Esben Borsting
Chaminade University has selected Esben Borsting as its new senior director of the Office of Native Hawaiian Partnerships. Borsting has had more the 15 years of experience in higher education management, community-based programs and government in Hawaii. For 12 of those years, he worked for and with Native Hawaiian and Native Hawaiian-serving organizations.
Previously, Borsting served as project director for two U.S. Department of Education grants under the Title III program at Kapi’olani Community College (KCC). These two projects totaled over $13 million in funding and included major renovations in classroom and learning spaces across the campus and intervention for Native Hawaiian student success.
Borsting also worked closely with the Chancellor’s Administrative Council as well as the Native Hawaiian Council and the Student Success Council at KCC to ensure the successful implementation of the projects. One of his most notable accomplishments was coordinating an ad hoc committee to draft and ratify the bylaws to convene Kalaualani, the Native Hawaiian Council at KCC. This body represented all of the Native Hawaiian faculty and staff across the campus as well as those who worked on Native Hawaiian-serving programs and initiatives.
Prior to KCC, Borsting was the deputy director of the Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaii at University of Hawai`i–Hilo. He has also worked at Kamehameha Schools in its extension education programs, where he supervised a department to implement programs statewide for more than 2000 scholarship recipients across the nation. He began his work in the public sector at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs as a grant specialists, as well as provided community workshops.