Colleges of Arts & Sciences Alumni Association

Annual Wine Pairing Dinner Breaks Record

One hundred fifty CASAA members and friends enjoyed the 12th annual wine pairing dinner at 3660 on the Rise last October. Thanks to the generosity of so many, from donors of auction items and door prizes, to every guest who attended, CASAA raised a record-breaking $31,000 for its CASAA Scholarship Endowment. CASAA’s hard working board—Russell Ando, Kammy

Chan, Vanessa Harms, Jodi Ito, Carol Kellett, Karin Mackenzie, Barbara Marumoto, Scott Nishimoto, Nadine Shigezawa, and Jean Toyama--appreciates the loyal friendships that have resulted from this dinner over the years. “It’s a fun evening with a serious mission—to increase scholarship assistance for undergraduates in the Arts & Sciences,” says CASAA President Jean Toyama.

Graduate and Master Sommelier Assists CASAA

Roberto Viernes gave back to his alma mater in a unique way—by loaning his inimitable skills and knowledge as Master Sommelier to the CASAA wine pairing dinner. Viernes graduated with his BA in French in 1996. He went on to earn the designation of Master Sommelier in 2005, one of the youngest persons in the world to have achieved this coveted title. He is one of only two Master Sommeliers in Hawaiʻi. He currently is the director of education for Southern Wine & Spirits of Hawaiʻi where he oversees and manages several important portfolios.

Viernes enjoyed working with Vanessa Harms, Jodi Ito, Carol Kellett, and Nadine Shigezawa on selecting the perfect pairings. “They were delightful and very knowledgeable,” said Viernes of the board members. I was happy to give back to UH Mānoa in this fashion, and also to one of my favorite French professors—Jean Toyama!”

Letter of Thanks to CASAA

Aloha CASAA Board of Trustees,

My name is Danicia Honda, and I spent this past summer studying in China with the aid of the CASAA Academic Opportunities Scholarship. I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for giving me this opportunity to grow both intellectually and mentally—I wouldn’t have had such an opportunity without your help.

This is my first time studying in China. Before that, I spent the last three years preparing myself for an opportunity that I never thought I’d have. As a student from a single-income household, CASAA’s funding for me to take part in Princeton in Beijing has been a huge blessing for me in more ways than just learning a foreign language: I had the opportunity to live in my ancestral country, the opportunity to have an Ivy League education, and an opportunity to experience life so unlike—yet so similar—to that in Hawaiʻi.

Princeton in Beijing is a two-month summer program in Beijing, China. It is a partnership between Princeton University and Beijing Normal Univeristy (a top collegiate institution for future educators). At Princeton in Beijing, I sat among the brightest students in the world. There were students from more than three countries in my grade level alone. Our program had us cycle through classmates every week in order for us to get to know everyone in our grade level (about 25 people total). For one week, I would sit next to a Czech student from the University of London; the next week, I'd sit next to a recent Middlebury graduate. To my left would be a sophomore at Princeton University, and to my right, a recent Yale grad preparing to study law at Harvard University.

But what intrigued me the most was not the brand name schools that these students came from, but the way that they went at their studies. We integrated Chinese into our lives like no other study abroad program. Usually, students at these study abroad programs would sign a language pledge, abide by it during class, and revert to their mother tongue after they return to their dorms. My classmates at PiB wouldn’t do that. We would climb the Great Wall, visit the Chinese National Centre for the Performing Arts, and attend other various cultural activities such as calligraphy and wushu classes. We’d “talk story” in Chinese, debate about a plethora of contentious topics such as the One-Child Policy (which wasn’t executed by the central government, by the way), the Death Penalty, and the “Chinese Dream” economic reform proposed by Xi Jinping. I’ll never forget the enthusiasm and the vigor that my classmates and I had towards our studies in China.

To have been able to delve into Chinese language and culture with such intensity like how I have over the summer would have been difficult at UH. The best thing about UH, though, is that what UH cannot provide in its home institution, it provides by allowing students the means to travel to other institutions, to other countries, and stretch their horizons and expand their perspectives. I hope that what little this report can reflect of my experience in Beijing is sufficient enough to express my sincere gratitude to you.

Mahalo nui loa,

Danicia Honda