Hopes of all ride on UH's new boss

Greeted with lei, praise and the weight of the expectations of an entire state, Evan Dobelle arrived at the University of Hawai‘i yesterday as its 12th president and the man faculty, students and alumni will pin their hopes on for a financial and psychological turnaround.

New University of Hawai'i [resident Evan Dobelle, right, shakes the hand of his predecessor, Kenneth Mortimer. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Dobelle, the president of Trinity College and the former leader of City College of San Francisco, will succeed President Kenneth Mortimer, who will leave the university at the end of June after eight tumultuous years of crisis management.

With an annual salary of $442,000 and a home at the president’s residence at College Hill in Manoa, Dobelle will become the most richly compensated UH president in history, the most highly paid official at the university and one of the most highly compensated university presidents in the nation.

His salary surpasses the estimated $320,000 of football coach June Jones, and medical school Dean Edwin Cadman, who earns $430,000. It eclipses Mortimer’s salary of about $168,000 a year. Dobelle’s contract starts July 1 and goes through June 30, 2008.

Dobelle will lead a system that can list recent accomplishments, such as increased grant and contract money and the establishment of constitutional autonomy. But lingering reminders of the state’s budget crisis haunt the UH system: national rankings have slid, faculty morale has plummeted and the $166 million maintenance backlog shows itself in peeling paint and some dingy buildings.

Evidence of campus tension and unrest Dobelle will inherit was apparent even in the controlled and ceremonial meeting where he was appointed unanimously by the Board of Regents. Faculty members pressing the state for a pay increase stood holding posters that have become a familiar refrain at campus demonstrations, "Save Our Semester." They could strike in early April.

Dobelle ignored the negatives that have caused many to question his decision to come to Hawai‘i. He declared UH a cherished state resource on an upward trajectory.

"My challenge really is to try to inspire people, to convince them they are extraordinary," Dobelle said. "I didn’t come to a system in trouble. I came to a system that needs to know, understand and comprehend how good it is."

Dobelle earns $275,000 a year plus a confidential compensation package at Trinity, and said he has not been interested in job offers at Ivy League schools. He said he did not come for financial reasons, but because the job intrigues him.

"My life always gravitates toward challenge. It is simply the way I am," Dobelle said. "I don’t look for the most comfortable. I look for the place where I can make the biggest difference."

The announcement of Dobelle as the next UH president brings to an end the closed-door, carefully guarded and controversial selection process that involved only a head hunting company, a panel of 17 committee members and the Board of Regents. Lily Yao, president of the Board of Regents, said the secrecy was necessary to find someone as qualified as Dobelle.

"This was an international search," Yao said. "We entered into it with confidence and with the full knowledge of our goals, intent on securing a proven visionary who possessed outstanding educational leadership ability and exceptional skills to work with people."

One of Dobelle’s first jobs as UH president will be to find a chancellor for the flagship Manoa campus. While Mortimer and several past presidents have filled both roles of UH president and Manoa chancellor, those jobs now will be split. And in marked contrast to the search process that found Dobelle, the new president in his opening remarks to the university community asked the Faculty Senate to give him a list of faculty-only committee members to help with the search for a chancellor. He also said he wants three to five finalists to speak with the campus before a person is selected, prompting faculty members present at the meeting to cheer.

Oceanography professor Frank Sansone said having a separate chancellor at Manoa was the top issue for many faculty members. "It will only happen if the new president wants it," Sansone said. "Many people have been anxious about that."

Dobelle hesitated yesterday to address some of the most pressing issues on campus now: an impending faculty strike vote next week, the accreditation visit next spring or how he will face the university’s financial woes and Native Hawaiian issues.

"What I need to do is listen," he said. "You can’t come from the outside and have all the answers."

But he began to fill the role of champion that many faculty members have hoped for, touting the strengths of the school and talking about the importance the university should play is sustaining Hawaiian culture. While he said he could not as president do anything about reparations or returning land to Native Hawaiians, he could help to give people their dignity.

"I come to you with humility and respect and feel blessed to be able to make a difference," he said.

Dobelle was greeted warmly by faculty members who weren’t sure what to expect after the secretive search process.

"He’s just the person we need," said Alexander Malahoff, president of the faculty union and an oceanography professor. "He seems like an advocate."

Malahoff also said Dobelle will arrive at UH at a good time. The dispute between the faculty union and the state will almost certainly be resolved by July, and the Legislature will probably give the university its second budget increase in a row.

"It will be like a kabuki play," Malahoff said. "Everything is in chaos and the emperor appears and things suddenly fall into place."

Gov. Ben Cayetano, who lunched with Dobelle’s later in the day, also welcomed him to Hawai‘i and handed Dobelle’s son Harry, 13, a University of Hawai‘i T-shirt.

"We think you are the right person for the job," Cayetano said. "I think you will find the state government will be strongly supportive of the things you want to do."

Dobelle brought national recognition to Trinity College when he spearheaded a $250 million neighborhood revitalization effort in the area around the school. The efforts led to the construction of three new schools in the area and the first Boys and Girls Club in the country to be affiliated with a college or university. Plans for a new Connecticut History Center, to be designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, were recently announced.

Benjamin Foster, a member of the board of trustees at Trinity College, said Dobelle’s enthusiasm for redeveloping the neighborhood around the college spilled over to the rest of Hartford.

"There was gang activity and not much economic development. He jump started the city," Foster said. "His mission was to stabilize the community. It was a college in crisis in many ways."

Applications at Trinity have risen 77 percent since Dobelle’s arrival, the SAT scores of incoming students have increased by 30 points and the college raised $100 million in capital ahead of schedule.

But Dobelle was considered an unconventional choice in 1994 when he arrived at Trinity, where the average student’s tuition is $27,000 a year. He came to the liberal arts college of 2,200 students from the City College of San Francisco, a community college system with 97,000 students. Before that, he was president of Middlesex Community College in Lowell, Mass. His background in politics was also unusual for a college president. Dobelle twice served as mayor of Pittsfield, Mass., and worked in the Carter administration.

In San Francisco, Dobelle arrived to a situation not unlike Hawai‘i’s. The governor had cut the college’s budget, and Dobelle’s job was to make the campus more efficient. He reduced the number of administrators from 82 to 41 and, with those cuts, did not find the widespread support he has at Trinity, said Rodel Rodis, acting president of the board of trustees of City College of San Francisco. But he was able to rally the community to pass a sales tax to support the college, Rodis said.

"Evan had his detractors," Rodis said. "It was a very difficult period."

Still, Peter Goldstein, vice chancellor of finance and administration, said Dobelle is remembered in San Francisco as a leader who saved the community college when it was in danger of losing accreditation.

"Evan Dobelle is the consummate professional, the real thing, one of the the best college presidents in America," Goldstein said.

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