Lifelong Educators Leave a Legacy

While performing in Buffalo, New York, Shirley ʻTi’ Kauanoe, a hula dancer from Lāʻie, Oʻahu, met Peter Manicas, a philosophy student at the University of Buffalo, New York. They were married in 1960. They both devoted their lives to teaching, mentorship, and cultural advocacy, a legacy that lives on in part through their endowment of the Peter T. Manicas and Shirley M. Manicas Educational Scholarship Fund of the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation. The scholarship supports Native Hawaiian undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Hawaiʻi who demonstrate good character, academic merit, and financial need.

Born in Lāʻie on June 16, 1932, Ti was among the Hawaiian cultural ambassadors who danced hula professionally across the continents of North American and Europe in the late 1940s and 1950s. When she returned to Hawaiʻi, Ti taught in the Hawaiʻi Department of Education’s kūpuna program for many years, passing down her knowledge of Hawaiian traditions and values to students, instilling in them a sense of community and cultural pride. She belonged to ʻAhahui Kaʻahumanu, Chapter 1, a Hawaiian civic club dedicated to preserving and promoting Hawaiian culture and heritage.

“She was honored to pass on to younger generations her knowledge of the Hawaiian language, lore, and culture,” said Professor Brien Hallett of the Matsunaga Institute for Peace & Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and a friend of the Manicas for many years.

Peter was born in Binghamton, New York, on February 3, 1934, to Sicilian and Greek immigrants. He saw active service in the US Air Force in the late 1950s, earning the rank of Captain. After he graduated with a PhD in Philosophy from SUNY Buffalo, the family lived in Oyster Bay, New York, until Peter retired from the faculty of Queens College in 1988 and they moved to Oʻahu. He taught at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa until 2014, serving as Professor of Sociology and Director of the Interdisciplinary Studies program. His thirteen books and more than fifty published and unpublished papers are testament to his scholarly productivity.

“Peter was fierce in his pursuit of intellectual rigor, honesty, and competence,” said Hallett. “He instilled these virtues in generations of his students.”

Peter passed away in 2015, and Ti in 2022. But their commitment to education survives them through the endowed scholarship.

“Both Peter and Ti were dedicated to education, nurturing Hawaiian culture, and helping Native Hawaiian students to reach their highest goals,” said Hallett.

The Manicas’ vision endures, empowering generations of Native Hawaiian recipients to be enriched by the Hawaiian cultural values that Ti advocated and the academic virtues that Peter exemplified.

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