The Pacific Islander Access project

Aloha and welcome to the Pacific Islander Access project's webpage!

The Pacific Islander Access project, or "the P.I.A. project" for short, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation working to expand educational opportunity for America's growing Pacific Islander community.

Some people are unfamiliar with Pacific Islanders, though many Pacific Islanders call America their home. Many people are unaware that Pacific Islanders are significantly underrepresented in higher education. And most don't realize that while there are numerous scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities, many of these programs don't recognize that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented.

Our goal is to educate those academic programs for underrepresented minorities (aka "URM academic programs") that exclude Pacific Islanders, and persuade them to allow Pacific Islanders to apply along other underrepresented minorities. (If you happen to be part of one of these academic programs, please follow this link to read materials we developed specifically for you: LINK)

We put this webpage/blog together to make our information easily accessible. By clicking on the links below, you can learn more about us, Pacific Islanders, how Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education, and how they are excluded from too many URM academic programs.

• About the P.I.A. project
• About Pacific Islanders
• About Pacific Islander underrepresentation
• About URM programs and the exclusion of Pacific Islanders

If you are looking for more information about our plan, who some of our supporters are, or how you can help, check these links out:

• The P.I.A. project plan
• PIAdvocates
• How you can help

Also, feel free to check out the external links. They include U.S. Census data on Pacific Islanders and higher educational attainment in the United States.

Though it may read like something between the usual website and a blog, we hope you will find the format easy to navigate. If you have any questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact us at piaproject@hotmail.com.

Me ka ha'aha'a (with humility),

Kawika
CEO and Founder, P.I.A. project

PIAdvocates

The Pacific Islander Access project is proud to have the support of a growing number of organizations and individuals we call "PIAdvocates." Here is some info about a few of our supporters:

Center for Pacific Islands Studies

The Center for Pacific Islands Studies, at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, is the only academic program in the U.S. to focus on the entire Pacific region. The Center's faculty includes over 40 Pacific Island regional specialists, and boasts both undergraduate and graduate programs.

Dr. David Hanlon, Director and Professor at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, had this to say about the PIA project: "We as educators are totally committed to promoting greater access to higher education for Pacific Islanders, through a fairer and more effective distribution of existing and expanding financial aid resources. We are proud to join with the Pacific Islander Access project in promoting this critically important goal."
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Indigenous Pacific Islander Alliance

The Indigenous Pacific Islander Alliance (IPIA) is led by a group of Pacific Islander graduate students in California. They are dedicated to representing the cultural perspectives of Pacific Islanders through the UC-Berkeley campus.

The IPIA stated the following about their endorsement of the P.I.A. project: "We at IPIA are proud to support and collaborate with the PIA project. Like our good friends at the PIA project, we believe that education is a human rights issue and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander students should be given equal opportunities to succeed in higher education."

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National Pacific Islander Educator Network

The National Pacific Islander Educator Network, or NPIEN, is a nonprofit Pacific Islander organization working to support academic achievement among Pacific Islanders. The National Pacific Islander Educator Network recently celebrated its 6th annual education conference on November 17, 2007 in Paramount, California.

Regarding their decision to endorse, NPIEN stated “We are honored to support the efforts of the PIA project in ensuring equal access and opportunity for Pacific Islanders. The 2000 Census marked the first disaggregating of data for our people, related to education. We continue to see a low percentage of Pacific Islanders who graduate from college, and our high school drop-out rate is one of the highest among underrepresented ethnic groups. The PIA project affords hope for our community, where too many today are unaware of financial aid and academic programs. ”

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Pacific Islander Pipeline Program

The Pacific Islander Pipeline Program is a program of OCAPIC (Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance). The most recent of four Pacific Islander organizations to endorse the P.I.A. project, the PI Pipeline Program is dedicated to providing an educational "pipeline" program to help young Pacific Islanders achieve excellence in higher education. Their focus is on increasing Pacific Islander access into higher education, with a special emphasis on increasing the number of Pacific Islander health care providers in the Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties. PI Pipeline Program envisions various broad-ranging programs, designed to help Pacific Islanders each step of the way towards academic achievement.

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Would you like to add your organization to this list? Email us at piaproject@hotmail.com or click here for more on how you can help: link

To return to the P.I.A. project 101 page, click here.

How you can help

There are many ways for you to help us expand higher educational opportunity for Pacific Islanders. The easiest way to start, and the best way to help, is to become a PIAdvocate.

What's a PIAdvocate? It's our name for people and organizations who support the P.I.A. project's goal of expanding higher educational opportunity for Pacific Islanders by ending their exclusion from academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

Does that sound like something you would be interested in? If so, send us an email at piaproject@hotmail.com.

To learn more about a few of our PIAdvocates, click here.

To return to the P.I.A. project 101 page, click here.