Ethnic Studies

Background:

Noel Jacob Kent, a New Yorker by upbringing, has been around UH Manoa so long that he has vague memories of once glimpsing a brontosaurus (or was it a stegosaurus?) on the campus mall. He remains profoundly grateful to this university for providing him with an intellectual home (not to mention the ability to support his family). None of which has stopped him from critiquing the university administration when he think it is wrong (a not infrequent occurrence). At this time, Noel is concerned about the budget crisis being used by our grossly overpaid administrators as an excuse to cut more faculty and student classes and attack liberal education.

Despite this, Noel continues to view the university as that all-too-rare place where intellectual and personal growth and transformation are possible, where human creativity and discovery can be actively nurtured. Over the years, the realization has dawned on him that most of what he really does of value at UHM is engaging students in the life of the mind and supporting evolution into independent, intelligent, caring people. Noel remains quite politically active (out in the left-field of the Democratic Party) and worked for John Kerry in '04 and Barack Obama in '08 in the swing state of Ohio and learned a great deal there.

Teaching:

Noel enjoys teaching and regards it as a craft needing constant attention and reimagining. His orientation (thanks to the privilege of teaching 300 and 400-level courses with enrollments of around 15-25 students) is towards highly interactive classroom dynamics utilizing lectures, films, problem solving in small groups, role playing etc. The goals are to enhance literacy, problem solving and critical thinking and team working skills but also to create a sense of a community of learners engaged in common endeavor. One should, he thinks, aspire to a living classroom featuring a modicum of intimacy, relevance to the lives all participants and mutual respect. Ihe tries to conduct a class in the spirit of both free inquiry and respect for all participants and viewpoints. Noel also considers it vital that students learn to understand the importance of historical and other contexts and make connections between various kinds of disparate social phenomna and information. His mantras (to steal from the realtor set) are “context, context, context” and “making connections, connections, connections.” Noel had a wonderful opportunity during the summer of 2007 to do a resident directorship in Mendoza, Argentina, his first journey to South America. It was marvelous and he really came to appreciate the graciousness and gutsy stoicism of Argentines who have a difficult historical legacy to overcome.

Research:

Noel’s interest is in interdisciplinary scholarship in both the social sciences and history with a special focus in the areas of ethnic and race relations and conflict, contemporary U.S. history and the dynamics of globalization and social movements. His last book, America In 1900 (M.L. Sharp, 2000) explored the U.S. at the turn of the twentieth century focused on economic and political inequalities, racial/ethnic divisions and American global expansionism (which are very much with us today). His more recent writing has been in analyzing racism in the American university, and exploring the power of service learning for university students. Noel is currently studying the year 1965 and the importance of domestic and foreign policy decisions made by the Johnson administration for the future of the United States. l965 was a critical year in the evolution of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and the developing youth movement(s).

Interest(s):

As a member of the UHM Ethnic Studies Department back in the 1970s, Noel was involved in a series of community struggles against the state and corporations. Around 2000, he began to play an active role on campus in promoting community-based education (service-learning) in disadvantaged communities and presently supervises students working in programs at the Palolo Hale, Kuhio Park Terrace, the Employment Training Center and other sites. Noel has also teamed with social studies teachers at several Honolulu high schools in conducting “Project Citizen” which is aimed at fortifying students’ understanding and practice of democratic citizenship. A high point of Project Citizen occurred during the Spring 2004 semester when the advocacy of the Kaimuki students (mentored by the UHM Honors 491 class) “encouraged” the state to build new bathrooms at the high school. This experience was described in an article he wrote in the Journal of Civic Commitment. So Noel has become something of a “true-believer” in the efficacy of community-based education in melding theory and practice (praxis) in university classes. During the 2008-9 academic year, Project Citizen had a greening the school focus at Roosevelt High School and Noel wants to continue the momentum that generated. Could a "green Roosevelt" become a model for the public school system?

Noel is also a political being who traveled to Ohio to campaign for John Kerry (read: against George W. Bush) in 2004 and is sorely disturbed by the internal and external directions the country is going in. He involves himself in local political campaigns and lobbying (especially involving higher education) and has been active in coalitions against domination of UH Manoa by military and corporate interests. He continues to cherish the elusive (and perhaps impossible) notion of making social justice, democratic accountability and environmental sustainability touchstones of the way we live). Meanwhile, the notion of trying to live each day with a little wonder and some humor and generosity of spirit (and not fall into despair) sounds about right for now.