LAIE, Hawaii — Twenty-year-old Sheryl "Shey" Samson will never forgot the Latin American family she visited with recently at the Polynesian Cultural Center. The BYU-Hawaii student from Tarlac, Philippines, was working at the adjacent center when the family approached her.
"They asked me if I was going to school. I said, yes. They said, "How fortunate you are because there are a lot of people in our country who don't (have the opportunity to) study.' "
What students have at BYU-Hawaii, they told the young woman, is a "one in a million chance."
That's what this Church-owned school on the north shore of Oahu in the Hawaiian islands seems to provide — a "one in a million chance" for students from throughout the world to receive an education they otherwise could not have afforded. And it's through what BYU-Hawaii President Eric B. Shumway describes as the "symbiotic relationship" between the university and the Polynesian Cultural Center.
The two entities, one a major university and the other the No. 1 paid attraction in Hawaii, are truly "joined at the heart," he said recently in his office on the campus set between the lush Ko'olau mountains and the famous shoreline 35 miles from Honolulu. He should know. Having served at the university in one capacity or another since 1966 — just three years after the Polynesian Cultural Center opened — he has seen BYU-Hawaii (then called the Church College of Hawaii) and the center work together in training and educating young people and then seeing them return to their home lands to bless their people and nations.
"This has been the mission of the university and there is evidence that hundreds and hundreds of our alumni have gone back to their home areas and have contributed immensely in Asia, in the South Pacific," President Shumway said.
Today, of the some 2,400 students enrolled, some 45 percent come from 70 countries outside the United States, primarily from the nations of Asia and the Pacific. Walking across campus is a lesson in culture. One hears, among many languages, Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Tongan and English. And they all mingle, attend classes, study, play and worship together. Some 700 students work at the cultural center as guides, performers, food service personnel and in a variety of other positions.
"We can't do without the PCC and they can't do without us," President Shumway said during the October 2003 celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Polynesian Cultural Center. (Please see Nov. 1, 2003, Church News.) "We cannot fulfill our mission to provide education for international students unless they have a means of supporting themselves. So that part of our mission would be down the drain without a major employer."
In return, the students provide a vibrancy and energy "that can be marketed into something that will make the PCC attractive to people," President Shumway added.
Students at BYU-Hawaii, emphasized Polynesian Cultural Center President Von D. Orgill, have an "opportunity to study with, pray with and play with students from all over the world. They learn to relish those differences and rejoice in them. They rejoice in what they can learn from one another. They learn to live in harmony. That is so amazing."
They then return home knowing "that people can love and rejoice in knowing one another and living with one another; they know it's possible because they experienced it here," he said.
And returning home to bless one's land and people is emphasized at BYU-Hawaii, especially in the recent past, said President Shumway. "In the last three years, the Brethren have asked us to step up our efforts, that there is a desperate need for more educated, motivated young people from BYU-Hawaii to go back into their home areas . . . so they can strengthen the Church."
To meet the challenge, BYU-Hawaii has launched a number of initiatives, President Shumway related. University recruiters who visit other countries, for example, work with local priesthood leaders to seek out potential students who are initially and clearly interested in returning home one day with their new education, skills and increased testimonies. An on-campus mentoring program includes advisers, faculty and job supervisors "imbued with the notion that they are helping young people train and prepare to return home, so the idea of going back is not lost when they get here," President Shumway explained.
"We are creating an internship program that will allow many of our students to go back into their home areas and do internships that will lead to employment," he added, also speaking of an on-campus career services and placement officer recently hired to help students while in school.
One of the most effective means of helping students desire to return home after graduation are the school's "placement ambassadors," as President Shumway called them. These ambassadors, generally alumni living in the South Pacific, are contracted by the university to provide guidance to graduates returning home to the islands. And once a year, they travel to Laie for training and to meet with students.
"The point is BYU-Hawaii is assuming a larger role in helping young people get back. Now we have a program that helps them, trains them, tutors them and gives them internship opportunities and a placement program that will open doors to them so . . . they go back to a network of support."
President Shumway, who is quickly recognized on campus and greeted by students, referred back to the "revelatory base" of BYU-Hawaii — one of the unique aspects of this university. He spoke of and paraphrased the "prophetic promise" from Church President David O. McKay when the school was founded in 1955 "that this school would be a training site for men and women who would go forth and be ambassadors of peace internationally."
Young people like "Shey" Samson, who is studying information systems and who joined the Church in 2000 with her mother and sister. "When I came here, I had been a member for a year and a half. I didn't have a lot of knowledge of the Church. I'm happy I have grown."
E-mail to:julied@desnews.com
