President Mike Latham ’86
The arts at Punahou are a tremendous space for student learning and growth. For me, one of the great joys of the holiday season is the chance to attend the many concerts that bring light and life to our campus. Our symphony, band, choir, Hawaiian ensemble, chamber music and guitar concerts all feature talented student musicians sharing their love for music and their clear delight at performing together. The wonderful theatre, dance, and visual art shows that fill our calendar throughout the year also reflect the tremendous skill, energy, and enthusiasm that students bring to creative fields. Led by devoted and supportive faculty, Punahou offers a range of arts opportunities that far surpass those of most independent schools across the country. Our Dance School, Music School, Holokū pageant, and many clubs offer additional experiences beyond those already embedded within the curriculum, giving students further paths to explore their passions.
Many of our arts students achieve an outstanding degree of performative achievement, including recognition at the state, national and international levels. Each year a cohort of our graduates goes on to specialized training in elite conservatories and launches professional careers. We are proud of that fact and encourage all our students to aspire to excellence.
On a more profound level, however, the arts are also an integral part of Punahou’s overall educational philosophy. In addition to serving as an ideal forum for teaching and fostering creativity, our arts students learn to think critically about their work and fields, to collaborate, and communicate. The problem-solving and risk-taking involved in creating a work of ceramics on a pottery wheel, the discipline required to master a piano étude, and the collaboration needed to perform improv theatre all build skills valuable for lifelong learning across any field.
Our students also find a deep sense of belonging and personal fulfillment and self-discovery in the arts. Much like the athletes on Punahou’s many intermediate, JV, and varsity teams, students in our theatre technical crews, orchestras, and dance groups all discover talents they didn’t know they possessed, and build close, enduring lifelong friendships. Meeting and overcoming challenges together, arts students develop the confidence, resilience, and emotional intelligence to adapt to new environments and thrive when faced with uncertainty. Research demonstrates that student engagement in the arts also promotes mental health and strongly enhances overall well-being. Those capacities will serve our graduates well wherever they go, and whatever they do.
In an era closely focused on the promise and perils of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the arts also remind us of the enduring value of our human capacity for creativity and innovation. As technology replaces routine and repetitive forms of labor, creative graduates will be best equipped to navigate the volatility of a rapidly changing workplace and pursue entrepreneurial opportunities. Graduates who can visualize and communicate meaning, bridging data and technical insights with creative application, will also be well positioned to thrive. An IBM study of over 1,500 CEOs across 33 industries and 60 countries defined creativity as the most crucial factor for future success, linking it to the ability to pursue disruptive innovation, remain comfortable with ambiguity, change business models, and innovate.
As the Punahou alumni featured in this issue demonstrate, creativity in the arts also takes on a wide range of compelling forms. I hope you enjoy reading about their experiences and reflections. I also hope you are inspired by the way that each of them uses their art to give meaning and coherence to some of the profound human questions of our own time. As former Poet Laureate of Hawai‘i Kealoha Wong ’95 recently put it at his alma mater MIT’s Commencement Ceremony, “I want you to think about all the things you wish you could do / and tonight, I want you to do one of them / and tomorrow, another / our lives are temporary art pieces … / we are works in progress … / today I want you to think about your life / and tomorrow, y’all, go on out there and live it.”