By Dr. Noel Kent ( ‘67, ‘74 )
As an EWC alum and someone deeply concerned about climate change, I am wondering if we alumni can push, prod, make some proposals to the Center to focus on the impacts of China/India fossil fuel emissions in the years to come and help stimulate work on new technologies to be shared between our nations. What do you think?
By Scott Kroeker
Casually ask somebody what they know about Micronesia and most likely you’ll either get a blank stare or a vague description of some strange islands out there in the vast Pacific Ocean.
But probe and you’ll also hear stories, especially from social service providers in Hawai‘i, about the increasing number of Micronesians residing in the Islands and how too many are homeless, struggling in school, getting in trouble with the law, overcrowding and abusing public housing, suffering from poor health, and increasingly costing the state more and more of our tax dollars.
A conference organized by the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawai‘i which I recently attended was groundbreaking in that it sought to illuminate the diversity of the Micronesian immigrant experience — not in the usual way academic conferences do (i.e., convening a group of respected, learned, and well-meaning scholars who gravely discuss the results of their research on the issue) — but by turning the podium over to Micronesians and carefully listening to their stories. Continue Reading »
Do you sometimes feel like you want to connect with people who understand about your experience while at the East-West Center? Have a cup of tea to reminisce about studying in Hawaii? Do good in the name of the East-West Center? There are currently 44 EWCA Alumni Chapters active throughout the world along with eight Chapter Liasions. Continue Reading »
There’s an interesting conversation underway about the recent elections on Taiwan.
Check it out under comments on Denny Roy’s post “Looking Back at Taiwan’s Election”…
We are working hard to link current students with alumni so that students will become active members of our alumni network when they leave the Center. Some of our chapters are largely made up of old timers, we need new timers to join our chapters. We are encouraging chapters to welcome new students when they are offered EWC scholarships and provide hospitality and advice to returning students when they come back home after their Center experience. Do you have suggestions on how we can build closer links between current EWC students and alumni?
After months of planning, the East-West Center’s blog, “East-West Views” is up and running. It will contain a variety of information ranging from news wires to notes from the field, to everyday anecdotes in a casual setting, and will even have information about alumni.
Already up on the site is a wonderful post by Shabbir Cheema, an East-West Center alumnus who recently returned to the Center as a Senior Research Fellow in the Politics, Governance and Security study area.
We hope you take the time to browse through the East-West Views site and remember to return here often to check out our new posts! As always, comments are welcome!
EWC Alumnus Arjumand Faisel (MPH Open Grants, ‘88) is the President of the EWCA Islamabad Chapter and the current focus of the EWC Art Gallery exhibition, “Unseen Visions: Contemporary Painting in Pakistan,” running now through June 11, 2008.
Arjumand was in Honolulu for a week to open the exhibition with his daughter, whose works are also hanging in the Gallery. Continue Reading »
By Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka
What in the world was this Solomon island village boy doing half a world away, in a tidy Norwegian city just south of the Arctic Circle?
Besides the obvious (shivering) and the unthinkable to many (eating whale meat, which tastes like beef) I was part of a team from the East-West Center and the University of Hawai‘i who were hashing out the details of a significant island-based research proposal with colleagues from the University of Bergen. Continue Reading »
by Linda Kay Quintana
There’s just nothing like going outside of your normal work environment and going under fire for a few hours doing something that you know almost nothing about to make you feel you suddenly dropped a whole lot of IQ points.
This was how I felt as I joined eleven other East-West Center students and staff when we volunteered for a shift of the on-air pledge drive for our local public radio, Hawaii Public Radio (HPR). Continue Reading »
The Annual Hawaii Chapter Meeting and Fundraiser Dinner for 2008 was a massive success! Thanks to all the hard work of the Hawaii Chapter Board members, the event went without a hitch. There was lots of good food, good company, great items to bid on in the auction and lots of great items to purchase from the bazaar. Continue Reading »
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