The Purposeful Life

Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo

You can tell a lot about a person by the physical objects they keep near them.

For Carl Rogers Ackerman, his prized possession is a tiny paperweight featuring that famous quote by American author Robert Byrne: “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”

The item arrived as a gift from a visiting member of the Baltimore Community Foundation many moons ago and it’s usually found resting on Ackerman’s desk in his Mānoa Valley home.

Yet the paperweight isn’t a static piece. At times, it moves with Ackerman, accompanying him on his journeys. To this day, the message — etched in small letters — remains a giant inspiration for Ackerman, constantly guiding him toward an existence of intentional living.

“It’s something that was engendered in me by my mom and dad, who believed in social issues and in improving one’s life in general,” says Ackerman when explaining how his life’s purpose began to crystallize. “My mother started the first integrated preschool in Phoenix, Arizona, where I was born, and my dad was sort of a real estate guy and liberal politician who, in his day in the early 1960s, believed in civil rights.

“So for me, that slogan — ‘the purpose of life is a life of purpose’ — reminds me that how I conduct my life indicates who I am,” he adds. “It’s living proof of what I believe in.”

A former educator at both ʻIolani and Punahou schools, Ackerman strongly believes in the youth of Hawaiʻi. In fact, that conviction led him to co-found and develop the highly acclaimed PUEO initiative — or Partnerships in Unlimited Educational Opportunities, which in recent months marked two decades in operation — with Punahou’s past president James Scott.

Their purposeful alliance, coupled with the subsequent partnership between Punahou School and the Hawai‘i State Department of Education, was intended to lift public school students out of the so-called “academic middle” by providing them with a rich summer experience at Punahou. According to Ackerman, the program’s ultimate goal was to assist these often overlooked, underserved and economically challenged students to not only graduate from high school, but enter college as well.

In many ways, the PUEO initiative — which was eventually renamed the Clarence T.C. Ching PUEO Program in 2015 — was built to address the dreaded “summer slide” that affects students’ academic skills when school is on break. It accomplishes this by taking them on a multi-year continuum (beginning as early as the fourth grade and continuing through high school graduation) and giving them not just summer camp activities, but rigorous custom-designed courses, including STEM and art classes, that earn participants DOE graduation credits, too.

Just as importantly, this invaluable mentoring and support program does all of this at no cost to students’ families.

“I felt there were students who were extraordinarily bright in the great middle — that was one of the criteria for the PUEO program, coming from the great middle academically in their classes,” Ackerman explains. “Often, kids who were below the middle or a little above the middle got special programs, but the kids in the middle who came from homes that didn’t have a lot of money didn’t get these special programs.

“Some people in the press and elsewhere often call these kids disadvantaged, but I don’t like that term,” he adds. “It implies negative things about these kids, many of whom come from wonderful homes and have parents who are very supportive.”

Since its launch, the PUEO initiative has flourished. In its first year, the program welcomed 40 students from 13 feeder elementary schools. By the time Ackerman retired from the program in 2019, PUEO had grown to more than 300 annual participants and its graduating classes almost always numbered “between 40 and 50 students,” Ackerman says.

“The reason I say 40 to 50 is because I would always try to fit more students into classes,” he explains. “If there was an extra seat in a classroom, I would allow another student in.

“I was not cautious about trying to fit in more students,” Ackerman continues, before adding with a chuckle, “of course, my teachers in the program would sometimes get kind of upset at me for doing that!”

Over the years, PUEO has expanded to include dozens of public, charter and independent schools. Today, the multi-year initiative primarily serves a network of 60-plus DOE feeder schools across the state.

Yet, as impressive as the program’s growth has been, Ackerman is most proud of these numbers: PUEO produces a 100% high school graduation rate and an 85% college attendance rate.

“The program has categorically changed the trajectory of these kids and, in some instances, even changed the trajectory of their families,” Ackerman says.

It’s also accomplished this without creating any special carve-outs.

