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The University of Hawaii-Manoa's Center for Hawaiian Studies has been called Kamakakuokalani, the Hawaiian name of Gladys Brandt, but it became official yesterday during a rededication of the building. Hawaiian center
renamed for supporterThe UH building is rededicated
in honor of Gladys BrandtBy Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com
"It was not that long ago that this university would be challenged to answer this question: 'Where are the Hawaiians?'" Brandt said, pointing out that 2,000 students have taken classes in the center and 120 have declared Hawaiian studies as a major.
"With this center we are making a difference," she told the standing-room-only crowd in the building's open-air auditorium.
The Board of Regents voted in October to rename the Hawaiian studies center for Brandt, waiving a policy requiring that the person being honored must be deceased for five years. The same rule was waived to rename the UH baseball stadium after former coach Les Murakami.
Joking that some thought having a building named after them was an honor worth dying for, the 95-year-old Brandt said, "Fortunately for me, the Board of Regents have now abandoned that rule."
Brandt served on the UH Board of Regents from 1983 to 1989, four years as chairwoman. During that time, she was instrumental in founding the Center for Hawaiian Studies, ushering the project through the board and then the state Legislature.
Brandt said she hopes that the center will preserve the beauty of the culture for future generations and heal the wounds of the past.
"In education, not anger, resides our future. In education, not ignorance, resides our hope. In education, not fear, resides justice," she said.
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Brandt has been an educator and administrator in Hawaii for more than 40 years. For 17 years she was the only female public school principal in the state.She became the first native Hawaiian principal of the Kamehameha School for Girls in 1962, where she successfully campaigned for the school to allow stand-up hula, which had previously been forbidden.
She moved up to director of the high school division in 1969.
Brandt was also one of four authors of the 1997 "Broken Trust" essay, the catalyst for the investigation that removed the Bishop Estate trustees two years later.
The following year, Brandt was selected by Gov. Ben Cayetano as an interim trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, for the second time. Her first appointment had been in 1998.
The renaming yesterday was one of the many honors the university has bestowed on Brandt. In 1981 she was given an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, and was awarded a lifetime achievement award in 2000 by the UH Alumni Association. Brandt received a bachelor's degree in education from UH in 1942.
University of Hawaii
