Budget Crisis at UH
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1995-10-29
Guests: Richard Dubanoski (Dean of Social Sciences, University of Hawaii); Carol Eastman (Vice Chancellor, UH Manoa); George Simson (Professor of English, University of Hawaii)
Duration: 01:08:04

[00:00:00] Randall Roth: Good morning radio. We're broadcast live each Sunday morning at 8:00 on KHPR 88.1 FM and KKUA 90.7 FM and then rebroadcast Sunday evenings at 8:00 on KIFO 1380 AM. Everyone who helps to bring this show to you is a volunteer. We do what we do because we enjoy doing it and because we believe in the importance of lively and informed public conversation. Our primary sponsor is the Hawaii Community Foundation, an organization that encourages grassroots efforts to improve our island home. According to my dictionary, a crisis is a crucial or decisive situation, a turning point. Things could go either way. With that in mind, I'm calling today's topic Crisis at the University of Hawaii. With me in the studio to discuss it are Carol Eastman, Dick Dubanoski, and George Simpson.
[00:00:53] Randall Roth: Carol is Senior Vice President for the University of Hawaii and Executive Vice Chancellor for the University of Hawaii, Manoa. She's former Dean of the graduate school and Vice Provost for international programs at the University of Washington. She has an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Massachusetts and PhD in linguistic, linguistics. I can't even say it, Carol, from the University of Wisconsin. She's a professor of anthropology and author of nine books, including aspects of language and culture, language planning and traditions, tales, images in the Kaigani Haida. She has conducted fieldwork in Africa and written extensively in on Swahili language and culture and in Southeast Alaska, analyzing Haida language and oral literature. She's been at the University of Hawaii for about one and a half years and has helped plan Manoa's future through a focus on Manoa group and report.
[00:01:46] Randall Roth: Dick Dubanoski is Dean of the College of Social Sciences. He has an undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University and his PhD in psychology from the University of Minnesota. He tells me he majored in sports at those universities as well, or maybe minored in sports, majored in psychology. He taught at the University of Hawaii before coming here in 1969. He's done academic work in the area of child abuse, the effect of television on aggression, and the effect of toxins on behavior. He's been Dean of the College of Social Sciences since 1989 and he's Carol's weightlifting coach. A little trivia there. George Simpson has degrees in English from Whitman College, Washington State University, and the University of Minnesota.
[00:02:31] Randall Roth: Has been member of the UH faculty since 1963 and is now Professor of English and Director of the Center for Biographical Research at Manoa. He was the President of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, an International Association of Editors in the Humanities, and he's been active with the Americans for Democratic Action on a national level and union activities locally. He says he's been active in over 20 political campaigns and believes that politics and poetry are humanities two plausible expressions of passion and value. Well, as I indicated, our topic today is crisis at the University of Hawaii, and at least initially, we're going to focus on the situation at Manoa. As I understand it, there have been budget cuts over the last several years, and up until now, administration at Manoa has dealt with them on on kind of a horizontal level, across the board cuts, belt tightening, generally.
[00:03:26] Randall Roth: But now there's talk of of two fairly radical different approaches. One is to increase tuition dramatically. The other is to make vertical cuts to lop off units entirely. Carol, what's going on at Manoa? How bad is the situation from a budget standpoint?
[00:03:46] Carol Eastman: I think the situation is unique. What's been going on at Manoa has been a gradual erosion over the past five or so years, so that when these budget, budget cuts hit, we'd already lost a lot of money. So these current cuts now come to us right at a time when we were beginning to think things would hopefully turn around. The situation is that we have had an erosion. Now with the new 10% cuts that we've just gone through plus another 5 to 7, we're really down barebones to where the only thing that we can do is look to vertical cuts. Most of the available money left that we could even think about cutting is in salaries, and so this is a very, very different situation for the university.
[00:04:28] Randall Roth: So if there was any any fat in the budget, that's long gone, and down to the bone and still cutting, I guess means that arms and legs or fingers and toes or or something is about to go?
[00:04:40] Carol Eastman: I think that's about it. I think we use the analogy more of like a diet. We're hoping to keep all the limbs intact.
[00:04:46] Randall Roth: You, George, and and Dick each wrote an article for the advertiser this morning and as I read your article, I guess one of the things that that I got out of it was this sense that if it's done right, that the university could emerge a stronger organization.
[00:05:01] Carol Eastman: I think that's right. One thing I'd like to make clear is that we have a system of program review. We're always reviewing our programs at the university, and we're trying to be sure that what we have are programs that continue to pertain to the mission. So we have a process of self-monitoring, and at the same time, we are trying to be sure that the university is doing is living up to its mission. Um it's a little more urgent now, I think, because of the juxtaposition of the early retirements, the budget crisis, and these things are all coming together just when President Mortimer and his management team have gotten themselves together and have made a plan.
[00:05:38] Carol Eastman: There's a strategic plan in the works that President Mortimer hopes to unveil in November, and this will plot the direction for the entire university, including Manoa. And unfortunately, the budget situation will mean that we won't be able to implement much of this plan for a while.
[00:05:55] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, one of the words that Carol just mentioned is is mission, and Dick Dubanoski, in your article this morning, I got the impression that you feel that that we really don't have a clear mission right now. You suggested that we've lost our our vision, our direction, um and that there is a breakdown in the foundation of the university. Could you elaborate on that a bit?
[00:06:17] Richard Dubanoski: Sure. Uh from my perspective, I think that the the budget is a crisis, and I think it's a crisis that we all recognize is a very visible one that will have dire impact on the university, as Carol pointed out. But the crisis I talked about is this crisis I think that strikes at the soul and the heart uh of the university and one that we don't see as very visible. And this crisis has to do basically with uh a lack of uh academic values and a lack of shared governance.
