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Soon after my recent column on University of Hawaii diversity, equity and inclusion programs appeared, Tina Tauasosi-Posiulai, Community Partnership and Research Specialist with the Pasefika Passion Pipeline program at UH Manoa, emailed me.

She informed me that “DEI isn’t helping at all to bring about equity access to higher education for Pacific Islanders because the PI voice is dead and representation is absent.”

Tauasosi-Posiulai, whom I briefly met several years ago, invited me to contact her to learn more about her concerns and shared a PowerPoint presentation she had recently co-presented at a University of Hawaii community college conference.

In my interview with her last week, she emphasized that Samoans and other Pacific Islanders tend to be marginalized in University of Hawaii DEI programs because of a lack of sufficient staff and program funding to address their specific needs.

Accordingly, the university needs to demonstrate that it values the presence and contributions of all Pacific Islander students and that it is working to ensure their academic and career success.

The presentation that Tauasosi-Posiulai sent me began with a review of the findings from the of the UH Task Force on Samoans and Pacific Islanders in Higher Education, which I had co-authored when I was working in the Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity Office. 

The major findings of the report included that UH Manoa had no central office or program for Samoan and Pacific Islander students to provide support services such as academic and career advising, counseling, and advocacy. Few Samoans or Pacific Islanders were employed at UH as faculty and student services staff who could assist those students.

Over the past 30 years, some progress, but not enough, has been made to address those and other problems faced by those students. In 2008, Tauasosi-Posiulai, whose Ph.D. is in sociology, was hired in the to develop a program for Samoan and Pacific Islander students, which she , or 3P. 

3P has initiated several college recruitment programs, including a one-week residential summer program at UH Manoa focused on STEM-related majors, summer bridge programs at three UH community colleges to expose high school students to college life, and regular recruitment activities at high schools with considerable enrollment of those groups. 

Most significantly, 3P expanded its support services to Compacts of Free Association (Micronesian) students as their numbers increased in the public schools where they now exceed Samoans. Enabling 3P recruitment activities to the UH community colleges was through funding provided by the Chancellor for the Community Colleges, John Morton. However, those funds were terminated in 2020 by Morton’s successor.  

To develop an expanded student services program for Samoans and Pacific Islanders, Tauasosi-Posiulai and two UH colleagues wrote and submitted a proposal in 2020 to University of Hawaii President David Lassner and Manoa Provost Michael Bruno to establish a Center for the Advancement of Pacific Islanders.

It highlighted that the number of Samoan and Pacific Islander students at UH Manoa had decreased during the previous 10 years due to a lack of adequate support services. 

The proposal for the CAPI asserted that the increases in enrollment and graduation rates of Filipino and Native Hawaiian students however can be attributed to “intentional investment in targeted student success programs at UH Manoa and other UH campuses for more than three decades.”

The proposal sought to have such a targeted program for Samoan and Pacific Islander students established at Manoa that would coordinate recruitment and retention services with the other UH campuses.

The UH administration responded then that the university already has programs, such as OMSS and two federally funded programs — GEAR-UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) and another that designates UH as an Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander Serving Institution — to address the concerns and problems faced by Samoan and Pacific Islander students. UH was invited to offer additional comment on Thursday.

However, Tauasosi-Posiulai counters that those programs are not working because the huge underrepresentation of those students in the UH system has persisted since the O Le Sulufaiga report was issued three decades ago.

A by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism found that among persons 25 years and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher, Samoans (14.7%) were considerably below the state figure (30.9%). This low graduation rate continues to impact the economic standing of households that identify as Samoan.

Samoan full-time undergraduates have continued to decline, totaling only 76 in fall 2023 or a miniscule 0.6% of Manoa students, while Micronesian (non-Chamorro) undergraduates have increased slightly to 29 or 0.2% of students. Without greater access to public higher education, both groups will persist in having especially low socioeconomic status in Hawaii, which has been the case for decades.

Justice and fairness cannot be only for the groups in power.

Tina Tauasosi-Posiulai

Tauasosi-Posilau elaborates, “while Filipino and other Asians continue to be well-served by SEED and the UH system, Pacific Islander students, parents, and community leaders have, for at least the past three decades, spoken about a sense of isolation due to an absence of program staff who have the knowledge and understanding of Pacific Islander people, their languages, cultural values and practices. Justice and fairness cannot be only for the groups in power,” she said. 

Some 50 years ago, I recall Filipino leaders at UH, such as Amy Agbayani, Melinda Tria Kerkvliet and Belinda Aquino, asserting very similar arguments for university funding of the Operation Manong program. It had been started by them and others in the community, including Emme Tomimbang Burns and Johnny Verzon, to provide tutoring assistance to Filipino immigrant students in the public schools. 

After several decades of UH claiming to make public education more diverse, equitable and inclusive through its numerous strategic plans and equal opportunity/affirmative action policies, Samoans and other Pacific Islanders should not have to undergo what Filipinos and Native Hawaiians previously did.