“What’s interesting about this program is that there are no race qualifications, no special avenues given. Our focus has always been on the kids from families who just didn’t have a lot of money,” he notes. “Everyone who comes to America, comes as an immigrant unless they are native, and our focus has always been on just giving these kids a shot.

“The author David McCullough once made a comment that I thought was really significant. He said there are no self-made men — that everyone gets help from somebody.”

Despite his fingerprints being all over PUEO, Ackerman insists the program’s success is more of a testament to the many hands and minds joining together to improve learning opportunities among Hawaiʻi’s youth.

“You know I couldn’t have done any of this without the generous support of my boss, Dr. James Scott, who was the president of Punahou for 24 years,” he says. “He was the one who gave me the opportunity to go and look into other enrichment programs like Heads Up in Oakland, Aim High in San Francisco and others. When I came back to Hawaiʻi, that’s when we began to formulate PUEO.”

He also acknowledges the contributions of his wife, fellow educator Lyn Ackerman, and their two adult children: Laura, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and Jennifer, who’s attending a veterinary school in Phoenix, Arizona. He credits the program’s official name to another teacher.

“Partnerships in Unlimited Educational Opportunities came from a fellow Punahou history teacher named John Bassford,” recalls Ackerman. “He said, ‘Carl, this would be a great acronym for PUEO.’

“So the ideas were not necessarily my own. I just incorporated them into the program if they were good ones.”

Much like the solitary owl his program draws thematic inspiration from, Ackerman was completely on his own when he landed in the islands in 1980. Still, he was eager for an adventure and thrilled to have found a teaching position at ʻIolani School.

“I didn’t know anybody when I was hired by ‘Iolani out of UC Berkeley,” he recalls, “but David Coon, the wonderful former headmaster at ʻIolani, put me up at his house for three days. Then, the assistant headmaster Charlie Proctor gave me his car so I could go and look for an apartment.

“I don’t know if that type of hospitality still exists in Hawaiʻi, but it was a wonderful way to welcome me to the islands.”

After teaching at ‘Iolani for nine years, Ackerman received a bit of unexpected news: He had been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities–Reader’s Digest Teacher-Scholar Program scholarship and would be presented with the honor at a White House ceremony. The award wound up funding his graduate studies at UC Berkeley, where he eventually earned his Ph.D. in European History. In 1992, Ackerman flew back to Hawaiʻi and immediately took a position at Punahou School, where he would go on to teach history for the next 28 years.

Naturally, crossing paths with countless students over a nearly four-decade-long teaching career made it difficult to always connect the youth with their schools, but Ackerman had a system to help him keep track.

“My ‘Iolani students always called me Mr. Ackerman because at the time, I didn’t have my Ph.D., and my Punahou students would call me Dr. Ackerman because by then, I had my Ph.D.,” he explains.

“As for all the PUEO students, they still call me Dr. A. So that’s sort of how I can tell where these students are from.”

Even in retirement, Ackerman keeps busy. Aside from serving on the boards of Youth Service Hawai‘i, the Atherton YMCA, Straub-Benioff Medical Center and the William P. Jarrett Middle School Foundation, he’s found time to dabble as an author. So far, he’s released three books: A Success Story in Public Education: The Clarence T.C. Ching PUEO Program at Punahou and its Partnership-Marriage Methodology; A K-Drama Voyage: The Quite Pleasurable Cultural Journey of an American Watching Korean Drama; and Wally and Dolly: A Story in Hawaiʻi Coloring Book.

Maybe most importantly, his involvement continues with PUEO. (These days, the program is led by director Kehaulani Scullion and Punahou School president Michael Latham.) Each year, Ackerman arrives on campus eager to talk to the oldest program scholars and discuss subjects such as service-learning and community service. And during these visits, he brings along that trusty paperweight of his — not only as a reminder of his life’s mission, but as a way of encouraging students to find their own purpose.

“I always carry that paperweight with me, and whenever I ask the kids to speak, I have them carry the paperweight as well,” Ackerman says. 

“For me, my life’s purpose is still ongoing.”