Welcome to another year of activities for Women Leaders in Higher Education, part of the American Council on Education Hawai'i State Network, committed since 1973 to the advancement of women leaders in higher education.  I am honored to serve as Coordinator of WLHE this year, and look forward to working with you as we collectively move toward advancement of ACE Network goals - specifically to Identify, Develop, Encourage, Advance, Link, and Support (IDEALS) women as academic leaders in Hawai'i.

I encourage each of you to reach out to a colleague and invite her to attend a meeting to experience first hand how valuable this networking experience can be.  Our goal is to facilitate development of our leadership abilities so that we can thrive as department chairs, deans, vice-presidents, presidents and other academic officers, and provide a support network to help others succeed.  Only through such mentoring and outreach can we succeed in building the extensive professional network and the fulfilling personal connections so necessary for our jobs and for our individual satisfaction.

I look forward to getting to know each of you better in the year to come. 

Sincerely,

Alissa J. Arp
Coordinator, Hawai'i State Network, and
Vice President for Research, and Dean, College of Natural Sciences
Hawai`i Pacific University