Protecting and Supporting Journalists Worldwide as the East-West Center President
Studying Journalism at the University of Hawaiʻi can lead to all sorts of fascinating and exciting careers. With Journalism classes starting on the Mānoa campus in 1926, UH students in this field for nearly a century have become community-engaged leaders through contributions to newspapers, radio, television, the Web, and social media. They have become spokespeople for nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and major international corporations as well as communication specialists in public relations, marketing, and advertising. They also have joined intellectually adjacent careers, becoming teachers, lawyers, and politicians.
But only one alumnus has ever earned the role of East-West Center President, a position critical to not only supporting Journalism worldwide but also to simultaneously protecting and developing democracies. And for that remarkable achievement in terms of global community impact, the UH Journalism Program is proud to present Suzanne Puanani Vares-Lum with its inaugural Alumni Award.
A Native Hawaiian, Vares-Lum was born and raised in Wahiawā, before she enrolled at UH in the late 1980s and earned her first college degree, a bachelor’s of arts degree in Journalism. That training in Journalism provided a truth-seeking foundation for her illustrious military career that spanned more than three decades and included her rise to the rank of Major General, where she addressed significant national security challenges throughout the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. She later returned to college campuses to earn master’s degrees in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College and from UH, again, in education. In 2019, she was chosen as a National Security Fellow of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and in 2022, she was chosen for the top leadership role at the East-West Center.
At the East-West Center, among her responsibilities, she is overseeing the Journalism Professional Development program, which features a major international media conference every two years in an Asian capital, (this year it will be in Manilla, Philippines). The center’s flagship Jefferson Fellowships have supported more than 4,000 journalists from around the world in various forms of training, exchanges, and workshops, since 1967, and the center offers about 10 additional media events every year that focus on bilateral and cross-border issues of both regional and international importance.
“I am grateful for the UH Journalism program as it taught me how to be a critical thinker, challenge my assumptions, and validate facts,” Vares-Lum said. “My professors also cared and invested in me and fellow classmates, and that has made a lasting impact on me.”
Vares-Lum not only is the first UH Journalism graduate to earn the role of East-West Center President, since the center was established by the U.S. Congress in 1960, she also is the first woman, the first Native Hawaiian, the first University of Hawaiʻi graduate, and the first Hawaiʻi-born resident to be chosen for the post.
“Suzy’s inspiring life story serves as the epitome of what we want all of our Journalism majors to realize in their own lives,” said Brett Oppegaard, Journalism Program Director at UH. “If you can dream it, if you work hard enough, if you dedicate yourself to public service and to doing public good, you can make the world a better place.”