Michael Cheang is an assistant professor in the Center on Aging in the John A. Burns School of Medicine. He believes that students come to class with their own life experiences and each contributes to the learning process. He sees the classroom as a community of learning—he learns from his students just as they learn from him.

Identifying with Paolo Freire’s notion of education as a means of empowering people, Cheang asks one question when explaining a concept, "when working with families and communities, how can you use this concept to help them to help themselves?"

Cheang believes in life-long learning and is involved in community activities and service. He was invited to sit on the editorial board of the ASA’s Generations journal and the Honolulu Committee on Aging. Cheang shares his teaching skills and is a highly regarded provider of in-service training for local service providers.

Cheang grew up in Singapore and lived a significant portion of his adult life in Hawai‘i. He has traveled extensively across Asia, the U.S. and Europe. The insights Cheang gained from these travels, combined with his personal experiences in Hawai‘i and Singapore, give him a strong sense of awareness of Asia-Pacific-Hawai‘i-related issues and concerns.

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Alison Conner is a professor in the William S. Richardson School of Law. Conner grew up in an academic family and believes teaching is one of the highest callings available. Prior to coming to the university, she spent 5 years practicing law on Wall Street and 12 years teaching in China, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. She utilizes her international experiences in her classes to help students understand the nuances of legal education and judicial functions in Asia.
Conner is a key organizer of the proposed graduate Comparative Law (LLM) Program. She also designed and introduced three new courses on Chinese and Asian law, which constitute important offerings in the law school’s Pacific-Asian legal studies curriculum.

Conner is an accomplished scholar, recently completing several articles and chapters on China and comparative law issues. Her most recent honors include being named Outstanding Professor of Law, Fulbright Distinguished Lectureship in Law and an invited faculty member to "China and the Global Community" at the Salzburg Seminar. Conner is also the external examiner for Chinese law courses at London University.

A student noted, "Alison Conner has a well deserved reputation as an expert on Chinese law and is one of the main reasons I chose to attend the University of Hawai‘i’s William S. Richardson School of Law."

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Wayne Iwaoka is an associate professor in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences in the College of Tropic Agriculture and Human Resources. Iwaoka believes that education should further student’s critical thinking and problem solving skills. Students should learn to collaborate, be creative, reflect on their learning and communicate effectively. Learning goes beyond the core principles of food science and technology, and Iwaoka uses his courses as a vehicle to cultivate life skills in his students.

Iwaoka’s unconventional teaching style communicates the content of a course in a rather exceptional way. He introduced innovative options, such as administering the Meyers-Briggs Personality Profile so students can better understand themselves. He also uses the Cornell Critical Thinking Test to monitor his students’ critical reasoning skills.

Because of Iwaoka’s unconventional class structure and high standards many of his students find his courses challenging, however, they appreciate the challenges.

As an academic counselor, Iwaoka stresses the importance of finding, exploring and developing students’ passions so that they can incorporate them into their careers.

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Annette Sherry is an associate professor in the College of Education’s Department of Educational Technology. She feels privileged to be contributing to the development of 21st century educators.

Sherry’s courses address applications of research findings on instructional design, as well as teaching and learning with media. In her classroom, she utilizes basic media tools such as still images and cutting-edge technology such as web-based instruction. She is constantly redesigning her courses to incorporate student feedback and emerging trends. Her classes are spirited and vibrant. Sherry paces her lessons and uses various teaching methodologies so that students are always engaged.

As the very first faculty member to volunteer to teach an online class, Sherry became the "pioneer" of distance learning in her department. She has been able not only to restructure courses to fit the delivery mode, but to adapt herself to the different teaching modes imposed by the delivery formats. Sherry designed new course formats for outreach delivery without compromising content and quality of instruction achieved in the "on campus" form.

A colleague said, "In my estimation, the fact is that Sherry is an effective and efficient teacher regardless of the student level and no matter what teaching environment or delivery strategy."

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