“Education is the way to understand other people,” says Jackie Mahi Erickson. “If we want peace in the world, this is a good way to do it: through education.”

This article includes quotes and reporting from Lāna‘i Today originally reported by Anthony Kaauamo.

“The TEAM program changed the way I see the island,” says Justin Barrios. “It taught me how to care for the place that raised me — and I want students coming up behind me to have the same opportunity.”

Hokulani Garcia’s long journey to earning her bachelor’s degree from the University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu began when she became a police dispatcher at 24, but it was her experience, years later, during the Covid-19 pandemic that gave her the drive to finish her bachelor’s degree and set her sights on graduate school.

The newly renovated and renamed Tom W.S. Hee Undergraduate Computer Room at UH Mānoa’s Shidler College of Business is built for collaboration. New furniture, upgraded computer systems, and flexible working spaces reflect updated thinking about education for tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, financiers, and managers.

Emma DeBenedictis, a senior from Saint Charles, Illinois, is majoring in Environmental Earth Science at UH Mānoa and the recipient of the Ocean Conservation Award from the Global High Seas Marine Preserve.