Figure 1 Event Poster for Friday’s event.
At the beginning of this academic year, the Archives & Special Collections department decided that one of our goals would be to collect more student life materials. With that in mind, I attended LogJam in September to meet some student club leaders and let them know that the archives existed and we’d be interested in preserving their materials. It was great to meet a few student leaders, but I left unsure whether I’d made an impression.
Much to my delight, I received a message from the Hawaiian student group, Ka ‘Ohana Me Ke Aloha. They said they’d recently gone through their storage area and realized that some of their belongings could be better protected in the archives. As of the beginning of the year, we only had a small box of Hawaiian student life items, containing three Lū’au programs and a few VHS tapes and CDs. We met a week or so later so I could get a feel for the types of things they had and then we discussed the logistics of transferring the items to the archives. Although it took a while to transfer the materials, we now have a collection of Ka ‘Ohana Me Ke Aloha materials that more accurately reflects their time and impact on campus.
Figure 2: Photo from the 1976 Lū’au
To celebrate nearly fifty years of Hawaiian student life on campus–their predecessor Hui O Hawaii became a ratified ASPUS club in November of 1970–the Archives & Special Collections is hosting an Open House to showcase the new materials before this year’s Lū’au. The Open House will highlight Lū’au and the other achievements of Ka ‘Ohana Me Ke Aloha over the years, including scrapbooks, awards, photographs, Lū’au programs and recordings. This event is free and open to campus members, alums, and the outside community. Our hope is that the Open House will honor the many contributions of our Hawaiian students to campus life, as well as garner excitement for their upcoming 50th anniversary in 2020. We highly encourage everyone to come to the Open House this Friday!!
Event details:
Date: Friday, April 13th
Time: 4-5pm
Location: Archives & Special Collections, 2nd floor Collins Memorial Library
If you’re a part of a student club that would like to transfer your materials (historic or current) to the archives, please contact Adriana Flores, Archivist & Special Collections Librarian, at archives@pugetsound.edu.
The Archives & Special Collections is open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. or by appointment.
By Adriana Flores