[00:06:45] Randall Roth: And that's something that would be a problem even if we weren't being asked to make big budget cuts right now.
[00:06:49] Richard Dubanoski: Absolutely.
[00:06:50] Randall Roth: How do you deal with that?
[00:06:52] Richard Dubanoski: Well, I think there's two things that we have to do. Is one is that I think that uh academic leadership, the senior members of the administrative team have to go out and basically uh discuss this and start the the discussion on the rediscovery of the academic values, academic uh mission of the university. And all all parties, the the staff, the faculty, and the students have to be involved in that discussion.
[00:07:16] Randall Roth: Um another thing you wrote in your article this morning and I'm quoting, it says, the university can no longer allow itself to be directed by non-academic issues. Can you give us an example of what you mean by that?
[00:07:27] Richard Dubanoski: I think a good example is the resources. I think that right now we are being almost driven dictated by the resource issue by the budget. And so in some respects, it's the budget that's driving the mission, rather than the mission driving the budget.
[00:07:39] Randall Roth: So if we had a clear mission, then we could communicate what it would cost to fund that and so it'd be driven by the mission as opposed to them saying, here's how much money you've got and then we adjust to that.
[00:07:48] Richard Dubanoski: Absolutely.
[00:07:49] Randall Roth: Okay. George Simpson, Professor of of English, um someone who's been critical I guess over the years of uh administration at at UH at various times and for various reasons. Uh this morning in the newspaper you put yourself uh out on the line by giving 20 specific suggestions.
[00:08:07] George Simson: Yeah, I think that the the problem at UH is that the leadership at UH isn't fighting like hell for the university. I think that's the first thing that has to happen and if without without everybody fighting for the place, naturally, we're not going to get our our share of it.
[00:08:19] Randall Roth: Is is that fight over in the legislature, in Governor Cayetano's office, or for the hearts and souls of the people?
[00:08:25] George Simson: No, I I think it's uh between uh the administration of the university and the governor. The governor is a a tough smart guy and if you don't fight with him, if you don't have your arguments marshaled, you're in bad shape and I don't think that that's happening.
[00:08:38] Randall Roth: Is that because of one of your suggestions is that we do something to the Board of Regents, they I think the expression you used was that currently it's a political playpen.
[00:08:47] George Simson: Yeah. As though they're really not the the they're not structured in a way to really fight on behalf of the university. Is that the point you're making? Well, for about the last five years, it's been a developers' paradise because of these plans for West Oahu College. But I think what uh what we really need is is uh to re-examine the premises of what what goes on here. And that includes restructuring all sorts of things. Uh Derek Bach, the former President of Harvard wrote a a rather interesting book some years ago, which he said very simply, a university president serves various constituencies. So why not just have those constituencies in the Board of Regents? Uh there's labor, there's management, uh there's alumni, there's student, faculty, the whole thing and let it be a self-management thing as well as a policy uh group instead of what we have now.
[00:09:31] George Simson: And uh used to be we had uh Harold Masumoto down in uh in the governor's office. We had Howard Stevenson chairing the regents and voila, all of a sudden, we had West Oahu, the developers' paradise at $500 million.
[00:09:44] Randall Roth: Okay. Um any other thoughts about your your 20 strategies for saving the university before we uh we go to a caller and
[00:09:52] George Simson: Yeah, I think there's a there's an idea that needs to be brought of uh put into play here. Um some years ago, uh Bob Stofer and David Young called this, wrote this the Stofer report. It was 1977 and the thesis was that the power at the UH should devolve to the faculty. And the the deans and faculty should run things and we don't need a whole lot of the rest. The opposite of that is this systems approach where you have vast systems and it might work in Texas and uh California, but it didn't work in Missouri and I don't think it works here and we could save a lot of money if we got rid of the systems approach and devolved everything into the the deans and the faculty and then maybe have two vice presidents and a president and let Bachman become a babysitting place of ours, I'm concerned.
[00:10:35] Randall Roth: And Bachman is the name of the building where the UH administration is. Where the UH central administration is. There's a big difference, yeah. Okay, well maybe we can get Carol's reaction to that. Uh Carol, any thoughts about George's comments?
[00:10:46] Carol Eastman: Well, if if George wants to be the baby, I guess we'd be happy to babysit.
[00:10:50] George Simson: If I could babysit at the salaries those guys get at Bachman, I'd be happy to put my diapers on.
[00:10:55] Richard Dubanoski: Yeah, one of the things I I do think George is making a good point and that it has to do with I think that faculty has lost control and responsibility of the university and I think that it's time that we take back that responsibility in all the different functions and that's why I said is that without the faculty, without the staff, the students being involved in change, change won't occur as it should. So I agree with George that uh all parties have to be part of it in a very meaningful way, not in a kind of a a very superficial way.
[00:11:21] Randall Roth: You suggested Dick in your article this morning that there's some apathy right now on the faculty. Um could you tell us a little bit more about that?
[00:11:29] Richard Dubanoski: Well, I again, it's uh as I pointed out in in a number of situations that uh it's hard to describe exactly the the cause of this apathy, the cause of the low morale because this is something that has like really kind of evolved over a number of years. But there's been a number of reasons probably why is that uh we have eroded against the sense of our primary academic values. We have we kind of be uh gone to a situation where the university faculty have had had less and less to say about the governance of the university. And and those two reasons I think uh have to do with the low morale that we see at the university.
[00:12:03] Randall Roth: Okay. Could I add some do you have a caller? Well, go ahead. Let me just add one thing to that.
