Campus Community

The Willes Center for Entrepreneurship at BYU–Hawaii is well known for hosting its annual Great Ideas competition in the Fall and a companion event in the Winter semester called Empower Your Dreams. While the Great Ideas competition is typically comprised of students presenting business ideas and plans, this year included a new twist, matching the rapid evolving pace of the millennial generation. With YouTube being the world’s second largest search engine, the Fall 2014 business competition focused on video. The official title of this year’s competition was the “Great Ideas Video Competition: Tell Your Business Story.”

It’s common knowledge that attendance matters at any level of educational setting. Unexcused absence from school, or truancy, has been a significant issue in the United States for many decades. Now, thanks to a new wide-ranging study, educators can have better tools to help students want to be in class and even be better prepared for their time there.

BYU–Hawaii has many resources for providing students the support they need to successfully pursue their education, including various labs and centers for tutoring, counseling, and advice. The newly renamed Center for Academic Success (previously called the Center for Academic Support) is one of these.

BYU–Hawaii welcomes a new director of enterprise information systems: Jeff Strain. Strain comes from the LDS Church Educational System, working there since February 2001. He started at LDS Business College where he worked with Oracle and PeopleSoft and helped organize and jump start a helpdesk. While at LDSBC, Strain served on several technical CES-wide committees. He continued his involvement on the committees but made the switch to BYU (Provo) in April 2005. There, Jeff helped in maturing their ERP system as well as their Linux environments.

In October 2014, Dr. Helena M. A. Hannonen, a BYU–Hawaii faculty member, received the Lowell Benson Lifetime Service Award from the BYU Marriott School of Management. Dr. Hannonen received the prestigious award for her many years of involvement in BYU’s Management Society, particularly for all her work as the president of Silicon Valley chapter and starting Silicon Valley WOMEN, as well as being the regional director for Northern California and later Asia-Pacific regions.

This week, the Music and Theatre department presents the world premiere of the play One Tattered Angel, written by Craig Ferre and adapted from the book by Blaine Yorgason.

The BYU–Hawaii Ohana has recently announced changes in the university’s academic leadership. Some of these appointments and changes have previously been announced and took affect as of the beginning of the new academic year. With these changes, an extension of gratitude is expressed to those who have served in the various academic assignments for all the time, energy and dedication they put forth.

Missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are easily identified by their black nametags. These “Elders” and “Sisters” between the ages of 18-26 serve for 18 or 24 months, away from their families and often in foreign places. To qualify as a missionary, each person must live a standard of worthiness and must meet certain health qualifications.

Tahiti in the summertime means time for hanging out on the beach and surfing at Teahupoo, but for one group of students hoping to attend BYU–Hawaii, this summer meant English class, five hours a day, five days a week for eight weeks.

Starting in 2015, BYU–Hawaii will be implementing a new academic calendar. In an academic year, there will now be three equal 14-week semesters: Fall, Winter, and Spring. Fall semester will begin in August and go through October. Winter will start in November and finish in February with a two-week break for Christmas. Spring semester will begin in March and continue through the first week of June. There will then be a seven-week summer break between Spring and Fall semesters. Each semester will be formatted the same, having the same number of weeks and more consistent course offerings as well as a graduation ceremony following each semester. This means that graduates will be able to walk once they complete their coursework instead of walking first and then attending another session or semester.

The students at BYU–Hawaii come from 70 countries, giving the campus a unique fusion of culture and language. The English language proves to be a crucial tool as the students communicate with their international classmates, and many international students hone their English skills through immersion and practice. This also means that the children of married international students are growing up in multilingual families. A new program, staffed by current students, is now giving these children enhanced opportunities to learn English while their parents attend the university.

Summer in Laie usually means time in the sun and a break from the rigors of school, but for 57 students, two weeks out of the summer break were spent in the classroom. In June and July, Accounting, Business, and Computer & Information Systems students participated in a SAP TERP10 course.

On Tuesday, August 26, 2014, Vai Sikahema, President of the Cherry Hill New Jersey Stake and NBC10 News Today news anchor and sports director, will speak at the weekly Devotional at 11 AM in the Cannon Activities Center.

What do you get when you combine the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC), members of the deaf community, and students from BYU–Hawaii? An experience of a lifetime. Recently, BYU–Hawaii’s ASL (American Sign Language) Club partnered with the PCC to give tours to members of Hands and Voices, a nonprofit organization which helps parents with deaf children.

BYU–Hawaii welcomes Edwin Rogers as the new Director of University Housing and Residential Life.