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Professional Programs

Students who wish to prepare themselves for admission to professional schools should follow the recommendations of the appropriate national professional organization. In addition, they should elect courses fulfilling specific requirements of the schools they hope to enter.

The Professions Advising Center (PAC) in the Arts and Sciences Student Academic Services Office can give specific aid to students preparing for admission to schools of dentistry, law, medicine, optometry, pharmacy, and allied health fields. Information on scholastic requirements of other professions is also available from the following resources:

• Medical School Admission Requirements, United States and Canada
• Pre-law Handbook
• Admission Requirements of U.S. and Canadian Dental Schools
• Pharmacy School Admission Requirements

Catalogs of individual schools with more specific admission requirements may be found in the Professions Advising Center in Keller 303A, or at Hamilton Library, or on the World Wide Web.

Graduate Programs

Information regarding graduate programs and admission is in another section of the Catalog. Each department also includes in its description information about its specific program(s). Check specific departments for program requirements.

Student Organizations

Societies and clubs associated with many departments within the Colleges of Arts and Sciences give students opportunities to explore a field from an informal perspective, get acquainted with other students with similar interests, and learn of the options available upon graduation. The Colleges of Arts and Sciences highly recommend active student involvement in these associations for the academic and professional enhancements they provide. Check with your departmental adviser for information.

Honors and Awards

Scholarships and Awards

The Colleges of Arts and Sciences and their departments provide scholarships and awards to exceptional students. For a selective list of scholarships, see "Tuition, Fees, and Financial Aid." If you wish specific information on prizes or scholarships offered through the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, contact the appropriate department or check CA$H (Computer-Assisted Scholarship Help), a source of more than a thousand scholarships, accessible on the Web at dbserver.its.hawaii.edu/cash/.

Honor Societies

Honor societies at UHM in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences include Alpha Kappa Delta (sociology), Beta Phi Mu (library science), Delta Phi Alpha (German), Golden Key National Honor Society (undergraduate), Kappa Tau Alpha (journalism), Lambda Delta (freshmen), Mortar Board (seniors), Omicron Delta Epsilon (economics), Phi Alpha Theta (history), Phi Beta Kappa (liberal arts and sciences), Phi Eta Sigma (freshmen), Phi Kappa Phi (general scholarship), Pi Delta Phi (French), Pi Kappa Lambda (music), Pi Sigma Alpha (political science), Psi Chi (psychology), Sigma Delta Pi (Spanish), Sigma Pi Sigma (physics), and Sigma Xi The Scientific Research Society (sciences).

instructional and Research Facilities

Center for Biographical Research

The Center for Biographical Research (CBR) is dedicated to the interdisciplinary and multicultural study of lifewriting. CBR programs include teaching, publication, and outreach activities.

In conjunction with the Department of English, CBR offers thesis advising for PhD and MA projects. The Department of English also offers a number of graduate and undergraduate courses in lifewriting. A BA program in biography is offered through the Liberal Studies Program, and the Biography Prize is offered annually for the best work on any aspect of lifewriting by a PhD candidate at the University of Hawai'i.
CBR publishes Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, the premier scholarly journal in the field. Appearing continuously since 1978, Biography explores the theoretical, historical, generic, and cultural dimensions of lifewriting. CBR also sponsors the Biography Monograph series, designed to further the study and practice of lifewriting in all its forms.

CBR maintains a library and resource collection and has hosted, since 1988, the public lecture series Brown Bag Biography, part of the center's commitment to supporting and publicizing contributions to lifewriting. The center also hosts iaba-l@hawaii.edu, the listserv and discussion forum for the International Auto/Biography Association.

Language Telecommunications, Resource, and Learning Center

The Language Telecommunications, Resource, and Learning Center–located on the first and second floors of Moore Hall–features a 42 station language laboratory, two class labs with capabilities for showing slides and video including PAL and SECAM, and three language media classrooms with direct Ethernet connections to the Internet. The center has an extensive tape collection with entries in more than 40 languages. The facilities include a professional recording studio complex, a broadcast-standard video studio, and a satellite station consisting of a C and Ku-band tracking dish and a Ku-band broadcast facility. Via satellite the center receives daily programming in some 28 languages on the International Channel. Programming is available to students, faculty, and staff members in a designated viewing room. The center's Multimedia Computer Labs include a Macintosh lab with networked Power Macs and a PC lab with networked Windows 95 Pentium computers. Both labs are equipped with a printer, scanner, and LCD projection system. The computers feature a direct Ethernet connection to the Internet and a host of software for multimedia language use and learning in a wide variety of languages including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other non-Roman script languages. The computer labs are available for drop-in use by students, for class sessions and for training workshops for faculty and staff. A separate Faculty Development Lab is available for faculty and staff for materials development and software design. In addition, the center provides a variety of audiovisual equipment and resources for the classroom. The service scope of the center extends beyond the University to include the state, the continental United States, and the international community.

Manoa Writing Program

The Manoa Writing Program was created by the UH Board of Regents in 1987 to handle all aspects of the written communication General Education Core requirements. Its efforts are guided by a board of nine professors, each from a different department. The faculty board reviews requests to designate classes as "writing-intensive," offers faculty workshops on teaching with writing, and surveys students in writing-intensive classes. The program publishes material on teaching with writing. It also administers the Manoa Writing Placement Examination, a full-day placement test given to all incoming students who have not met the University's entry-level writing course requirement. The program's ultimate goal is to help ensure that all Manoa graduates are ready to meet the different writing tasks that society and their professions will present to them.

Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center

The Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center was established in 1988 with the broad mission of improving language instruction in the College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature and facilitating cooperative efforts among departments. The center coordinates professional development programs; provides curriculum and materials development services to departments; supports faculty research and development projects, especially in obtaining grants and contracts; and conducts outreach activities to support Hawai'i's language-teaching community.

National Foreign Language Resource Center

Under the Language Resource Centers program, the U.S. Department of Education awards grants to a small number of institutions of higher education for the purpose of establishing, strengthening, and operating centers that serve as resources to improve the nation's capacity to teach and learn foreign languages effectively. In 1989, the University of Hawai'i was first granted funds to develop a National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC), one of three such centers at the time–the number since has grown to seven.
NFLRC engages in research and materials development projects, conducts summer institutes for language professionals, and makes available a wide variety of publications on center projects and programs. Drawing on the abundance of Asian and Pacific resources afforded by its locale, NFLRC focuses its efforts on the less commonly taught languages, particularly those of Asia and the Pacific, recognizing that competence in these languages is increasingly vital to the nation's future. The projects and educational programs that the center undertakes have broader implications for the teaching of all languages.

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