A successor to University of Hawai‘i President Kenneth Mortimer will be announced by the Board of Regents on Monday, a few weeks ahead of schedule.
Ready to lift a cloak of secrecy, regents for the 10-campus system have called a meeting for 9:30 a.m. Monday in the Bachman Hall foyer at the Manoa campus.
The search for a president has been handled by a select committee that has kept the names of potential candidates and details about the selection process from the public and the UH community. Regents initially promised they would release the names of the top finalists, but recent public statements have emphasized confidentiality rather than disclosure.
Yesterday, all inquiries were referred to the public relations office, which could only repeat the regents’ meeting notice.
Some faculty members expressed disbelief that the announcement would come without an accompanying list of finalists.
"It would provoke a riot," said David Sanders, associate director of the Institute of Astronomy and a member of the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate was told that the list of finalists would be released before campus interviews were conducted, he said.
Joann Cooper, associate professor of education administration, said she would prefer to know the finalists or more about the search.
"When Mortimer was selected, the three finalists came and gave presentations to the faculty," said Cooper. "That was really nice. I understand that it was their choice to do that."
Two East Coast finalists whose names surfaced this week may not be the top contenders. Susan Prager, provost of Dartmouth University and former dean of the UCLA Law School, yesterday told the Dartmouth student newspaper that she is not considering taking the UH job.
Likewise, Evan Dobelle, president of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., a small, liberal arts college with 2,200 students, told the Hartford Courant he had not decided whether he wanted to be a finalist.
