The third issue of Tradewinds seems an appropriate time and place to pay tribute to Professor Cristina Bacchilega, Chair of the English Department from 2001 through 2007.  All of our chairs in my long memory of the department have contributed significantly to our programs and accomplishments.  Cristina was the only one with whom I worked closely, however (during the semesters when I was Associate Chair and Acting Chair), and of all her friends and admirers, I am as familiar as any with her extraordinary professional and personal service to us, to the university, and to the communities of Hawai‘i, and I am perhaps the most indebted to (and challenged by) her remarkable example.  She would of course insist that whatever has been accomplished over the last six years is owing to the good will, energy, hard work, and talents of colleagues, students, and staff—but it was Cristina Bacchilega who energized us and brought out our best.

Cristina Bacchilega and Mark Heberle

Tradewinds itself would not exist if not for Cristina’s initiative to publicize the Department’s activities and accomplishments and to invite our graduates and friends to remain part of our community, if only electronically. But her energy and passion for encouraging and facilitating Department outreach has gone much beyond that.  She has expanded and helped to grow the audience for the Department’s annual Fall Festival of Writing and its affiliated Graduate Reception, nearly all of which have taken place under her active guidance and indefatigable efforts to generate intramural and extramural funding.  Other departmental initiatives such the Chadwick Lecture Series and our weekly Departmental colloquia were not only carried on but carried further under Cristina’s leadership, along with our sponsorship of and participation in activities by the Center for Biographical Research, Children’s Literature Hawai‘i, Hawai‘i Writing Project, and the K-12 Write in the Middle Initiative, a program to which Cristina has devoted time and energy directly and personally.  Cristina’s initiative and determination have also helped to establish and implement two important new outreach programs, the Hawai‘i Bibliovision Series on Channel 54 that is supervised by Ruth Hsu and the Marjorie Sinclair Edel Reading Series overseen by Craig Howes.

With Dean Joseph O'Mealy, Mark Heberle, Judith Kellogg, Laura Lyons.

At the heart of Cristina Bacchilega’s professional, administrative, and personal leadership over the last six years has been the Department’s purposeful commitment to Asia, Pacific, Hawai‘i, and indigenous writing, instruction, and scholarship.  Distinguished visitors and readers over the last several years have included Sia Figiel, Patricia Grace, Joy Harjo, Nora Okja Keller, Victoria Kneubuhl, Zach Linmark, Haunani-Kay Trask.  Hires during her two terms as chair have included Erica Clayton, Ku‘ualoha Ho‘omanawanui, Anne Kennedy, Gary Pak, Robert Sullivan, S. Shankar, Reina Whaitiri.  And it is to Cristina directly that we owe the revival of the Citizens Chair, including the remarkable spring of Gayatri Chakravorty in 2003, and the incomparable privilege of having Albert Wendt with us for these past four years.  

For me, however, it is ultimately Cristina’s personal and professional devotion not only to the welfare of the department but to the welfare, happiness, and success of every student, instructor, and staff member in it that defines her tenure as chair.  I know that Judith Kellogg and Laura Lyons, who shared with me the privilege of working with Cristina every day, share this sentiment as well.  She was a great administrator, leader, and motivator, but she was an even greater listener, and these qualities enabled her to bring the department together as a community with shared interests. For example, the exhaustive Listening Projects that she undertook encouraged and enabled each of us individually to share our suggestions and concerns directly with the chair.  The air-conditioning of the Tower, the most significant transformation of our teaching environment since Joe Kau was able to have the classroom wing sealed and air-conditioned, would not have been possible without Cristina’s leadership, attention to detail, and personal touch.  She met with each of us in our own office before it was about to be dismantled and then renovated, addressed our questions and concerns, prepared and reassured us as only she could do.   

Cristina performing hula with fellow halau members Kristen McAndrews, Reina Whaitiri, and Kurt Brunner. As it should have, Cristina’s tenure as chair ended with particularly appropriate blessings for the Department and for her.  For the first time as chair, she was able to successfully complete the tenure-track hire of a woman—three of them, in fact.   And two months after stepping down as chair, her book on Legendary Hawai‘i and the Politics of Place, a six-year project that had occupied the very little time she actually had available during her Guggenheim Fellowship and sabbatical leave terms (since I was only “acting” as chair and needed her advice constantly) won the Chicago Folkore Prize, the oldest international award for books in this field.  Now more than half a year since her tenure as chair ended, Cristina’s legacy to the department and to the university is evident every time a faculty member switches on his or her office air-conditioner or a student enrolls in an H-Focus English course.  To paraphrase the memorial to Christopher Wren in St. Paul’s Church, “if you seek her monument, look around you.” Finally, I’d like to end my portion of this Tradewindsby thanking Anne Kennedy, one of our new hires, for taking on the editorship of this aspect of Cristina’s legacy.  And I’d also like to encourage all readers to carry on Cristina’s good work  by contributing to the "English Department Fund--UHM" (#120-9867-4) whatever you can afford.  This UH Foundation account enables us to provide such activities as our Fall Festival and our reading series, our graduation parties for students, and professional travel funding for our graduate students.  Please contact the Department at 956-7619 for further information or stop by Kuykendall 402.   Finally, do keep in touch during this year by e-mailing Anne Kennedy at  anne.kennedy@hawaii.edu.  The Department and I wish you all a satisfying spring and summer 2008 filled with personal and professional accomplishments and happiness. Mark A. Heberle