Returning to Kamehameha Schools after building the Office of Native Hawaiian Partnerships at Chaminade University of Honolulu, RaeDeen Keahiolalo is the new Director of Educational Research and Postsecondary Success for the KS Hoʻolaukoa Educational Systems and Strategies Division.
Keahiolalo joined Ho‘olaukoa early this year and has hit the ground running to build systems that will help Native Hawaiians find greater postsecondary success. This comes after more than three years at Chaminade, where she was an advocate for Native Hawaiian student success at the senior administrator level. A large part of the work Keahiolalo frontiered led to the September 2015 strategic partnership signing, which paved the way for the Ho‘oulu STEM program between Chaminade and KS – a partnership which she worked closely with KS Vice President of Strategy and Innovation Lauren Nahme to make happen.
“A big part of college success for our Native Hawaiian students will be to make sure that the students are ready for the programs they get into, and making sure it is a good fit for them,” said Keahiolalo. “At the most fundamental level, we need to build a college mindset for our Native Hawaiian students.”
In her new role, Keahiolalo will oversee educational research within Ho‘olaukoa, which will capture and balance the wisdom of educational practice and peer-reviewed research to develop processes and tools that provide discipline to educational innovation; and solutions to educational issues and improvement around Pre-K to 12 student learning and continued college success.
“This all needs to be anchored with applied research,” added Keahiolalo. “I don’t believe in research for the sake of research. I believe we need to proactively align the research agenda to what the organization needs. Then we can use the information to substantiate what we are trying to do.”
Prior to her time at Chaminade, Keahiolalo was a research and evaluation manager and senior research associate within the Research and Evaluation, and Strategic Planning & Implementation divisions at KS. She also worked with the Institute for Native Pacific Education And Culture (INPEACE) and as a community education facilitator for Parents and Children Together (PACT).
Keahiolalo is a 1981 graduate of Kamehameha Schools Kapālama, and received her bachelor of arts degree, master’s and her PhD in Political Science from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
A big part of college success for our Native Hawaiian students will be to make sure that the students are ready for the programs they get into, and making sure it is a good fit for them,” said Keahiolalo. “At the most fundamental level, we need to build a college mindset for our Native Hawaiian students.
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