Leeward Community College students Achieving the Dream!
Thursday’s Board of Regents meeting will give us a chance to boast about one of our most successful initiatives—Achieving the Dream.
We partnered with Kamehameha Schools and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs four years ago to make higher education more accessible to native Hawaiians. We invested time and money into greater community outreach, more counselors to help students apply for scholarships, increased development and training in remedial courses to bring grades up and a lot more financial aid.
Bottom line: Native Hawaiian enrollment systemwide has doubled from 4,600 to 9,200, and the number of Hawaiians graduating is up 32 percent! That includes the Ke Ala Ike Native Hawaiian Excellence Program spring 2011 graduates pictured here.
That is certainly something to celebrate and a validation that we are striving to be the model indigenous-serving higher ed institution.