[00:12:08] George Simson: It's a generational thing, too. And the reason I mention this is that I think the most important single event in the history of the University of Hawaii was the Oliver Lee case because that was a case over the First Amendment. It had other ramifications, of course, and Oliver looked at it differently and a lot of the students didn't know. But from my point of view, and I think the long run term benefit of that than winning that case was that it established the the high principle of freedom of speech at the university. And I think some of our younger uh faculty don't know about that case, in fact, I know they don't, and they don't know what it meant.
[00:12:39] Randall Roth: A lot of our listeners don't, and I don't want to get spend much time on it, but this is back during the Vietnam War, and Oliver Lee was a very vocal uh opponent. He was rather commonsensical actually. He said, he said, what business do we have governing Vietnam? That's really what he said.
[00:12:55] George Simson: But it he pushed it to a point where uh I guess there was a real showdown over academic freedom. Well, he didn't push it. He was doing his thing as a professor. He was calling it the way he saw it, which is what he should do. The boys downtown are the ones who got excited, although it to their credit, there were a few of the boys downtown that saved the whole situation, too, like Ed Nakamura and Najo.
[00:13:15] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, we've got uh a number of thoughts on the table uh here in the studio. Uh they've shared other thoughts that are in the advertiser this morning. We've got another voice that uh we want our listeners to hear before I invite them to ask questions and make comments. And that's the voice of Earl Anzai. Uh Earl is the Director of Budget and Finance for the state uh among other degrees. He has a law degree from the University of Hawaii. Earl is the guy who uh has been giving the bad news to an awful lot of of organizations over the last uh year or two, telling them that that the budget is not good and they're going to have to to cut more and more.
[00:13:52] Randall Roth: Earl, are you there? Yes. Earl, this can't be a fun period of time for you.
[00:13:57] Caller: No, it's not.
[00:13:58] Randall Roth: You're getting tired of telling people that they've got less money than they say they need.
[00:14:02] Caller: No, it's not that.
[00:14:04] Randall Roth: Well, tell us what uh what your thoughts are about the proposed cuts at the university and how that fits into the bigger picture.
[00:14:13] Caller: Okay, uh I think we should go back to the original cuts because that's what everybody is talking about. Originally, we cut the university 27.8 million dollars. As a percentage of the budget cuts, that was about 8.9%. That was lower than virtually all the departments, except the Department of Education, public safety, defense, and taxation.
[00:14:40] Randall Roth: So relatively speaking, the first uh layer of cuts uh the university got off in fairly good shape.
[00:14:46] Caller: Yeah, what we did was cut 8% of the instructional budget and 10% of the non-instructional budget, so the average came up to 8.9%. This time around, we short uh based on the recent uh Council of Revenue's estimates around 185 million. We're uh attempting to take only about half a uh 1/4th of that through budget cuts. The rest by various means of uh enhancing revenue such as a payroll lag. The roughly uh 44 million will come from all the departments, except public safety, which uh if you had another show on public safety, I'm sure you'll have a lot of people calling in. Uh public safety will have no cuts. DOE will have a minimal cut of 5% against their non-school level budget because that's the governor's highest priority.
[00:15:45] Randall Roth: What about UH?
[00:15:46] Caller: UH will have a 5% cut. That's the minimum cut for all departments.
[00:15:52] Randall Roth: Okay, so again, you're saying relative to to other areas, uh the university is is getting off in pretty good shape.
[00:16:00] Caller: Yeah.
[00:16:02] Randall Roth: Uh how much room uh uh Earl is there in in the budget? How firm is that 5%?
[00:16:09] Caller: It's pretty solid.
[00:16:10] Randall Roth: If if five or 10,000 students and faculty members march to the capital Tuesday and say, uh we're down to the bone and the budget simply shouldn't and can't be cut anymore, uh is it possible that that's going to have an impact?
[00:16:25] Caller: Well, everything is possible, but I don't think it's likely. Because there isn't a pot of money. We're short money as it is with this with this cut. We're only cutting 1/4th of what we need.
[00:16:35] Randall Roth: Okay. Uh see, and then the big concern is if they we don't get approval for some of our other proposals.
[00:16:42] Caller: For example, uh do you want to cut we're already cutting uh building in the tax credit cuts, we don't get that, then we're just going to have to cut more.
[00:16:50] Randall Roth: Have to cut more. But budget wise, we don't get the payroll lag which is $47 million.
[00:16:54] Caller: That's more than we are cutting from the budget alone.
[00:16:57] Randall Roth: Okay. It's a grim situation.
[00:16:59] Caller: Yeah, if it doesn't come from the university, it has to come from somebody else, from health. You want to cut some more health programs, or human services programs, so you know.
[00:17:07] Randall Roth: Okay. It's a tough job you've got, Earl. Hang in there.
[00:17:10] Caller: Okay.
[00:17:11] Randall Roth: Thanks a lot.
[00:17:12] Caller: Okay. Bye-bye.
[00:17:13] Randall Roth: Okay listeners, you've heard our guests, Carol Eastman, Dick Dubanoski, and George Simpson. You've heard uh Earl Anzai tell us that the budget generally doesn't look too good. Our topic is crisis at the University of Hawaii and we're focusing at least initially on the situation at Manoa. If you'd like to ask a question or make a brief comment, just call us at 955-8821. We uh if you tuned in late and want to catch the entire show tonight at 8:00 on KIFO 1380 AM, the entire show will will be replayed. So again, if you want to call us, the number is 955-8821 and Neighbor Islanders are always invited to call collect. George Simpson, you've got a comment before we get to the caller.
