By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Staff Writer

The University of Hawai'i Board of Regents today named Evan Dobelle, president of Trinity College in Connecticut, president of the 10-campus Hawai'i system. He will be paid $442,000 annually in a contract that runs to June 30, 2008.

Dobelle will start this summer. The vote by the regents was unanimous.

The announcement ended a months-long process in which the university community was kept in the dark about the nationwide search for a candidate to replace Kenneth Mortimer, retiring this summer after eight years as president of UH.

There were faculty protestors outside the regents’ meeting room today as Dobelle’s appointment was announced.

“The University of Hawai'i faces a moment of great and important challenges,” Dobelle said today. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. My life’s journey has always turned toward the path of great challenges.”

Dobelle, 55, a former Democratic Party official and former mayor of Pittsfield, Mass., brought recognition to Trinity when he spearheaded a $250 million neighborhood revitalization around the school. The efforts led to construction of three new schools and the first Boys and Girls Club affiliated with a college or university.

Dobelle, like his predecessor, will face uncertain times at UH. Mortimer arrived at the university in 1993 and has overseen a tumultuous period of crisis management and massive budget cuts. The university has not recovered from the financial hit, its national rankings have slid, there is a maintenance backlog of more than $166 million and the faculty union will begin a strike vote in one week. The union has been without a contract since 1998 and professors could strike in April.

Dobelle said it was not appropriate for him to comment on the pending strike by UH faculty. He will meet today with faculty members and students and will visit all 10 campuses in the next few days.

Dobelle is a public policy professor. He holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in education and public policy from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a master’s in public administration from Harvard University.

He was the U.S. chief of protocol in the Jimmy Carter administration and assistant secretary of state at age 31. He was twice elected mayor of Pittsfield, Mass., while in his 20s, and was the Massachusetts environmental commissioner. Dobelle is a former treasurer of the Democratic National Committee.