Data science at Chaminade.edu is funded by the National Science Foundation. NSF I-USE (DUE1525884) and INCLUDES (HRD1744526). These support the development of a culturally-responsive data science, analytics and visualization undergraduate curriculum and summer immersion program at CUH in partnership with the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).
Chaminade University of Honolulu (CUH) is a Federally-designated Native Hawaiian-serving and Minority-serving institution. CUH is a university of opportunity, providing an excellent education for students who have socioeconomic barriers to higher education, and to students from Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities that have been historically disenfranchised from college and careers for which a college degree is needed. The populations that Chaminade serves are strikingly under-represented in STEM careers, yet their communities are challenged by health disparities, the looming effects of climate change, and economic challenges for which science and technology are critical sources of solutions. Recent transformational growth in facilities, faculty, curriculum and research capacity in the sciences at CUH has created a context in which we propose Kūlia (to strive), a Design and Development Level I I-USE and INCLUDES project focused on research classrooms and data science competencies as mechanisms to improve student learning in Data Science, Analytics and Visualization.
The Chaminade University I-USE program in Engaged Student Learning is at the NSF at the Design and Development Level I. The vision of this program is that research classrooms and data science curriculum empower Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander science students at an institution uniquely positioned to redress educational disparities in Hawaii and the US-affiliated Pacific.
The Chaminade University INCLUDES program is a transformative partnership between the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin, the indigenous-serving Chaminade University of Honolulu (CUH) and an independent evaluation team from Georgia Tech (GIT) is implementing the SPICE (Supporting Pacific Indigenous Computing Excellence) Program. SPICE will establish a model for data science preparation of Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (NHPI) students that is contemporary, culturally-consistent and sustainable. Indigenous populations in Hawai‘i and the US-affiliated Pacific region face severe challenges in health, poverty, environmental resilience, and erosion of traditional culture. Solutions to current and emerging problems in the Pacific (health inequity, natural resource management, economic development, self-determination) will be enabled by NHPI communities gaining access to, and the ability to work with, large data sets. Agency over ‘big data’ sets that are relevant to Pacific issues, and contemporary skills in data science, analytics and visualization are the next frontier in educational disparities for NHPI. While these populations are gaining access to STEM pipelines in increasing numbers, there is no systematic effort to provide undergraduate preparation in data science, analytics and visualization in the few minority-serving, non-research intensive, institutions whose missions address educational disparities for NHPI.
Press release about the two programs
