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HPU requires all students to take one course in the Hawaiʻi and Pacific curriculum area for general education, but there’s much more to explore.  The College of Liberal Arts is offering several Hawaiʻi- focused courses this fall.  

You may have noticed “History Day” features by Professor of History Douglas Askman, Ph.D., on HPU social media. Askman, recently honored by ‘Iolani Palace for 25 years of service as a docent, regularly teaches multiple sections of HIST 1558 Living History Hawai‘i. This fall, he will also teach HIST 3566: The History of Hawaiʻi. The course focuses on the history of the Hawaiian Kingdom during the 19th century.  This course features four field trips, including tours of 'Iolani Palace and Washington Place, the Governor's Mansion. It will be a particularly exciting semester to take the course because students will be working with HPU Marketing to develop new signage at Aloha Tower Marketplace (ATM) to highlight the area’s history. The course meets on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. on the downtown campus, and the only prerequisite is completion of any Written Communication and Information Literacy II course (or HON 1000). 

It’s an election year, and that means Associate Professor of Political Science Ngoc Phan, Ph.D., will teach PSCI 3416 Elections in Hawaiʻi. Offered only in election years, this class examines the electoral process, rules, and procedures in Hawai’i elections. The course will cover federal, state, and local elections and how citizens, voters, and groups affect elected officials and public policy. Students will analyze election data from past and current political races in Hawai’i, and political candidates will be invited to be guest speakers.  Students will examine how Hawaiian history, elections, and politics incentivize or discourage citizens to participate and run for office and learn basic applied data science as it applies to state and local elections and functions.  The course involves hands-on projects and is open to all majors.  The prerequisite is PSCI 1400 or 2000 and completion of any Written Communication and Information Literacy II course (or HON 1000) and the course meets on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. 

Hawai‘i’s current poet laureate (2023-2025) is Brandy Nālani McDougall, whose works are fierce, fearless, intensely intimate and personal, and yet grounded within the history of her ancestors and the context of Native Hawaiian people's devastating contact with modern Western culture. With ENG 3226 Special Topics in Hawai‘i and the Pacific, taught by Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Micheline Soong, Ph.D., we have an opportunity to delve into two of her poetry collections, The Salt-Wind: Ka Makani Pa'akai (2008) and 'Āina Hānau: Birthland (2023) to see how much her creative, intellectual, and activist narrative voice has deepened and matured in 15 years. The course will cover excerpts from her other writings, notably from Finding Meaning: Kaona and Contemporary Hawaiian Literature (2016), and will culminate in a class session with the author herself later in the semester. The course prerequisite is an introductory ENG class or a Written Communication and Information Literacy II course (or HON 1000), which can be taken concurrently.  The course meets on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:00 to 3:15 p.m.