Rosie Rowe of Leadership in Disabilities & Achievement of Hawai’i (LDAH), United States, has joined The 11th IAFOR International Conference on Education (IICE2026) and The 6th IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities (IICAH20206) panel for ‘Defunding Education: Challenges and Implications’.
Dr Halena Kapuni-Reynolds of the National Museum of the American Indian & Hawai'i Council for the Humanities, United States, and Dr Mary Therese Perez Hattori of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, United States, have also been selected to contribute to this panel.
To participate in IICE/IICAH2026 as an audience member, please register for the conference via the conference website.
The panel presentation will also be available for IAFOR Members to view online. To find out more, please visit the IAFOR Membership page.
Speaker Biography
Ms Rosie Row
Leadership in Disabilities & Achievement of Hawai`i (LDAH), United States
Rosie Rowe is the Executive Director of Leadership in Disabilities & Achievement of Hawai`i (LDAH), a 501(c)3 organisation improving the lives of parents and their children with, or at risk of disabilities to receive an equitable education in the public-school system. Before this role, Ms Rowe served as the Education & Training Coordinator, where she managed the organisation’s two major programs, wrote, and designed training curriculum for parents and professionals and managed ten programme staff.
She holds a master’s degree in business administration/ministry leadership and a certificate in developmental disabilities. As a sibling of a brother with down syndrome and a mom to three adult daughters, Ms Rowe has over 30 years of expertise in special education as a former Educational Assistant, Teacher, and Administrator of a private non-profit centre for children and adults with developmental disabilities. In her role as administrator, she assisted with the closure of Hawai’i’s State Institution for the Mentally Retarded within Waimano Training School and Hospital in 1999. Today, she manages three federal grants, four local government contracts, and one private grant under LDAH. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, walking, and staying active.
Abstract
Defunding Education: Challenges and Implications
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has enacted a sweeping range of policy shifts through anti-DEI executive orders and the termination of existing funding commitments in many areas, including education, the arts, and the humanities. Members of this panel will share how their organisations have been negatively impacted by these policies, challenges they have faced, and implications for academia.
