A new graduate certificate in Indigenous Planning will be offered at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. A partnership between the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in the College of Social Sciences and the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies in the Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, this graduate-level certificate offers students and professionals an in-depth understanding of Indigenous Peoples, processes, and practices to enrich urban and regional planning.
Through planning and several consultations over the past 2 years, Dr. Priyam Das, a professor in Urban and Regional Planning, and Dr. Konia Freitas, a specialist in Hawaiian Studies, developed a program that will prepare students to engage respectfully with Indigenous worldviews, knowledge systems, and methodologies; to apply Indigenous and Hawaiian-informed approaches to land use, sustainability, housing, and community development; and to center planning practices around core values such as pilina, kuleana, and aloha, with a focus on ethics, equity, and inclusion.
Students and professional planners will be equipped with culturally grounded tools to navigate complex land-use, social, and environmental challenges. This certificate requires the completion of six courses: one required course in the foundations of Indigenous planning; one capstone course on an individual project of analysis, plan preparation, policy, and program evaluation; and selection of four elective courses from planning, Hawaiian Studies, geography, law, natural resource management, political science, or Pacific Island Studies.
This new graduate certificate is the latest collaboration between the Urban and Regional Planning and Hawaiian Studies departments, which began in 2017, when both departments signed a memorandum of agreement allowing urban and regional planning graduate students to enroll in designated Hawaiian Studies courses with prerequisites waived.
Then, in Fall 2022, a bachelor’s-to-master’s degree pathway (BAM) was established. Students can pursue a bachelor’s degree in Hawaiian Studies through a master’s degree in urban and regional planning within a shorter timeframe of 5 years by double-counting up to three courses at the undergraduate tuition rate. Students are able to save money and time to enter the workforce.
These programs will help build capacity in the planning workforce in Hawaiʻi and across the Pacific that centers Indigenous values, concepts, and methodologies in the field of planning.