[00:17:55] George Simson: Yeah, just a a quick comment on what the director said uh in the advertiser this morning there's an article by Hugh Folk who's a Professor of Business at UH and he says, I accuse the governor of Hawaii and his finance Director of cutting spending on social and educational services before there was a valid need. And as far as I can see, the facts about this valid need are not before us all. I think the governor ought to have a two-page balance sheet put out, not these not these guesses by the Council of Revenues. I got them here too. I mean, I can guess too. But but what the the facts are for the last quarter, the last half, the last year and see whether Folk or Anzai is right.
[00:18:32] George Simson: I I really don't know, but I'm very suspicious and I think it has something to do with bonds.
[00:18:37] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, we're going to go to our callers. First, we have Lindy from Moiliili. Good morning, Lindy.
[00:18:43] Caller: Hi, Lindy. This is for George Simpson. The 25 million a year in bureaucrats that you mentioned in your article, uh were you what's that referring to? The uh uh vice-presidents or central? administration, can you elaborate more on that one? And my second question for Dr. Eastman is,
[00:19:05] George Simson: Wait wait. Lindy, let's take them one at a time. Let's have George respond to your first question.
[00:19:08] Caller: All right.
[00:19:09] George Simson: Okay Lindy. Uh what I know is from the handouts that Tom Bob gave us at the faculty senate the other day and it showed there were something between 20-25 million in a category called uh system-wide administration. I'll be darned if I know what that means. But as far as I'm concerned, it means lobster salad. And uh I'm glad to have uh Carol eat and uh but not of all of her friends and and relations up there. Well, let's let's get a response to that. There's Wait a minute, there there's one other thing. In one of the old budgets too, it shows the system-wide, this is before the cuts, this is the December 94 budget, system-wide is 64 million for the biennium 30 million a year. So, if you can tell me what those facts are, if Mr. Onzei wants to tell me what the facts are, if uh Hue Folk does or or President Mortimer, tremendous. But right now, I see a lot of money there that doesn't work, and and as far as I can see, the best thing for us to do is get rid of the system.
[00:20:02] George Simson: George, are you suggesting that uh that the administration, uh both the the state administration, Kaito's administration, and the administration at UH, are are keeping people in the dark, that they're not letting people know just where the numbers are coming from and that sort of thing? I think I have inquired of 10 experts including Folk, including a lot of other people in the legislature and so on who who should know. And they say, well you got to know this and you got to look at 10 different documents and do this, that and I have assembled some of the documents here but for the life of me I can't. And I I've talked to my own district representative, senator. I said, come on Brian. What's what's the real? He said, I don't know. I'd have to go back and do a lot of arithmetic because there may be as many as a 100 funds that I'd have to add up and subtract. So yes, what we what the university president should have done as the first thing, was get together the facts. He's got plenty of people there to do it and let everybody know what the facts are so we know whether this is a real crisis or a phony crisis.
[00:20:57] Carol Eastman: Carol Eastman, have you done that and if not, why not? Now is the question what is the system? Is that Is that what you want to know, George?
[00:21:04] George Simson: No, no. Not what the system. What's the money in the system?
[00:21:06] Carol Eastman: Well, the money in the system is the money that's necessary in order to run it. If we didn't have system administration, we would have a bunch of system administration. You'd have an a whole administration to run West Oahu and um you'd have another set of administrative things to run the community colleges and one thing that we've done at the university is consolidate that in this system wide administration. I think another problem with the timing of the budget cuts is the university is right on the eve of evolving the system. And it's been in place now for not very long. And in order to try to develop a comprehensive system of the community colleges, the four year schools and the research university, the structure itself is just newly in place and I think there is a lot of um change happening within that.
[00:21:53] George Simson: But this consolidation is is an attempt to to get unnecessary um administrators um out of the picture.
[00:22:01] Carol Eastman: Well, it's not to duplicate things. I mean, in other states, you have situations where you have complete systems structures just to run the community colleges. And one of the things that appealed to me when I was coming here to the University of Hawaii was that we're kind of ahead in the evolution of a system compared to other states. We have a way of looking at higher education here comprehensively, which is pretty forward-thinking.
[00:22:23] George Simson: Okay. Uh Dick Dubanovski?
[00:22:25] Richard Dubanoski: Let me just comment to go back to the uh my premise that again we can't allow the the budget to drive what we're doing and that is the same case of whether it drives the the system or drives the different levels at the university. We must go back again to our basic values, the the the whole notion of shared governance based on collegiality and excellence, to decide whether this system or any other system is the better one. And uh I hope that we understand that the budget is only a very small part of what, you know, drives this university, is the values that are the underlying foundation that we always have to attend to.
[00:22:56] George Simson: Okay. Well, get can I Oh, you got to call. Well, I got to keep moving. Lindy, you had another question?
[00:23:00] Caller: Ah, yes, yes, briefly, if anyone can tell us something about those revolving funds. You know, we have a number of uh self uh sustaining uh units at the university, you know, book store, um athletics um uh parking, faculty housing. How's the money manage there and do these units still get uh uh subsidies from the G fund? And I'll hang up.
[00:23:24] George Simson: Okay, thank you, Lindy. Um Carol, that sounds like a a technical area. Can you give us a real quick response?
[00:23:31] Carol Eastman: I mean, that's a very good question. One of the ways we're trying to meet the current budget crisis is to urge units that do have revolving funds to become more self-sustaining and to really wean these units from G funds. And we're looking more to that and we'll be looking at that in the next few weeks as we try to deal with this crisis.
[00:23:49] George Simson: Okay, George Simpson. You know, there's here's one fund that didn't get cut. Can you imagine there's one fund here according to the the the the the papers we have that that uh weren't cut. These are again from the uh from Tom Bob in your office. RCUH 855,000 uh for 95. 855,000 for 96. percentage of cut, zero. Why RCUH? Zero. Well, because Harold Massa Motor's president. You're gonna have to bring it together.
