Kapunahou

Since its founding in 1841, Punahou School has been known for its exceptional quality of education, faculty, students, and facilities, and for its enduring sense of place and community rooted in the land known as Kapunahou. To commemorate the 175th anniversary of Punahou, this book explores and celebrates the elements that make it a world-class educational community—intellectual rigor, innovation, commitment to engaging the school community in the greater public good, respect for tradition, and a setting of outstanding natural and architectural beauty.

Contemporary photographs by alumnus Linny Morris showcase historic aspects of Punahou’s expansive campus, including the sacred spring for which the land and the school are named. The images also highlight the school’s modern educational facilities and significant annual events. Nineteenth-century lithographs, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and cartes de visite reproduced throughout the book illuminate the school’s combined Native Hawaiian and New England heritage and the people behind the stories of the school—Hawaiian ali‘i associated with Kapunahou, New England missionary families associated with the founding of the school, and students who attended in its earliest days.

In his introduction, President Jim Scott describes how the history of the land and the school’s founding in 1841 have inspired his leadership and his commitment to socioeconomic diversity at Punahou. Twelve writers, educators, and journalists probe the ways in which Punahou has evolved as a place where entrepreneurship, sustainability, global citizenship, public service, and inquiry-based learning stand at the center of its teaching philosophy. The essays describe how the science of brain development and the neurology of learning are shaping Punahou’s educational environment and curriculum. They also explore the nature of leadership at Punahou, the school’s commitment to public service, and the ongoing effort to achieve greater diversity in its student population. Brief profiles of a range of former students—from Beatrice Krauss (class of 1922) to Carissa Moore (class of 2010)—reflect Punahou’s global reach and its continuing success at shaping and enriching the lives in its graduates.