PIR Thrives Despite Number of Clubs Participating

Faculty, students, friends and family all gathered at Chaminade University of Honolulu Sullivan Family Library Lawn Friday for the Pacific Island Review (PIR).

This year only three clubs performed at this year’s PIR. Hawaiian Club, Lumana’i O Samoa Club and Micronesian Club entertained the crowd compared to four clubs last year and five in 2016.

Kawena Phillips, a junior and Business major who works for the Office of Student Activities and Leadership (OSAL) at Chaminade, was tasked to plan and run PIR. He explained how he had catered for 400 people and strongly feels he hit that number.

“I think that despite only being three clubs this is easily one of the best turnouts,” Phillips said. “It looks like a lot of people came out, a lot of people were excited, a lot of good energy.”

Savannah Lyn Delos Santos, a senior at Chaminade, had performed the past three PIRs in three different clubs: the Hawaiian Club, the Marianas Club (which was a no-show last year at PIR but came out two years ago) and the Temana Tahitian Club that performed last year but not this year.

“I regret not joining any clubs this year,” said Santos, a business marketing major. “No, but I really couldn’t, I’m just too busy.”

Santos explained that the Temana Tahitian Club was forced to call it quits because qualified club members had zero interest in taking leadership positions for reasons similar to Santos. They were too busy with school, work, internships or didn’t have enough knowledge of the Tahitian culture to be able to run it confidentially. Still, Santos feels like this year’s PIR still had plenty to offer and faired well in entertaining the crowd.

“Honestly it doesn’t make a difference,” Santos said. “These three groups are still introducing other cultures, and they had really good [entertainment between the performances].”

The crowd seemed to have agreed because, despite the consistent rain, the group seemed to stay active and responsive to all the dances.

Hawaiian Club went out first, then the Micronesian Club, and the Lumana’i O Samoa Club afterward, but of course it wasn’t over without a lip sync battle. Three acts Sign-up for the lip sync battles announced to students and club members a week before PIR started to allow for practice.

Professor Aaron M. Williamson Jr., who teaches Business, had a hard time looking away during the lip-sync battle. With a smile, he said that he comes out every year to support his students since he was hired in 2013.

“The rain doesn’t affect me at all,” Williamson said. “I see a few of my students in every club. It’s nice.”

Freshman Hana Gandall had never been to a PIR at Chaminade. The Psychology major enjoyed her time out and was surprised at how much she was able to learn by seeing different cultures.

“It’s pretty cool; I would come out again,” said Gandall, who is from Kapolei. “The lip-sync battles were pretty funny.”

Students wishing to join a club at Chaminade can contact OSAL (in Ching Hall #106) with any questions.