As usual, President Eric B. Shumway started off the "family" meeting at the beginning of the 2004-05 school year that marks the university's golden jubilee with a fishing story. Then, after presenting a series of awards, he recapped highlights from the past school year and encouraged the faculty and staff to be committed to the mission of BYU-Hawaii.
President Shumway named history professor J. Michael Allen as the President's Council "Teacher of the Year," and also led off with a list of annual service awards. Read the complete story.
He listed the following highlights from last school year:
The largest graduating class in the history of the school, including the largest number of international student graduates: "As always, the graduation was a stunning verification of the strength of the school, the quality of our graduates, and the tremendous force for good represented within the faculty and staff," President Shumway said. Read the complete story. U.S. News & World Report again ranked BYU-Hawaii among the best universities in its category, and Consumers Digest identified the university as the best educational value in the whole nation among private institutions. Read more on U.S. News and Consumers Digest. Sports achievements, including women's tennis team third consecutive NCAA Division II national title, with a record of 101 consecutive matches which included many Division I universities. "We also honored Chelsea Smith for winning the national women's cross country championship in NCAA Division II," President Shumway said. Read the complete story. The completion of Iosepa's maiden voyage: President Shumway noted every aspect of the voyaging canoe, from its inception, has been "accomplished with faith and inspiration." Read the complete story. The Concert Choir's very successful tour to Korea and Japan, that included "amazing coincidences we know as miracles" and a special performance in "Meiji Jingu, the most celebrated Shinto Shrine in Japan. This is the shrine where only Shinto priests, the emperor and his family and very high dignitaries are allowed to approach the inner courtyard and the altar that is there," President Shumway said. To view pictures or buy the CD, go to the Concert Choir website. A record number of successful international internships: "I would like again to make it very clear that as faculty and staff who work with students we all bear the collective burden to help prepare students to be employed and or to attend graduate school," President Shumway stressed. The front entrance enhancements, including a new rock wall and changes in the little circle, which because of strike and weather delays will not be completed until October. And "perhaps one of the most powerful events of the last year was the First Presidency's approval of a joint fundraising set of priorities that link us even more tightly with the Polynesian Cultural Center," President Shumway continued.
"We often say that these two institutions are joined at the heart. Actually it's the same heart. It's the heart that throbs with the same force and inspiration that informed the original vision of Laie, the temple, and this university," he said.
"President Hinckley and the Board of Education have made it clear that the educational purposes of the Church are to be fulfilled by these twin institutions in preparing young men and women with the learning, the skills, the testimony, and a world view of brotherhood and peace that will help build Zion across the world. Those who are employed at both institutions have the same responsibility to teach and train students. We must all be models of what an honest work ethic and a performance excellence should be."
President Shumway told the university family they all have a sacred responsibility to carry the purposes of this BYU-Hawaii forward in a partnership with Heavenly Father.
"We must all ask ourselves, am I worthy to be here and to be part of this noble enterprise?" he asked rhetorically. "Am I a worthy partaker of the blessings of this place? Am I sufficiently competent, completely committed to a strong, honest work ethic? Can Heavenly Father count on me to be a worthy example to students here and throughout the world to whom I might say 'Follow me, do as I do'?
"I pray that this jubilee year will be a time of full repentance, change and cleansing for all of us," he continued. "We must be stewards of an environment that the Savior himself would visit happily.
"I know with all of my heart that Heavenly Father's hand has been on this community and these institutions from the very beginning. I believe in the prophecies. I revere all those who have gone before who have clung to those promises and have worked diligently to carry through in the fulfillment of not only the prophetic statements but the on-gong directions from our Board of Trustees, which we have accepted as if by prophecy," he continued.
"I also revere you who are faculty and staff who work so hard and so well and serve our students with kindness and patience. This service is manifest in unnumbered acts of unacknowledged kindnesses."