A year and four months after the University of Hawaii Board of Regents approved a strategic plan that in part calls for UH to “fulfill kuleana to Native Hawaiians and Hawaii,” officials are preparing to select an administrator to implement that “imperative” across the 10-campus system, and meanwhile launching a two-year cultural initiative on the flagship Manoa campus.

The cultural activities are part of the run-up to having 100% of UH schools, colleges and similar nonacademic units create their own five-year strategic plans “focusing on how their units can take steps toward becoming a Native Hawaiian place of learning in four specific focus areas,” Kaiwipuni­kauikawekiu Punihei Lipe, director of the Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office for the Manoa campus, said in a news release.

The imperative, listed as the first of four on the UH strategic plan website, reads, “Imperative: Fulfill kuleana to Native Hawaiians and Hawai‘i. Goal: Model what it means to be an indigenous­-serving and indigenous-centered institution: Native Hawaiians thrive, traditional Hawaiian values and knowledge are embraced, and UH scholarship and service advance all Native Hawaiians and Hawai‘i.” “Kuleana” is a Hawaiian word with “right, privilege, concern, responsibility” among its definitions in the Hawaiian Dictionary by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert.

The four imperatives are the backbone of the 2023-2029 strategic plan approved by the UH Board of Regents in November 2022. The others are “Develop successful students for a better future,” “Meet Hawaii’s workforce needs of today and tomorrow” and “Diversify Hawaii’s economy through UH innovation and research.”

UH President David Lassner said Wednesday in a conversation with Honolulu Star-Advertiser journalists that he is about to recommend a candidate for director of Hawaii Papa o ke Ao, who will lead UH’s systemwide effort to become a model Indigenous-­serving institution. The Hawaiian phrase means “Hawaii foundations enlightenment/knowledge,” a UH website says.

Lassner said he agrees with an opinion expressed in a Star-Advertiser interview in July by Alapaki Nahale-a, then UH Board of Regents interim chair, that of the four imperatives of the UH strategic plan, the one that calls for UH to become a model Indigenous-serving institution had been the least understood and developed when the plan was passed.

Lassner said he believes UH has made significant strides in certain aspects of serving Native Hawaiians, such as producing more Hawaiian-language speakers, increasing enrollment of Native Hawaiian students, building focus on decreasing Hawaiians’ overrepresentation in such areas as incarceration and health problems, and establishing the Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office for the Manoa campus.

However, as many gaps remain, Lassner said a key question now is, “How do we really dig in?”

He acknowledged that “there wasn’t anybody getting up in the morning and saying, ‘My job is to move this imperative forward across the UH system.’ We publicly advertised that position, and I expect I’ll have a recommendation to the board within the next month or so for somebody to do that job. Because it takes a lot of getting up every day and saying, ‘I understand this imperative, and it’s my job to help make it happen.’”

The job description for the director of Hawaii Papa o ke Ao reads, in part, that that person will lead the UH system’s efforts “to model what it means to become an indigenous-­serving and indigenous-centered institution. In so doing UH is committed to advance as a Hawaiian Place of Learning that champions the principles of aloha as well as caring for people and place, as it integrates Hawaiian language, culture, history and values across the institution and its work. The director is the senior executive who is singularly focused on UH systemwide Native Hawaiian initiatives and advancement.”

Meanwhile, the cultural initiative on the Manoa campus has been launched by a team that is “tasked with helping advance the University of Hawaii at Manoa as a Native Hawaiian Place of Learning,” and the objective is “immersing a diverse range of students and employees in Native Hawaiian values and traditions,” the release said.

This week 54 participants — a mix of UH students, staff, faculty and administrators from more than 10 schools, colleges and units — are participating, and another 90 are expected for a session in May, a UH spokesperson said Thursday by email.

The activities are centered around Native Hawaiian concepts outlined in the UHM Strategic Plan, such as genealogy; intergenerational interdependent relationships; kuleana (responsibilities and privileges); nourishing and protecting one other; and caring for one another, the spokesperson said. Activities include mapping various genealogical stories; caring for a loi, or taro patch; learning chants; and participating in “pilina circles” for connection.

UH Manoa Provost Michael Bruno said in a separate address to the UH Board of Regents on Thursday about the Manoa campus that UH “can and must lead the way” in “support of the protection of Hawaii’s land and her communities.”

“We continue to close the gap in assuring that our Native Hawaiian student body is representative of our host community, but we must do more to ensure their academic success and the attainment of their career aspirations,” Bruno continued. “And sadly, we are still far short of where we need to be in having a representative percentage of Native Hawaiian scholars on our Manoa faculty.”

People of Native Hawaiian ancestry constitute 21.8% of Hawaii’s overall population, according to a 2023 report on the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs website.

But at the UH Manoa campus, 16.6% of students are Hawaiian or part Hawaiian, according to the UH Manoa Institutional Research Office. About 18% of Manoa faculty are Hawaiian or part Hawaiian, according to data from UH officials.