UH comes to life again with full day of classes

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

Chad Nishimura walked away from the University of Hawai'i yesterday with the discouraged shuffle that bad news brings.

•	For information on UH class schedules, tuition refunds and other post-strike issues, visit www.hawaii.edu/welcomeback/

"It's junk," said Nishimura, a sophomore majoring in management information systems. "We didn't get anything out of this. The professors get a lot of stuff, and we have to suffer."

The end of the semester looks brighter for elementary education major Sheena Shimose, though.

One of her professors doesn't plan to stick to the weekend schedule that administrators designed to keep the Manoa campus from losing class days because of the faculty strike.

"My professor is Jewish," Shimose said. "He said Saturday he has to rest and Sunday the Christians have to rest, so we don't have class."

As students and faculty returned to campus for the first full day of classes since the faculty strike ended late Tuesday, efforts to finish the school year on time met with varying degrees of relief and reluctance.

Shimose said she, like many others, had expected a two-day strike and was starting to get alarmed at the 13-day walkout by the University of Hawai'i Professional Assembly. "I didn't think it would have lasted this long," she said.

Makeup days have been scheduled for students on all UH campuses. Manoa has the most rigorous schedule, with class or final exams every day till May 11.

At the community colleges, six of the previously scheduled exam days will be converted to class days, and the last day of instruction will be moved from May 2 to May 12.

No weekend classes — unless students need them to accumulate hours in vocational and technical programs — will be necessary.

Bernard Dela Cruz, who is studying at Honolulu Community College to become an electrician, was relieved to hear he would not have to attend Saturday and Sunday classes.

"Most of us have to work on the weekends," he said.

Linda Buck, coordinator of early childhood programs at HCC, said she likes the contract terms and is glad to get back to work.

"I think everyone has to-do lists this long," she said, stretching her arms.

Some faculty members, however, have caught the picket bug. Groups of professors are visiting Hawaii State Teachers Association picket lines on their lunch hours or before they go to campus in the morning.

From the Manoa campus, faculty members are headed for HSTA picket sites with the same colleagues they had spent eight days walking in circles with.

Nicknamed for the areas they picketed, there are the Wai'alae Warriors, the Ma'ili Gate Gang, the Wist Annex Gate Slammers, the Bachman Gate Defenders, and, with a name befitting attorneys, the Law School Leaflet Elocutionists.

"People are elated," said David Cleeveland, HCC professor of sociology. "This faculty held together so well. They look at this as the most solidifying, galvanizing thing we've ever had happen."

The faculty union came away with a 12 percent settlement package. It gives professors $2,325 the first year and 6 percent in the second year. For someone earning $57,000, the first-year increase is equivalent to a 4 percent raise.

The contract also addresses the workload at community colleges and a pay raise for lecturers — the most emotional and contentious issues in negotiations.

Debates about the contract have started. Faculty members at community colleges are wondering how the plan to give them teaching credits for some nonteaching duties will fall into place, and whether it will be evenly distributed across all campuses.

Elsewhere, some of the higher-paid faculty don't like the first-year provision to give professors a flat-dollar amount, which is a smaller percentage increase for them than it is for the lowest-paid faculty.

"There is consternation from the high-paid people because we're doing a flat-dollar amount the first year. Their argument is that we would have been better off with the governor's offer," said J.N. Musto, executive director of the faculty union. "We accomplished everything we could. It is their choice to ratify or not ratify."

Musto and other UHPA officials will start visiting all UH campuses next week to explain the contract.

A vote by UHPA members may be finished by next Friday or the day after.