[00:38:00] Carol Eastman: the program review that we go through on a regular basis, and what we're going to do is continue that and um, be sure that programs that are not productive or central to the mission of the university will no longer be there. The reality, however, is that the cutting of graduate programs means that you can never get them back and it's also not very cost-effective because the graduate programs aren't that expensive. If you cut out the graduate programs, you may reallocate some of the teaching function to faculty who can then teach more undergraduate classes, but in general, faculty teach a complement of undergraduate and graduate courses. So there's not a great deal of money to be saved by cutting the graduate programs.
[00:38:35] Randall Roth: But if you've got to cut X X million dollars, uh and you can't do across-the-board cuts anymore, what are you going to do other than start cutting units?
[00:38:44] Carol Eastman: And we and we will do that. I mean, we know we can't be everything to everybody and I think during the wild and wonderful days when the economic economics of the state were booming, we did add a lot of programs that are quality programs. We are so now close to the bone and having to cut that we will have to re-examine just about everything we're doing. But let me be clear too, that we are trying to do a number of revenue enhancement strategies prior to having to do any of these vertical cuts. We will do comprehensive review and try to ensure quality of the programs. If we can find programs that are not central to our mission and that are also weak, those programs will not continue at the university.
[00:39:23] Carol Eastman: But anything that is central to the mission that is a strong program will be continued.
[00:39:28] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, let me go to Dick Dubanoski, who was talking about what's at the core of of what the university is all about in his article this morning and get a reaction to what Carol was just saying, and then we'll get George's thoughts.
[00:39:40] Richard Dubanoski: The point that I would like to make is that at times when the when the budget was good, again, we did not know what the essence of the university was, and so that resources did not flow into those that are the core, the heart of the university. Instead, I think what we did was we just proliferated at the edges more and more and therefore again lost sight of what the university was all about. So that now in these dire straits of of the cuts, again, we're going back not knowing where the uh the heart of the university is, and we've been cutting across the board. And now, I think the problem is is that when we start to take a look at what is important is that we have no sense of the mission and therefore, a lot of decisions are going to be made on what I've called, you know, political issues and not necessarily strong academic issues.
[00:40:21] Randall Roth: But it sounds to me as though you're in basic agreement with what Carol is describing as the current process that they're going to try to figure out what's at the core, what's at the periphery and then start eliminating those programs that are perceived as being at the periphery.
[00:40:35] Richard Dubanoski: I agree.
[00:40:36] Randall Roth: But you're afraid it's going to be political?
[00:40:37] Richard Dubanoski: I I afraid that the basis has not been set, the discussion, the discourse has not been set as what is the the heart of the university, what is the the quintessential mission of the university, and so that what will still take place are issues that have to do more with kind of political uh matters, self-interest, uh personal agendas, as opposed to academic basic academic values.
[00:40:58] Randall Roth: Okay. George Simpson. Let me answer to uh direct my answer to directly to Peter.
[00:41:03] George Simson: Uh, first of all, my sister works at the University of Michigan. We get together about once a year. She's got the same bunch of yo-yos there running things as we have here. And uh I said, but Michigan is supposed to be big time. The only thing they really do better than we do is the football stadium. And uh so anyway, but my point is this, I don't buy that. Uh, the other day we got a call from the BBC, can you guys tell us about biography? Because we have the only going by biography center in the world. We're number one. The BBC want. So we sent them tapes, we sent them this. They said, great tapes, great that you're explaining biography to us.
[00:41:35] George Simson: All right, if we have to explain biography to the Brits, then we you know that we're the Athens of biography. I don't give that up for anybody.
[00:41:41] Randall Roth: Okay. Carol, I'll give you the the the closing shot on this one because it goes directly to what you're doing right now. Uh, and and I think you were just called a yo-yo. I'm not sure. Did I say that?
[00:41:53] Carol Eastman: I thought I was leaning back from the microphone.
[00:41:56] Randall Roth: I I think it's really important that listeners have a sense for what the plan is, and as I understand it over the next month or two, the regents are taking a look at what is supposedly at the core and what is supposedly at the periphery, and that unless something unexpected happens, there are going to be units eliminated.
[00:42:13] Carol Eastman: That's right.
[00:42:15] Randall Roth: Okay. Okay. Well, listeners, this is Pop Radio. We're talking about the crisis at the University of Hawaii. Guests in the studio are Carol Eastman, the senior vice president for the system and executive vice chancellor for the Manoa campus. We have Dick Dubanoski, who is the Dean of the College of Social Sciences, and George Simpson, a professor in the English department at the University of Hawaii Manoa. If you would like to catch the show in its entirety tonight on KIFO, that's 1380 AM. We're going to have the entire repeat. And uh watch Channel 2 News tonight at 6:00 and again at 10:00. We have Manolo Morales here with Greg the cameraman, and we expect that they'll have a report at 6:00, uh perhaps at 10:00 as well, on today's show.
[00:42:58] Randall Roth: If you'd like to ask a question or make a brief comment, I think, no, we don't have any any lines open right now, but uh as we get to callers, we'll have some more open lines. So give us a try a little bit later. 955-8821. Well, we move on to Zuma in the Diamond Head area. Good morning, Zuma.
[00:43:13] Caller: Good morning, Randy, thanks for taking my call. Um, I have a question for Ms. Eastman. Um, this is kind of a follow-up to what uh Michael was saying earlier. Um, I've always thought the University of Hawaii was, you know, was pretty intelligent, and I've had a great time there. I've been here five years, and I think they're very progressive thinking people, very comprehensive, but what I can't understand, perhaps you can help me with this, is why couldn't anyone see this coming? I mean, the the like the bulk of our problems, the financial problems and, you know, of course, everything being cut and, you know, a lot of students being discouraged or whatever. Um, could you explain how come no one really saw this, you know, in in its entirety and in its in its its size happening the way it is now?
