BYU–Hawaii News

Each year the presidency of the BYU–Hawaii Student Association gives a devotional message to all the students and faculty of BYUH. On November 30, Megan Weaver, Executive Vice President, Chase Carlston, Executive Vice President, and Nick Narayan, President, gave a message entitled “Tough Times Don’t Last, Tough People Do!” Read Full Story

The “taco truck” or Tacos Vicente has become a new favorite place to eat for the residents of Laie and the entire North Shore. Tacos Vicente is an authentic Mexican restaurant-on-wheels founded by Axel Diaz and Ryan Hitz, both students at Brigham Young University–Hawaii. Read Full Story

The Laie Hawaii Temple was rededicated on November 21, 2010, following an extended renovation. Several media sources covered the three-week public open house, a large cultural celebration which included more than 2,000 youth from Hawaii, and the actual rededication. Read Full Story

Sister Lupe Piena, director of International Student Services, invited students and faculty to be “in” the world but not “of” the world, at a weekly devotional on November 16. Read Full Story

From tutoring and peer mediation to rainforest restoration and elementary school gardens, BYU–Hawaii students gain practical experience through a wide variety of service learning projects. In IT 224, practical experience comes in the form of computer repair workshops targeted toward helping community members with their hardware and software challenges. The idea of the workshops came from the combined efforts of Tim Stanley and Paul Lupeitu’u, who now teaches the class. Lupetu’u, Information Security Officer, says that he wanted students to learn in situations “where they will get used to what they will be faced with after they graduate.” The class hosts the workshops two weeks at a time during the semester, and the upcoming workshops will mark the 11th semester for this service learning project. The workshops will take place at BYU–Hawaii by appointment Monday-Wednesday, November 15-17 and November 22-24, 2010. According to Chase Miller, a former IT student, the workshops have been a great help to community members in the past. He relates that at a past workshop, “We were able to recover everything from the hard drive of a community member who assumed that all of her family pictures were lost forever. We extracted all of her data and helped her find an appropriate way to back up her information.” Read Full Story

Former BYU-Hawaii professor Steven Harper, addressed students and faculty on the topic of repentance and relating it to Joseph Smith. “I wish to teach and testify of this doctrine by drawing on Joseph’s autobiographies, revelations, and teachings to tell the story of Joseph Smith and hearty repentance,” he said introducing his message. Read Full Story

“Talking about peace is not enough. Writing about peace is not enough. We have to go out and do peace,” urges Chad Ford, the director of the David O. McKay Center for Intercultural Understanding. The idea of the McKay Center originated from former BYU–Hawaii President Eric Shumway who felt that peace was something that was frequently discussed on campus, but students lacked the tools to actually make peace a reality. “I look at peace, not as a noun, but as a verb,” Ford explains. He encourages students in the Intercultural Peacebuilding (IPB) program to do the same. Read Full Story

As Edward D. Smith from the Presidents’ Leadership Council addressed BYU-Hawaii at a weekly devotion he told students and faculty that the things that matter most in life are strengthening our faith and testimony of the Savior, listening to the promptings of the Holy Ghost, and being anxiously engaged in our earthly responsibilities. Read Full Story

“One of the fundamental things for every student to learn while they are on this campus is how to be an effective leader,” says Debbie Hippolite-Wright, vice president for Student Development & Services. “I think every student on the BYU–Hawaii campus needs to leave feeling they have explored that area of study and those [leadership] principles very well, before they return to their home countries.” Hippolite-Wright’s words exemplify a principle on which the BYU–Hawaii administration has placed a renewed focus: student leadership development. The result of that focus is an online leadership resource which has been under construction for the past year. The resource, called iLead and found at ilead.byuh.edu, was launched on November 1 of this year and is now available for use by BYU–Hawaii students and faculty. Read Full Story

“Is my education preparing me for my future?” This is the question Jim Ritchie, director of the Willes Center for International Entrepreneurship, says is the basis for the Great Ideas Exchange held on campus on November 3-4, an event where students can share ideas and receive instruction on how to refine them to better prepare for their careers no matter their area of study. Read Full Story