USU Eastern goes Hawaiian with the Spirit of Aloha
Five people on campus and in the community will be given an award for their hard work and dedication to making this campus better. This is called the Spirit of Aloha award.
“Aloha” means hello and goodbye in the Hawaiian culture, but there is a deeper meaning to the greeting. “Akahai,” meaning kindness, to be expressed with tenderness; “Lokahi,” meaning unity, to be expressed with harmony;” Oluolu,” meaning agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness;
“Haahaa,” meaning humility, to be expressed with modesty; “Ahonui,” meaning patience, to be expressed with perseverance.
This archived article was written by: Shadayah Jones
Five people on campus and in the community will be given an award for their hard work and dedication to making this campus better. This is called the Spirit of Aloha award.
“Aloha” means hello and goodbye in the Hawaiian culture, but there is a deeper meaning to the greeting. “Akahai,” meaning kindness, to be expressed with tenderness; “Lokahi,” meaning unity, to be expressed with harmony;” Oluolu,” meaning agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness;
“Haahaa,” meaning humility, to be expressed with modesty; “Ahonui,” meaning patience, to be expressed with perseverance.
“Aloha” is more than a word of greeting or farewell or a salutation. “Aloha” means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return. “Aloha” is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence. “Aloha” means to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen and to know the unknowable. This year at USU Eastern, the students, staff, and faculty will be celebrating the Spirit of Aloha.
When you live the Spirit of Aloha, you create positive feelings and thoughts, which are never gone. They exist in space, multiply and spread over to others. Blaney Hanvey, coordinator-residential life, wants to bring this unconditional love and care for others with the Spirit of Aloha to campus.
She came up with this idea while preparing for Catalyst, the student leadership training. She said during Catalyst, they were given the topic of “community building.” Hanvey did more research and realized that this was perfect for the topic of community building. She decided to give out a Spirit of Aloha award.
Five Spirit of Aloha awards will be given: one for an outstanding student leader, student, faculty member, staff member and a community member that has helped campus and made a difference. At the Spirit of Aloha ceremony, plaques will be presented in honor of the award winners to recognize their outstanding efforts and the time and effort they put into making this campus better.
Students and faculty and staff members will be able to vote once a semester and nominate one from each category. The residential life staff will review the nominations and decide the winner. The nominations will be online under the residential life link. Deadlines will be announced when the link is set up.
Hanvey says, “I want people to see that they are being recognized for their great work and to see that they are making a difference on campus. I want the Spirit of Aloha Award to be something that will be continued throughout the years. I view the Spirit of Aloha as having an unconditional desire to promote the true good of other people in a friendly spirit and with genuine caring.”