[00:43:49] Carol Eastman: I think people saw different parts of it. This is a very funny time for universities all over the country. All over the place, a large number of faculty who are hired in the 60s are retiring. This state then also had this early retirement incentive program, so that a number of other faculty retired. Then we are kind of the last part of a wave of an economic downturn throughout the nation, plus we have our own peculiar financial situation in the state. So all of these things came together in a way that I think no one person would have been able to add up. I think the magnitude of this is a genuine surprise. And as I said at the beginning too, it also has come to the university just when the university was poised to take off.
[00:44:27] Carol Eastman: We have an academic development plan for the University of Hawaii at Manoa that charted out the future of the university from 1991 to 1997. And these assumptions were all based on continued economic booming on the development of the system and on the future growth of the university. And it reads as a utopian document and I think had we been able to continue along that way, things would have been entirely different. So, that's my only answer to you, I think, it's just nobody was really able to add all of those things together to see the magnitude of this.
[00:44:58] Caller: Okay, well thank you very much. But also, I have one more comment. Assuming that the worst happens, what do you, what do you think is pretty much going to become of the university?
[00:45:06] Carol Eastman: I think the university will continue to be a marvelous place. It will be leaner, and it will be meaner, and the good that could come out of this is it could be a more focused place. I think as uh Dick Dubanoski's been saying here, we will come out of this with a sense of mission. Unfortunately, we would have been would like to have been able to get this sense of mission at more leisure and with more um financial ease.
[00:45:26] Randall Roth: I know leaner, does meaner mean the job security isn't quite what it was in the past?
[00:45:32] Carol Eastman: I don't think so. I think there will be uh fewer secure jobs, but those that are there will be secure.
[00:45:38] George Simson: Just let me try to put a different perspective on this too. Here's my my keynote question. Uh, who was the Chancellor of Cambridge University when Isaac Newton was there? I've never found anyone who knows and I have hard hard time finding out who it is, who it was. And my point is that universities tend to be, and this university particularly, is less than the sum of its parts. But there are great things happening like Isaac Newton. Uh, we should know about them, like like Glen Page is the we got a million rupee prize from the Indians for non-violent political science. Nobody's even put a note about it in the newspaper. And there are all sorts of things like this happening at the university.
[00:46:20] George Simson: Ian Gibbons, I never heard of until last week and he's one of the got a hundred million hundred thousand dollars from the Japanese. And this kind of thing is what counts. So, this business of the whole systematic approach to it, I I disagree with Carol. I think the system's approach duplicates everybody and you should see all the rubber stamps I need Carol in order to buy a paper clip.
[00:46:40] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, we're going to try to move through our callers uh real quickly now. Thank you, Zuma. Appreciate your call. Uh, Stan from Aina Haina, do you have a question or a brief comment?
[00:46:48] Caller: Yes, I understand non-resident students after a year get to pay resident tuition. Uh, is this so?
[00:46:55] Carol Eastman: Yes.
[00:46:56] Caller: Uh, what what the other rules on that? Uh is that student work, uh does that qualify them for residency status?
[00:47:04] Carol Eastman: You just have to be able to prove that you're a resident. One of the easiest ways is to get a driver's license.
[00:47:09] Caller: I see. It's sounds too easy. Is that a something a federal law?
[00:47:13] Carol Eastman: I don't know if it's a law, but I know that it's a common practice all over the United States that, you know, students achieve residence status after living in the state for a year.
[00:47:20] Caller: I see. Is there any way you see of tightening that up so that the university could get uh I understand some places, uh if you enter as a non-resident, you complete your education as a non-resident?
[00:47:31] Carol Eastman: Yes, we've been talking about that too. That's most often the case at private schools. Um, one of the models for that is the University of Colorado. It's it's kind of against our philosophy at the University of Hawaii at the moment, but again, in crisis, you know, philosophies could change.
[00:47:47] Randall Roth: Okay. Interesting uh comment. Thank you. Thank you, Stan. We go We go to Leilani in Manoa. Good morning, Leilani.
[00:47:54] Caller: Hi. Um, I have a question and in all the talk this morning, if as usual, the community colleges are completely ignored. They're the forgotten stepchildren of the University of University.
[00:48:02] Randall Roth: Well, I I've asked our guest to focus on Manoa just so that we could keep this at at manageable size, so that's my fault, Leilani.
[00:48:10] Caller: Yeah, but, you know, the the concern I have is that about uh a half or somewhat more than a half of all the students in the UH system attend the UH UH community college system and there have been devastating cuts on the campuses uh that has that have not even been announced in the newspapers at all. Um, just devastating things that have been seen on the campuses. And one of the problems that I would like to focus on and have the the some comments on is, basically, um, I I teach at one of the schools and the DOE does not do its job. They pretend to do their job in preparing students in basic skills, but they don't.
[00:48:45] Caller: And um, in fact, the students have gotten worse rather than better over the years because of the budget cuts now, uh many opportunities are being cut out for students who have these low skills who come to the community colleges uh to improve their lives and they eventually, if they do improve their lives in in their own way, they will also be adding to the tax base of the state rather than detracting from it by being in the prison system or welfare and things like this. It seems to me very short-sighted uh what's going on in terms of uh the budget cuts as they're being applied to the community colleges.
[00:49:17] Randall Roth: Leilani, I think that's a real interesting, provocative comment, uh and I've got a bunch of people who've been on the line for a while. So, I'm going to just call that a comment and move on. Uh, I really appreciate that. Um, we have to we have to move on to uh well, George, I mean, you're chomping at the bit over here. Go ahead. Go ahead and respond.
