Island Voices
Aloha – and good riddance
By C. Mamo Kim
Chairwoman of the Graduate Student Organization at the University of Hawai'i.
Ciao, Mortimer!
Now that everyone has finished eulogizing departing UH President Kenneth Mortimer, can we talk?
Did the public, including Hawai'i, and the Pacific Rim, know about Mortimer's plans to eradicate the School of Public Health six years before he starved it to death? When he told the accrediting board the school did not fit into his vision for the university, was he representing the better interests of the public? And, to what end? No money was saved.
It was proven outright that saving the School of Public Health would have cost less than turning it into the master's degree program we have now.
Did Mortimer fight hard enough to support the university against Gov. Ben Cayetano's violent slashing of the budget? Did he trim the fat, better the management practices of administration, improve education or reduce negative and inappropriate political interference at the university?
• During Mortimer's term, tenured faculty positions were reduced by over 15 percent and faculty pay raises were held up for two years until the faculty union was forced to strike.
• Students, who were experiencing less quality education and who were also suffering under the weight of the statewide economic malaise, were forced to increase their tuition payments more than twofold.
• Student population decreased by 15 percent, Filipinos being the most negatively impacted.
• With the exception of the fiscal year 2000-01, tuition has increased every year since 1995 and will continue to do so (under the latest tuition increase plan) until FY2005-06. This is regardless of the fact that UH tuition is already comparable in tuition (not service) to benchmarked institutions.
• The university was faulted for calling out the SWAT team and Sheriff's Department (canine and rifle units) against peaceful student demonstrators.
• The $1.2 million Wahine softball structure was found to be unusable without an additional $600,000.
• The university was fined by the EPA $1.8 million (the largest EPA fine ever to be levied against a university) for illegally storing toxic substances.
• The university paid $4.7 million to a company called Buzzeo for the development of an integrated, Internet-based information system connecting all campuses. Buzzeo has gone bankrupt and the university is still without an up-to-date information system.
• The university was found grossly negligent in its management of Mauna Kea and the Science Reserve.
• The accrediting agency WASC virtually placed the university on sanction when it accredited UH for only three out of a possible 10 years.
• At the same time, Mortimer gave his administration a 7 percent increase in pay.
Yes, the university needed to trim fat, but you don't trim fat with an ax.
As for "autonomy," I question whether Mortimer created such a thing. UH is a public institution, dependent on public funds. How autonomous can it be? Or, how autonomous has it become since the vote? The governor can still interfere at any time in the budget process and has done so with great gusto.
Furthermore, the Board of Regents, handpicked by the governor for four-year terms, is quintessentially under the influence of political micromanagement. There is no real autonomy, only more fiscal liability.
Mortimer placed two Italian Carrera marble statues outside the entrances to the main campus, saying they depicted a "sense of place." Well, in the tradition of that "place," the vast majority of us at the University of Hawai'i bid him a fond farewell. Ciao, Mortimer!
