Dr. Hokulani Aikau named new UH Manoa General Education Director

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Diane Chang, (808) 956-0391
Director of Communications, Chancellor's Office
Posted: Jan 6, 2015

General Education Director Hokulani Aikau
General Education Director Hokulani Aikau

Dr. Hokulani Aikau has been appointed General Education Director (GED) at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.  She is an associate professor of Native Hawaiian and Indigenous Politics in the Department of Political Science, College of Social Sciences.

The GED oversees the staff of the General Education Office, which is administratively attached to the UH Mānoa Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.  Aikau will play a key part in developing and implementing the General Education curriculum, including the oversight of policies, procedures, and faculty development and training.  Said Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Reed Dasenbrock, “I look forward to working with Professor Aikau as the new director of our General Education program.  She will play an important role in the next few years in our efforts to improve student success at UH Mānoa.”

Aikau, a Mānoa resident, is author of A Chosen People, A Promised Land: Mormonism and Race in Hawai‘i (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), and co-author of Feminist Waves, Feminist Generations: Stories from the Academy (University of Minnesota Press, 2007).  Through funding from the Sea Grant College, she has been conducting research on the restoration of lo‘i kalo (wetland taro farming) in ahupua‘a of He‘eia and in collaboration with Kāko‘o ʻŌiwi, a Native Hawaiian nonprofit organization.

“I will work to ensure that the General Education program continues to play a leading role in UH Mānoa’s ability to achieve our mission to be a Hawaiian Place of Learning, where students have transformative, inspiring, and creative learning opportunities,” said Aikau. “There are a number of challenges ahead, as the General Education program evolves and adapts to the changing political and economic climate.  I am prepared to take on these challenges and to lead the program toward alternative and preferred futures.”

Aikau joined UH Mānoa in 2005 as an assistant professor.  She earned her PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota, MA in Sociology from the University of Memphis in Tennessee, and BS in Women’s Studies from the University of Utah.

For more information, visit: https://www.hawaii.edu/gened/aboutGEO.htm