[00:49:35] George Simson: I I think she's got a really good point and she she said it very well. But my my point is and it's in the paper this morning point number four, if you want to look at it, split the community colleges from Manoa, have the two things separate so that you guys the community college can fight for what you need, and we at Manoa will fight for what we need and forget about this system stuff and it's 60 million which is rubber stamp as far as I'm concerned.
[00:49:53] Randall Roth: Carol is over here looking at me like, more administrators, more administrators. Okay, we go to Cal in Hawaii Kai. Good morning, Cal.
[00:50:00] Caller: Good morning. Uh comment and a question. First the comment, a few calls back someone suggested that maybe Manoa can't afford some of its graduate programs. I'd like to point out to the listeners out there that uh some of our graduate programs are among the best in the nation. And not only that, but they bring in more money than the state pays us in salaries. So for example, in ocean and Earth Sciences, if we were to lose some of our graduate professors, we not we could save the money on their salaries, we we'd lose more than every more than a dollar in grant money for every dollar the state saved, so the state would actually lose money in the economy.
[00:50:33] Caller: Um, my question is uh separate one, if we're talking about vertical cuts here, these will be substantial and these will be painful, who's going to make them? Are they going to be made by academics or they going to be made by bureaucrats listening to politicians? It's it's going to decide what goes.
[00:50:47] Randall Roth: That's a great question. Carol, I know you've said that the process is is there. Uh ultimately bottom line, are we talking about President Mortimer? Are we talking about the Board of Regents? Are we talking about the legislature, the governor? Who ultimately is going to be making the decision as to what gets cut, what unit gets cut?
[00:51:06] Carol Eastman: We want to engage in open and public discussion about this. President Mortimer has made public presentations in the past few weeks saying that we're going to have dialogue and discussion and involve everyone within the academy with regard to what programs are terminated, if in fact, we end up having to terminate programs. We're still hoping against hope, I think now, that we can avoid doing some of these more draconian measures. The plan is that these cuts will ultimately be handled by the President with the Board of Regents and by having open and public debate about these issues, we're hoping to be sure that the that is the basis upon which we do this cutting.
[00:51:43] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, we go to uh John in Palolo. Good morning, John.
[00:51:47] Caller: John in Palolo? Yes. Good morning. Hi, good morning. I'm calling uh regarding to uh regards to Dick Dubanoski's uh article this morning. I have not been able to read it but it regards shared governance. And I'd like to see how the university will include more faculty, staff, and students in the decision-making process at the university and within the departments. We see that the students do not have a vote on BOR. We see that uh other than public dialogue, whatever that means, we don't we don't have any very much uh help me say inclusion on the decision making for vertical cuts, department policy, academic guidelines, development plans. So I want to see a what proposals that they that they plan to make to include more people.
[00:52:26] Randall Roth: Can can I take that as a a comment rather than a question?
[00:52:29] Caller: It's a question. Where's the proposal? I want to see what they propose.
[00:52:33] Richard Dubanoski: I think the the point you make, John, is an excellent one and I think that we have not uh excuse me, attended to that particular whole issue of shared governance. And I think that uh you know, we do have a a faculty senate, we have a ASUH, we have uh uh the graduate uh of of uh organization also. My my point though is that what we don't have is a a comparable uh organization across those that really have a a direct and important input on the various kinds of issues that face this university. If I had my druthers, what I would propose then is that we would have equal uh representation from these various groups that will parallel that of administration.
[00:53:12] Richard Dubanoski: So that if administration has one on the budget, there would be one in the university faculty on budget and the and also with these students. If they have one on academic programming, we would have the same with student uh input and faculty input. That would be my approach to the whole situation, John.
[00:53:30] George Simson: I would say, my my answer to that is the university should fight and say no, we're not going to cut anything. Ben, if you want to cut, Earl, if you want to cut, go ahead and cut and let's see what you get. Second semester, you may you may have a lot of your your colleagues' kids not getting any education at UH.
[00:53:46] Carol Eastman: You know, shared governance involves the cooperation of people, though. We have, as Dick mentioned before too, a lot of apathy on campus, and at a time of budget crisis, it's it's really surprising to have the apathy that we have. The structure is in place for shared governance through the Faculty Senate, through the ASUH, and the GSO. But the participation of the students and the faculty is not as great as it should be, and we need to hear more from students and faculty working together, exactly the way Dick says. We have the structure. It can mirror what we do in the administration if the people are willing to participate, and I think it just takes action on their part.
[00:54:21] Randall Roth: And I guess if there's anyone out there that wants to show that they're uh supporter of of the university, this Tuesday, there's a march to the capital.
[00:54:29] Carol Eastman: That's right.
[00:54:30] Randall Roth: Uh about noon, we're going to take off from the university, from Manoa campus and walk to the to the capital.
[00:54:35] Carol Eastman: That's right, it will be the administration will be out there waving people off.
[00:54:40] Randall Roth: Okay. John, I I appreciate your call. This is Pop Radio. We're talking about crisis at the University of Hawaii. Our phone lines have been packed the entire hour.
[00:55:04] Caller: Sharon, good morning. Good morning. I'm concerned about the fact that there were advertisements on the mainland for public school teachers here in Hawaii that we are not generating enough interest in local students becoming public school teachers. And also, I'm concerned that we may, in the midst of budget cuts, cut off the support services that the schools need. For example, the education of special education teachers and the education of those librarians will become school librarians to teach our young people all of the new and accessible equipment available across the nation and the world.
