programs. The two colleges are located in areas where the highest proportion of Native Hawaiian students comprises the public high schools’ enrollment. Several of these schools are among the state’s schools with the highest poverty rates and the lowest proficiency proportions in Reading, Mathematics, and Science. 

**Development Components.**The components of the project involve the:

· Academic Approach – developing a BA program in Hawaiian Studies; and

· Student-Based Support – compensating for learning gaps and reinforcing sustainable relationships and skills.

Both components seek to integrate the latest technological tools into course and service delivery designs.

**Budget.**To develop and serve the Native Hawaiian on at least four islands, the budget requested

includes expenditure for academic curriculum development, professional development, effective teaching, information technology, and student-involvement support activities. The budgetary request for each year of the five-year project totals $899,994 for Year One and $896,922 for the remaining four years.

## University of Hawai’i at Hilo and Hawai’i Community College

The University of Hawaii at Hilo (UH Hilo) and Hawaii Community College (HawCC) are part of the University of Hawaii System of public higher education, which includes 10 campuses: three universities, seven community colleges and dozens of community-based education, training and research centers across the Hawaiian Islands.

As Native Hawaiian-Serving institutions, UH Hilo and HawCC have unique roles in providing higher education opportunities to the island of Hawaii, the southernmost and largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. The main campuses of UH Hilo and HawCC are located half a mile apart in Hilo, the business and government center of the island. UH Hilo shares campus facilities and services including offices and classrooms, library services, health services, food services, and student housing with HawCC. UH Hilo administers an education center 40 miles from the main campus that provides credit and non-credit courses for both institutions. HawCC also administers the UH Center at West Hawaii located in Kona, approximately 94 miles from Hilo.

Ranked as the most diverse four-year public institution by U.S. News and World Report in 2014, UH Hilo offers a wide range of academic programs including baccalaureate degrees in 37 fields, two post-baccalaureate teacher education programs, master degrees in eight fields, and four doctorate degrees.  Enrollment in fall 2014 consisted of 3,924 undergraduate and graduate students, with over 50 percent being low-income and first-generation college students.  Women comprised 60 percent of the total enrollment and the mean age was 25 years.  Ethnic minorities comprised over 73 percent of the student body with Asian/Pacific Islanders being the largest umbrella racial/ethnic group - Native Hawaiians being the largest within that group at 25.9 percent of the total student population.  There were 279 full-time faculty and 98 adjunct faculty with a faculty-to-student ratio of 1:14.

Utilizing the Hawaiian concept of *Kauhale*, an “academic village without walls,” HawCC offers 26 different programs of study including liberal arts, Hawaii Life Styles, Hawaiian Studies, public services, health services, technical trades, and the intensive study of the English language.  It awards associate degrees in 25 fields and more than 35 certificates and noncredit degrees.  In fall 2014, 3,186 students were enrolled with over 55 percent being low-income college students.  Fifty-eight percent of the students were female and the mean age was 27 years.  Ethnic minorities comprised almost 82 percent of the student body including 42 percent Native Hawaiians, the largest percentage within the UH system.  There were 116 full-time faculty and 100 adjunct faculty with a faculty-to-student ratio of 1:15.

Promoting and sustaining a Hawaiian worldview in the UH Hilo and HawCC campus environment, programs, services and leadership to increase the success of Native Hawaiian students, faculty and staff, will be the focus of this project.  The absolute priority,****increasing the number and proportion of high-need students who persist and graduate from college will be accomplished through their participation in three grant activities. The grant activities are, Activity One:  Building Capacity Through Leadership Development; Activity Two:  Strengthening Campus and Community Engagement; and Activity Three:  Facilitating Hawaiian Language, Culture and Knowledge Learning Pathways.

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