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Hawaii has a lot going for it, according to U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter: a unified college system, a single statewide school district and a spirit of collaboration when it comes to education issues.

She shared these thoughts with about 200 education, business and policy leaders Friday morning at the state’s first , hosted by the University of Hawaii at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Kanter was the keynote speaker and the theme was “E Kamakani Hou: Mobilizing for Hawaii’s Future.”

Other speakers included President Emeritus James Duderstadt and the president of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, Dennis Jones.

After Kanter’s address, a roundtable discussion included:

• Kathryn Matayoshi, interim superintendent of the Hawaii Department of Education.
• Reed Dasenbrock, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
• Dee Jay Mailer, chief executive officer of Kamehameha Schools.
• J.N. Musto, executive director of the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly.
• Jeanne Unemori Skog, president and CEO of the Maui Economic Development Board.

A central concern for the participants Friday was from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce that 65 percent of all jobs in Hawaii will require a postsecondary degree by 2018. How to address that growing need for college graduates provoked discussion throughout the day.

The goal of the conference was to bring together a cross-section of community members to brainstorm ideas for creating a higher education system that will produce the types of workers Hawaii’s economy will need in the future.

Some interesting themes that emerged:

Early Preparation

Many children’s capacity for learning is already shaped by the age of 8, pointed out Kamehameha Schools’ Mailer.

“I feel like if we only focus on the higher levels of education, we’ll always be trying to catch a wave that is before us,” she said. “If we start early and if we build that capacity then, it gains momentum over time. Let’s not forget that education begins with our keiki, and that is the group we often forget about when it comes to higher education.”

Creating a College- and Work-Going Culture

Out of every 100 ninth-graders in Hawaii’s public schools, 68 graduate high school on time, 40 enter college, 24 enter sophomore year and 12 graduate college on time with a degree, according to data presented by Linda Johnsrud, vice president for Academic Planning and Policy at UH. The graduation rates from high school and college need to be raised, said M.R.C. Greenwood, president of the UH system, referring to the university’s plan to raise the degree attainment rate by 25 percent by the year 2014.

“We need to figure out how to create a college-going culture in every community that thinks college isn’t for them,” Kanter said. “And a culture for work as well — not either-or. It needs to be college and work, because most people will need to do both over their lifetime.”

Unified University System

One of the university system’s assets in improving degree completion is that it is unified, Kanter said. It facilitates the use of tools like the recently implemented , which automatically admits into four-year programs students who have finished associate degrees at any of the UH campuses statewide.

A unified system also provides Hawaii with the unique opportunity to standardize the college education, provide a range of services for different needs and share resources.

Greenwood said she no longer thinks of the university system as a pipeline, but as “a complex ecological network” — connected and integrated to provide educational services for an array of people at different stages in life, each with different needs.

Collaboration

Kamehameha Schools’ Mailer said Hawaii collaborates well when it comes to education, and that the state’s successful Race to the Top application is an example of what such partnerships can accomplish.

A deep engagement between the university system and the business community is critical if the state wants to meet the needs of its local economy, said Duderstadt. Those partnerships should help build a knowledge-driven economy for Hawaii — one that not only fills necessary job positions, but creates new ones.

Kanter pointed out that Silicon Valley grew from similar local collaboration fostered by and .

Experimentation and Research

A close relationship with the local business community by itself will not produce quality graduates prepared to go into the fields their community needs, said Duderstadt. An effective university system needs to incorporate research into its curricula and programs that is both innovative and relevant to the professional community, he said.

Research and building close relationships with the rest of the Hawaii community are important components to the university system’s blueprint for the future, Greenwood said, pointing out the system’s nearly $500 million in research grants last year.

What’s Next

Asked what’s next after the summit, UH President M.R.C. Greenwood replied, “execution and incorporation of some of these ideas.”