[00:55:53] Randall Roth: Sharon, that that's an excellent comment. I'm going to call it a comment rather than a question, and uh with your permission, I'm going to just have to move on. Thank you, Sharon. We go to Melissa in Manoa. Good morning, Melissa.
[00:56:10] Caller: Good morning. Actually, these are comments. Okay. Um, in terms of duplication of services, I one of the things I found out having worked in a department for a couple of years was that every little program and department and division had to have somebody keeping track of the financial um, you know, how much money had been spent and how much money needed to be spent before the end of the year and and the money got sent back to wherever, you know, to wherever it goes. And uh that the fiscal officers um that are appointed, whose job it is to do that, were being duplicated uh no matter how things were done. So that's a duplication of effort that I think is is um not necessary.
[00:56:55] Caller: I think every department should be handling their own um monies.
[00:57:00] Randall Roth: Okay. Good comment. Your next comment and then we we need to go to another call.
[00:57:05] Carol Eastman: Okay. And then in terms of the decisions being made by faculty and being, you know, shared decision making, I didn't find that to be so in the number of years I've been on the on the campus as a student and as an employee. And especially Draconian to coin a phrase was the hiring process for our part-time teachers and and every you know, one else, the decisions often, at least in my experience, have not been made at the faculty level.
[00:57:38] Randall Roth: Okay, Melissa, I really appreciate your comments. We need to move on to Peter in Kailua. Good morning, Peter.
[00:57:43] Caller: Good morning, Randy. Uh, several months ago, there was a student sit in by the Hawaiian Students group at Bachmann Hall and the president, Mortimore, having been away, Joyce Sonoda was the local representative and she apparently caved in and promised the students that there would be no cuts in the Hawaiian studies program. My question is, were there cuts made or not? And number two, is the budgetary process being set by student mobs or by quote student participation, unquote?
[00:58:19] Randall Roth: Okay, it's a good question. Carol, I think there is a popular perception that somebody at UH caved in. One, would you agree with that characterization and and two, what was the outcome?
[00:58:32] Carol Eastman: I think it's unfortunate that people think that what happened there was caving in. There was never any intention on the part of the administration to cut sections of Hawaiian or also later it happened with sections of English. What we were doing was going through an initial assessment of how we could, how units would meet their allocations. It became very clear that in certain colleges, Arts and Humanities, Language, Literature, and Linguistics, the allocations that were given to those units meant that if they didn't have some kind of relief, they would not be able to hire the instructors they need to teach certain classes. Once we had that information, we had to reallocate money so that we could teach the classes in English and the class in Hawaiian. There was never a plan to not teach those classes. I think it was misinformation that made the public believe that that was the intent. And, of course, when we didn't cancel the classes, which we weren't going to do in the first place, it looks like caving in.
[00:59:26] Randall Roth: Sounds to me like the administration was set up.
[00:59:29] Carol Eastman: I don't, I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that, but it is the case that we need information. You know, a number of people think that we probably we should not we have central, we have decentralized a lot of the way we do business and so the colleges make their own decisions. It's cumbersome by the time we figure out, you know, what, how the allocations have to be sent out in order to do the teaching that we need to do, so much time goes by and rumors start all over the place. That was an unfortunate situation and I think caving in is an unfortunate analysis of what happened.
[00:59:59] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, we're right toward the end of the hour. We have just two minutes left and I want to give each guest about 15 or 20 seconds to share anything that needs to be said, that hasn't been said this morning yet. Uh, let's start with George Simpson, one last comment, George.
[01:00:16] George Simson: It's so hard to tell where to start. I have 20 things that I think can operatively be changed at the University of Hawaii. I think that the principal one I would opt for is the the the cutting of from the others parts of the system, get rid of the system and have each of the units be self self-regulating.
[01:00:38] Randall Roth: Okay, uh Carol Eastman.
[01:00:41] Carol Eastman: The main thing I want to leave the audience with is that the mission of the University of Hawaii at Manoa is special. It's a unique institution within the system that serves as a center for advanced graduate and professional studies and we do emphasize research and the providing of excellence in undergraduate programs. The core of the universities are the Arts and Sciences, business and education, and we need to narrow our focus in order to be able to be excellent at the things we claim to be. We need help and we need participation from the public to help us articulate and focus on this mission.
[01:01:14] Randall Roth: Okay, Dick Duboski.
[01:01:16] Richard Dubanoski: Well, again, I I agree that the budget is a very important part of the university. Unfortunately, I think it is just a minor part compared to uh some basic values that we have to face in our academic vision, our academic mission. In turn, is that what we have to do now is that we have to start looking at those as the basis for making decisions, the time is right, I think for frank talk and open conversations. I think it's time that we get to the basic, the heart and soul of a university, its mission and shared governance.
[01:01:33] Randall Roth: Okay, well I want to thank Carol Eastman, senior vice president of the University of Hawaii, Dick Duboski, dean of the College of Social Sciences, and George Simpson, professor of English at the University of Hawaii. Pop radio is produced by Susie Roth, our director of operations is Jeff Alardi. Next week guest host Peter Adler will be joined by Bill Petey, Bud Smizer and Dan Boyle talking about whether or not there should be another con con. You've been listening to Pop radio, I'm Randy Roth. Aloha.
[01:01:43] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, I want to thank Carol Eastman, senior Vice President of the University of Hawaii, Dick Dubinski, Dean of the College of Social Sciences, and George Simpson, Professor of English at the University of Hawaii. Pop Radio is produced by Suzy Roth, our director of operations is Jeff Alardi. Next week, guest host Peter Adler will be joined by Bill Paty, Bud Smizer, and Dan Boylan talking about whether or not there should be another Con-Con. You've been listening to Pop Radio. I'm Randy Roth. Aloha.