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Justin Smith | University Advancement | 6 October 2006 Last week, the undefeated BYU-Hawaii women's volleyball team dominated Grand Canyon – winning in three straight games. But this match produced more than just a victory. This particular victory provided Head Coach Wilfred Navalta with his 500th career win.

"I wasn't keeping track," said Navalta, admitting he really didn't know how close he was to reaching the milestone. "After we played, we went out to dinner as a team and the players and coaches made a special presentation, including a nice letter from President Shumway and Coach Wagner (Athletic Director) congratulating me in my 500th victory. That's when I found out."

Mike Foley | University Advancement | 6 October 2006 Three officials from the State Administration for Religious Affairs in Beijing recently came to BYU-Hawaii, toured the Polynesian Cultural Center and previewed three songs the BYU-Hawaii Concert Choir will sing during their tour of China and Mongolia in May 2007.

The officials — Yanming Wang, Division Chief of the Administration's Fourth Department; Dr. Wei Qi, Deputy Director of Division I; and Wang Sheng Cai — had earlier visited Utah where they met the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at a dinner hosted by Elder Donald L. Staheli, the recently released member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy who oversees China relations for the Church and is a new member of the PCC Board of Directors. They also attended General Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, and participated in the Law and Religion Conference at BYU in Provo.

Mike Foley | University Advancement | 2 October 2006 BYU-Hawaii political science Professor Dr. Troy Smith recently asked in an honors student colloquium if the U.S. Supreme Court's historical and contemporary practices of judicial review and supremacy are "destroying America."

"There's this idea that America is pulling itself apart, and at the center of this is the Judiciary," said Dr. Smith, who explained that in 1789 the U.S. Constitution created two levels of government: Federal, consisting of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches — "the highest of which is the Supreme Court"; and state governments, the vast majority of which mirror the national government."

The retired CEO of a "big four" accounting firm in the People's Republic of China is currently sharing his expertise and Asia experience as a job search advisor for BYU-Hawaii Career Services.

Mike Foley | University Advancement | 19 September 2006 BYU-Hawaii's current entrepreneur in residence used a financial author's "cash flow quadrant" model to suggest ways School of Business students might pursue their own careers.

In the September 19 entrepreneurship lecture in the McKay Auditorium, Elder Jim Sheffield, a service missionary who is president of a family-owned real estate development company in Colorado, drew from Hawaii-born financial author Robert T. Kiyosaki's Cash Flow Quadrant and added a student state to reflect the following paths to a successful career: employee, self-employed, business owner and investor.

For the past eight years Brigham Young University Hawaii has been conservatively developing relationships with various universities and programs that enable our international students to maintain stronger educational ties with their homelands and enhance their opportunities for returnability.

BYU-Hawaii History Associate Professor Dr. James B. Tueller created a classroom atmosphere in the Cannon Activities Center on September 14 as he explored aspects of ambiguity in university education during the annual faculty convocation.

After successfully completing his two-year mission in Brisbane Australia (Mandarin speaking), the first Elder called from the People's Republic of China has enrolled at BYU-Hawaii.

In the first entrepreneurship lecture of Fall Semester 2006, Honolulu attorney Larry Gilbert provided BYU-Hawaii School of Business students with "some real world lessons" on the "big payday most entrepreneurs dream of" — the exit, or selling off a start-up company.

Mike Foley | University Advancement | 7 September 2006 In the first BYU-Hawaii devotional of the 2006-07 school year, President Eric B. Shumway pled with single students "to acquire those personal attributes that will sustain a happy marriage. If you learn all this school has to offer, but fail to acquire these qualities that sustain a marriage and family, your education will be sorrowfully incomplete."

Speaking in the Cannon Activities Center on September 7, President Shumway, who is also an Area Authority Seventy for Hawaii and California, spoke of the alarming decline of traditional families — "that is, a father and mother married with children" — and "the hesitancy for a variety of reasons of many young people to enter into formal marriage."

Twelve BYU-Hawaii interns, led by psychology professor Dr. Ronald M. Miller, formed a mentored consulting team with 15 students from the Shenzhen Tourism College from June 28 to August 23 to design, execute and analyze a high-level visitor satisfaction and marketing survey for the largest entertainment-based company in China.

The university's lead application programmer analyst for PeopleSoft brought a somewhat unique hobby with him when he came to Laie almost a year ago: temple riding.

Twenty-five years ago — at a time when relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China were expanding — six promising young Chinese officials came to Laie to participate in the first BYU-Hawaii/Polynesian Cultural Center Asian Executive Management training program. In the years since then the significance of the program for the participants, the two institutions and their sponsor, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has grown exponentially.

As recently as four years ago, only one BYU-Hawaii international student filled an internship, but for the past three years — thanks to the generosity of Gene and Allyson Yamagata of Las Vegas, who fund round-trip internship transportation to home countries and some other expenses — that number climbed to 102 in 2004 and is expected to exceed 250 by the end of this year.

BYU-Hawaii Athletics

Staff Writer | University Advancement | 30 August 2006 Aloha new and returning students!

School has begun as of Wednesday, August 30, and new faces are getting their schedules all lined up with their respective classes. We are committed to making each new student's orientation to BYU-Hawaii an exciting, welcoming and memorable experience. The campus 'ohana is our driving force and ultimate goal to help create a united student body.

Mike Foley | University Advancement | 23 August 2006 The BYU-Hawaii President's Council named accounting professor Glade Tew as its 2006 "Teacher of the Year" during the university's annual 'ohana meeting of faculty and staff in the McKay Auditorium on August 22. The esident's Council also presented "exceptional service" awards to staff members — almost all of whom are BYU-Hawaii alumni.

Tew's award included a check for $1,000 from the Polynesian Cultural Center, while the service awards each included a "significant monetary expression of gratitude."

Arapata T. Meha was recently named the new Dean of Admissions at the BYU-Hawaii in Laie. As former Associate Dean and Director of Admissions at the university, Meha brings a wealth of experience to the position.