Posted on: Monday, May 14, 2001

Outgoing UH president to become senior scholar

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

University of Hawai'i President Kenneth P. Mortimer will become a Senior Scholar at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems after he retires from the university at the end of June.

Mortimer, 62, had said he would return to Bellingham, Wash., where he served as president of Western Washington University in Bellingham before taking the reins at UH in 1993.

But he now also will be spending time at the center's campus in Boulder, Colo., helping "educate the educators" in policy-making and analysis.

Mortimer made no remarks about his retirement while on the podium for graduation ceremonies in Manoa yesterday, but said afterward he was proud to have seen more than 60,000 students graduate during his nine years as president.

"I feel nostalgia, but no regrets" about his tenure in Hawai'i, Mortimer said. "I feel very good about my time as president."

The university was battered by Hawai'i's economic woes during the 1990s, and fell behind comparable university systems on the Mainland "by any measure," he said.

Although he said he would reserve many of his thoughts for a number of speeches he will be giving in the coming weeks, Mortimer said Hawai'i's citizens still must decide if they want to make an investment in higher education.

And he reiterated his promise that such an investment will pay off for the state in countless ways.