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The Winter 2017 musical of “Into the Woods” sponsored by the English & Theater Department premiers this week. This is the first production with new head of theater Kristl Densley, replacing the retired Dr. Craig Ferre. Before coming to BYU-Hawaii, Kristl Densley taught theatre and acting at Penn State and Indiana University. She has directed musicals, plays, and operas. Densley herself is a theatre practitioner and an actor.

BYU‒Hawaii officially announces the new academic calendar that will run September-June. BYU‒Hawaii will implement this new calendar starting the semester of Fall 2017. From the revision are significant changes of which to take note.

BYU-Hawaii and the Kaio Family are co-owners of the land in question. BYU-Hawaii has been working with and will continue to work together with the Kaio Ohana LLC to resolve this matter.

The Seasiders Women’s Basketball team has recently returned from a successful Northern California road trip where junior guard, Safia Sheikh, was named Pacific West Conference Player of the Week.

As the first devotional of the semester, President John Tanner welcomed all faculty, staff, and new and returning students for the 2016-2017 Winter semester. This school period began Monday, November 7, just one week after the Commencement Ceremony of the previous fall semester.

With almost 300 graduates, along with family, friends, and professors of BYUH, in attendance the Cannon Activities Center was full in attendance to listen to Elder Neil L. Andersen, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, addressed graduates, their families, and the BYUH campus at the Fall Commencement at BYU-Hawaii 20016 in the Cannon Activities Center.

BYU-Hawaii proudly announces Laura Moana Tevaga as the new head of the University Communications & Relations Department. Laura succeeds Michael A. Johanson as Director of Communications and Marketing. Michael had been serving in this capacity since January 2009 until the beginning of this fall, upon transferring to Brigham Young University in Provo as Director of Alumni Outreach & Communications.

BYU-Hawaii began their Fall theater production season with the play “The Real Inspector Hound.” Written by British playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard, the play tells of two theatre critics who find themselves in the middle of the plot’s action. As a satire on the classic murder mystery, some of the events in the play-within-the-play start to parallel events in the lives of the critics. This featured production had a four night showing schedule from Wednesday, September 29, through Saturday, October 1.

MEXICO CITY—Fredo Solar, a BYU-Hawaii graduate of accounting, has started a chocolate factory in Mexico City. Solar is proud of making one of the best chocolate products in Mexico, but even more important for him is how Bucareli Chocolate helps those who can’t help themselves – something that is embodied in the company’s slogan: “changing lives has never been sweeter.”

On June 27, as part of their “Many Nations, One Family” tour through Japan, the BYU-Hawaii Concert Choir received the high honor of performing at Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine, a major site for Japan’s native Shinto religion. This is the second time the choir has performed there, the first being on their last tour to Japan in 2004. They remain the only Christian group ever permitted to do so.

BYU-Hawaii women’s tennis player Nannan (Dallas) Zhang was selected by the PacWest sports information directors as the 2015-16 PacWest Female Athlete of the Year on Thursday.

The Overnight Camp featuring Stephen Curry for the Warriors Basketball Camp was held at BYU-Hawaii this past week July 2-5, 2016. The four-day/three-night camp took place on the campus for the first time ever. Camp was directed by Warriors Youth Basketball Staff, consisting of collegiate players as well as high school and college coaches. Registration for the camp took place back in February this year.

The Department of Education at Brigham Young University–Hawaii has been recognized in ToBecomeATeacher.org’s National Rankings for the best education programs in the United States. With an overall score of 9.91, Brigham Young University Hawaii came in fourth place, tying evenly with BYU in Provo. The Education Department ranked number one in the State of Hawaii.

His Majesty King Tupou VI and Her Majesty Queen Nanasipau’u of Tonga were joined by dignitaries and guests, as well as hundreds of Brigham Young University–Hawaii students and community members, for the “grand reopening” of the Polynesian Cultural Center’s recently renovated Tongan Village.

From June 14 to June 30, the BYU–Hawaii Concert Choir will literally traverse the whole of Japan by train, plane, and bus, from the distant southern island of Okinawa to the northern island of Hokkaido. The choir will perform at concert halls in Naha (6/17), Hiroshima (6/18), Osaka (6/21), Sapporo (6/23), and Tokyo (6/27), with an additional fireside in Sendai (6/25). With concert tickets already nearly sold out, the choir expects to perform for audiences totaling more than 5,000 people across the country.

Elder Gerrit W. Gong, a member of the Presidency of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will address Brigham Young University–Hawaii’s 250 graduates and their families at this Spring’s commencement ceremony held on Thursday, June 9, 2016, at 9:30 AM in the Cannon Activities Center in Laie, Hawaii.

Esther Candari, a student from Kaneohe, Hawaii, majoring in Visual Arts, completed a sculpture of the apostle Peter and presented it as a gift to President John Tanner and the University as a “small token of gratitude for all he does to help achieve the mission and vision of this special place.”

*UPDATE: If you missed Culture Night 2016, you can watch it online at the following links: