In 1955, the Church College of Hawaii was formed and the first building was completed shortly thereafter. The first class had 153 students and 20 faculty members. Now, nearly 60 years later, the same school has expanded by over 15-times more students. BYU-Hawaii is now a small campus of diverse students reigning from more than 70 different countries worldwide. The mission, however, has always stayed the same throughout the years: “To integrate both spiritual and secular learning.”Soon after CCH opened its doors, the college completed housing units like these pictured. The buildings were one-story and housed nearly 100 students. In the front of the units, or hales (Hawaiian word for house), was a small parking lot and along the parking lot were benches and chairs for students to rest and converse with each other. Today the hales are either two or three floors with more than 60 rooms in each building and over 120 students in each residence hall. One tradition that has stayed the same throughout the years is the usage of the benches outside the hales. Even now, BYUH students use the benches until the late hours of the night conversing, laughing and so forth.When the school first opened in 1955, there were no more than 20 faculty members and faculty housing was not a big part of the college. Most faculty members lived right in Laie and if not, then not too far from the CCH campus. Now, having way over 20 faculty members, the faculty housing has expanded to local homes in Laie and surrounding towns like Hauula and Kahuku. With the addition of the BYU-Hawaii Townhouses, faculty numbers continually increase allowing additional courses, majors and classes to be taught from new faculty.
Writer: Jared Roberts ~ Multimedia Journalist
