Western Region Continuums of Service Conference 2023

March 14 – 17, 2023

Virtual Conference Events included:

Morning movement and yoga (live streamed from the ocean!)
Keynote presentations and awards
Community site visits
Digital access to the posters
Membership “mixer” space for online networking

Hawaiʻi Conference Program preview.

Conference Speakers:

Nainoa Thompson (Wednesday, March 15th)

Explorer, environmentalist, master navigator, cultural revivalist, educator, storyteller: Nainoa Thompson has led the rediscovery and revival of the ancient Polynesian art of navigation. Through his voyaging, teaching and engagement, he has opened a global, multigenerational dialogue on the importance of sustaining ocean resources and maritime heritage. Nainoa has dedicated his life to exploring the ocean, maintaining the health of the planet and ensuring that the ancient marine heritage and culture of Polynesia remain vibrant into the future.

Thompson is the first Native Hawaiian in 600 years to practice the ancient Polynesian art of navigation: long-distance open-ocean voyaging on a traditional double-hulled canoe without the aid of modern instruments. His work has led to a renewed understanding and revival of traditional voyaging arts lost for centuries due to the disappearance of such travel methods and the colonization and Westernization of the Polynesian archipelagoes.

Dr. Sandra Bass (Thursday, March 16th)

For over 25 years, Sandra Bass has facilitated social change both domestically and internationally through public policy, community engagement, scholarship, and education. She currently serves as Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Public Service Center at UC Berkeley. Upon receiving her doctorate in political science, Sandra was appointed as an assistant professor of Criminology and Political Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she integrated service learning into both her undergraduate and graduate courses. In 2002 Sandra joined the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and in 2010 she was selected to lead the Foundation’s girl’s education, women’s leadership, and reproductive health program in Sub-Saharan Africa, and later was appointed the executive director of Teach With Africa, an organization focused on cross cultural learning for K-12 teachers in the US and South Africa.

She currently serves on the regional board of Multiplying Good, the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund, the Boards of the East Point Peace Academy and the Movement Strategy Center and Co-Chairs the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Civic Engagement Advisory Board at UC Berkeley. She has served as a “Wise Head” reviewer for the MacArthur Foundation 100 and change competition, on the steering committee of the African Grantmakers Affinity Group, and is the former Board Chair of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, among other appointments.

Dr. Verónica N. Vélez (Friday, March 17th)

Dr. Verónica N. Vélez is an Associate Professor in Secondary Education and Education & Social Justice at Western Washington University. Her research focuses on Latinx im/migrant mother activism, community-based participatory action research in grassroots contexts, popular education, and (re)imagining cartographic tools for movement building and critical inquiry. Each of these areas is informed by expertise in Critical Race Theory (CRT), Latinx Critical Theory (LatCrit), Radical and Tactical Cartography, and Chicana Feminist Epistemologies.

Influenced and inspired by these varied, but interrelated frameworks, she and her mentor, Dr. Daniel Solorzano at UCLA, developed Critical Race Spatial Analysis (CRSA), a framework and methodological approach that seeks to deepen a spatial consciousness and expand the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in critical race research in education. She is also a National Academies Ford Foundation Fellow and a Faculty Fellow with the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE), and previously a Spencer Foundation Research Training Grant Fellow.

Site Visits

Continuums of Service has a long and proud history of centering local and indigenous voices and making space for higher education staff, faculty, students and administrators and community partners to gain inspiration, ideas and rejuvenate themselves.

Participants at the 2023 Continuums of Service conference will be afforded opportunities to visit and participate in the work of a host of innovative campus-community partnership sites, ranging from schools to community gardens and more.

Continuums of Service 2023 Community Engagement Partner Site Experiences: Site visit matrix .

Smart Trees Pacific

Waikīkī Elementary School

Accommodations

Many of the in-person attendees stayed at beautiful Queen Kapi’olani Hotel in Waikīkī.

ʻĀina

The University of Hawai’i conference sponsors acknowledge that the ‘āina on which we gather is part of the larger territory recognized by Indigenous Hawaiians as their ancestral grandmother, Papahānaumoku. We recognize that her majesty Queen Lili‘uokalani yielded the Hawaiian Kingdom and these territories under duress and protest to the United States to avoid the bloodshed of her people. We further recognize that Hawai‘i remains an illegally occupied state of America. We recognize that each moment we are in Hawai‘i she nourishes and gifts us with the opportunity to breathe her air, eat from her soils, drink from her waters, bathe in her sun, swim in her oceans, be kissed by her rains, and be embraced by her winds. We further recognize that generations of Indigenous Hawaiians and their knowledge systems shaped Hawai‘i in sustainable ways that allow us to enjoy these gifts today. For this we, the planners of the Continuums of Service Conference, are grateful and seek to support the varied strategies that the Indigenous peoples of Hawai‘i are using to protect their land and their communities, and are commit to dedicating time and resources to working in solidarity.

Sponsors & Partners

GivePulse: givepulse.com

State Farm: www.statefarm.com

Hawaiian Electric: hawaiianelectric.com

Youth Service Hawaiʻi: youthservicehawaii.com

International Association for Research on Service-Learning & Community Engagement: iarslce.org

Carnegie Foundation: carnegiefoundation.org

Carnegie Foundation Elective Classifications: carnegieelectiveclassifications.org

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa: manoa.hawaii.edu

University of Hawaiʻi Kapi’olani Community College: kapiolani.hawaii.edu

Chaminade University of Honolulu: chaminade.edu

‘Iolani School: www.iolani.org