New president: Excellence is only goal
| • | Recognizing what UH is and must be |
| • | Dual school system reflects ethnic, class differences |
By Evan S. Dobelle
President, University of Hawai'i
The University of Hawai'i faces a moment of great and important challenges. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Advertiser library photo • March 12, 2001
For together, and without fear or rancor, we shall shape a future worthy of this state and its citizens of all ages and backgrounds. We shall set the standard in the nation — be it in undergraduate or graduate education; be it in the preparation of students to succeed in the new, highly technological global economy; be it in the level and quality of research that is bringing new knowledge to our state and nation; be it in the impact of, perhaps, a new first-rate medical school on the quality of health care for our people; or be it in the profoundly important opportunities that our community colleges bring to this economy and our people.
Evan Dobelle has been appointed UH president.
The University of Hawai'i system will have only one thing to strive for, and that is excellence. We shall have only one goal, and that is to be the best. We shall have only one direction, and that is forward.
Hawai'i is a magical place where natural beauty and extraordinarily rich cultural traditions are surpassed only by the remarkable generosity of spirit found among its people. The regents have granted me a tremendous responsibility. I hope to honor it with the same grace and character that has been shown through these past eight years by President and Mrs. (Kenneth) Mortimer.
Our responsibility at the University of Hawai'i is to ensure our system supports and enhances the quality of life and does so in a way that will make our people proud — with a confidence that never slides into arrogance, with a sure sense of mission and an unyielding devotion to excellence, with a passion about what we do and what we can achieve in partnership with the people of our state, with a commitment to opportunity for all our citizens to partake in the wonder of learning and to reap the tangible and intangible benefits that come with such an opportunity.
Together we will build a truly interisland, interactive, intergenerational, international institution of higher education.
One can measure many things in life, but the value of this university cannot be easily counted, for our impact is infinite.
I have often said educational leaders cannot call our students to leadership if we lack the courage and the vision to lead. How can we speak for the pursuit of truth if we turn our back on the truth that is our faculty? How can we encourage individual responsibility if we as an institution behave irresponsibly?
We are a state led by the governor and the legislature truly committed to the quest for civic culture — to respect for diversity, responsibility and personal achievement.
Never has such a commitment been more important. Never has the challenge to reassert a moral authority been more compelling.
I have written of my concerns. At times we live in a world whose sense of balance is seriously askew, a world so captivated by the notion of celebrity that we often forget what we deem worthy of celebration, a world in which the ephemeral and the timeless are too often confused.
Advertiser library photo • Nov. 4, 1996
We must not let the moment define us. We must not measure success according to the latest stock quotations, the most recent box score, the wealthiest person or the latest poll.
Evan Dobelle at his last challenge, Trinity College.
Coaches are not to be measured by today's game, politicians by today's tracking numbers, villains by today's atrocity and saints by today's miracle.
Because, in such a world, values become marginalized, substance gives way to style, and integrity gives way to the popular choice. We say what we need to say to get to tomorrow; and then we begin to do what we need to do to meet our personal needs and shape our values structure to ensure immediate satisfaction.
Colleges hold a special public trust because they are repositories of civic values, ideals and aspirations. We have a unique capacity to spur a renewed spirit of American idealism and Hawaiian culture. We are home to men and women living through a critically important time in their lives — a time when all the promise of an idealistic worldview can reach fruition or harden into cynicism.
For institutions of higher learning, the choice is clear: We must act in the best traditions of American education — as convenors, as the wellspring of new ideas, as a relentless voice for truth.
Today's college students and faculty and staff want to build a world that reaches beyond skepticism and beyond limitations. They want their lives and their institutions to stand for something. They want more than pat answers and tired rhetoric. These men and women are the promise of Hawai'i's new century, and it is our responsibility to be worthy of their idealism and to be worthy of their potential.
One of my first responsibilities will be to choose and send to the regents the name of a new chancellor for the Manoa campus. I would ask the UH-Manoa Faculty Senate to recommend to me the composition of the search committee. It would be my preference that it be composed singularly of faculty members chosen throughout the disciplines of both the undergraduate and graduate schools and, where of concern, to have conversations with the union.
It would be my preference that three to five finalists be brought to this campus to speak to students, to speak to faculty, to speak to staff, to speak to alumni, to speak to the trustees and members of the community, all of whom I would encourage to comment to me, and then I would make the selection in consensus with the faculty-only search committee.
I have never been failed by a faculty that has been validated and empowered, and I want the chancellor to be their advocate and to be their champion.
May God give me the strength to be a wise Hawai'i Rainbow Warrior.
Evan S. Dobelle has been named as the next president of the University of Hawai'i. This is excerpted from remarks made following his appointment Monday as the institution's 12th president.
