Last weekend, 42 graduates of the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College Molokaʻi campus received their diplomas, marking the first in-person college commencement the island has seen since 2016.
“That's so huge for our community,” said Pūlama Lima, who just received her PhD in anthropology from UH Mānoa. She became the first Molokaʻi resident to be hooded in a commencement on the island — a symbolic tradition for those awarded their doctorate degrees.
She chose to celebrate on Molokaʻi with the family and community who she says supported her through her educational journey.
Twenty-three students earned their nurse aide certification, almost doubling the number since the last Molokaʻi commencement.
They’re helping to fill a critical need in the health care workforce on the island. Nine of those nurse aides are high school students who will also soon graduate with their high school diplomas.
One of them is Sonni Han.
“A lot of kids think that they can’t do it because they come from Molokaʻi and they don’t have a lot of opportunities but this year I found that a lot of people want to help you, especially here at the college,” Han said.
“People want to help you. If you just reach out to them they’ll get you places where you didn’t think you could go," she said.
The event celebrated degrees and certifications ranging from dental hygiene to early education, Hawaiian studies to construction technology.
Commencement is normally held on the island every four years, but it was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
'A world of knowledge here at home'
Kelley Dudoit, the site coordinator at the UH Maui College Moloka’i Education Center, said the school is adapting its educational offerings to meet local interest and demand.
“We are looking at prioritizing work areas where we have workforce shortages,” Dudoit said. “So looking at what's happening now but also looking ahead at what we project to be the jobs of the future for Molokaʻi.”
That translates to a shift in the type of courses available.
“We saw that huge increase in interest in non-credit type courses. So we've offered things like forklift training and Hawaiian language classes. We're doing a medical assisting cohort right now. We've done some nurse aid. We did CDL.”
She seeks to bring more learning opportunities to Moloka’i.
“Our mission at the college is, 'A world of knowledge here at home.' And so I think that speaks to the kuleana I have to offer that, you know, to find ways to make learning accessible to the community. And to be creative in how we do that,” Dudoit said.
Cultural reputation and expertise
For Lima, her background is in Hawaiian studies and language. She said a course in cultural resource management was pivotal for her passion for archeology.
“It really opened up my eyes to cultural resource management, wahi kūpuna stewardship and how there's such a lack of Native Hawaiian representation in that field, and how critical it was to have Indigenous voices in the field of archaeology," Lima said.
She serves as executive director of Ka Ipu Makani Cultural Heritage Center on Molokaʻi and also works in archeology.
Lima said her island has a historic tradition of the pursuit of expertise.
“Traditionally and historically, Molokaʻi was famed for our kahuna. And everyone thinks of kahuna as, they equate it with priests, or really religious affiliations,” Lima explained.
“But ... in our moʻolelo here on Molokaʻi, the term kahuna was interpreted as 'expert.' And so we had so many kahuna schools on Molokaʻi, so much so, and so well done, that people from the different islands would come to Molokaʻi so that they could study under our kahuna."
"And they would become experts in different practices, whether it be astronomy, medicine, architecture, what have you. And then they would go back to their own communities to start their own schools," she said.
She encourages residents to tap into this cultural reputation.
“That's sort of the message that I want our community and students to remember, right, is that we are part of this larger lineage and moʻokūʻauhau of experts. And it resides in us, and it lives in us and all we have to do is tap into that ancestral mana, that ancestral wisdom to really invoke and elevate that knowledge," Lima said.
"It’s innate already within us to do so, so just to act upon it, is what I would say to those interested in higher education.”
