Dobelle's first year a mix of achievement, doubt

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

As the high-profile leader of the 10-campus University of Hawai'i system, Evan S. Dobelle has just completed a year in which he won approval for a new $150 million medical school and biomedical complex, the expansion of the community college system and the refurbishment of buildings that have been crumbling for a decade.

UH President Evan Dobelle has been big on ideas during his first year. Advertiser library photo • July 2, 2002

"It's sort of like a submarine commander who puts the periscope up and says, 'There's a target, there's a target, there's a target,' " said state Sen. Norman Sakamoto, (D-Moanalua-Salt Lake), who chairs the Senate Education Committee. "But the submarine can only go in one direction."

For Dobelle, 56, it has been part of the challenge to understand a culture that responds more often to "small-kid time" relationships than power lunches.

"It's always hard when you come from the outside," says Dobelle, pondering the Hawai'i learning curve that has teased him with its nuances. "You didn't grow up here and particularly you didn't go to high school here. You don't have any deep sources to validate you. So you have to prove yourself, and that was something I haven't had to do for a while."

In the year since Dobelle left Trinity, a small liberal arts college of 2,200 students in Hartford, Conn., to put the divided and poorly funded 45,000-student UH system on a fast track, he has eased hostilities in the wake of a divisive faculty strike just before his arrival, brought together 1,400 people in the strategic planning process and pushed the UH campuses to be research and academic hubs for the Pacific.

At UH-Hilo, there is new excitement among the staff to go after big research grants, said chancellor Rose Tseng. "He has told us, 'You can be anything you want,' " said Tseng.

But Dobelle's ideas are so prolific that the public and even those closest to him are left to sort out which he's truly wedded to. The football stadium he suggested for West O'ahu hasn't been mentioned lately. And the original 990 acres once proposed for the new West O'ahu campus has been seriously trimmed in sites now being considered.

The same dilemma of knowing where Dobelle stands also faced the governor, who came close to vetoing funds to buy Paradise Park as a research site for the university because he wasn't sure Dobelle really wanted it.

Not that Ben Cayetano is dissatisfied.

It seemed as if Evan Dobelle's back was to the wall when he became president of a financially-strapped university divided by a bitter strike. A year later, he has impressed many with his vision and idea-a-minute style. But some question his ability to turn grand notions into reality. Advertiser library photo • July 2, 2002

Many say Dobelle's strength is in his conviction that he was hired as an agent of change to restructure a dysfunctional bureaucracy where projects were stalled and faculty felt unappreciated. He also gets high marks as an idea man, who moves forward with those that stick, just as he did at Trinity, where he helped forge a Learning Corridor to replace a ghetto. Striding across Coconut Island one Saturday several months ago, he mused that it would be an ideal place to bring Nobel Laureates for research projects, plus international conferences.

"You try to build a consensus in a democratic society and that's always complicated," he says. "But in an academic institution you don't want to take a vote, you want to get people to buy in."

In his first months at Manoa, he tended to handle everything himself because he didn't feel comfortable turning anything over.

"In many ways I had to carry a whole lot of things that I couldn't let go of because I didn't have the right people here to give them to," he said. "Now that I have people starting to come in to relieve that part of my day, I have to be other things, including the president of the entire system."

While his staff lauds his energy and foresight, there are some who feel it's too soon to judge.

"I think he knows he has to get a foundation down before he can build upon that," said Lori Ann Saeki, 22, a recent UH graduate who will stay on as an unclassified graduate student. "But I think it's too early to say what the long-term effects will be."

And yet there are others forced to judge, especially legislators who heed voices from the community.

"Many people think he's bringing in people from out of state and paying them big dollars," said Sakamoto. "We do have many good people here."

Though Dobelle plucked top administrators from current UH ranks — Deane Neubauer as interim Manoa chancellor at $238,800; Karl Kim as interim vice chancellor for academic affairs at $140,004; Walter Kirimitsu as general counsel at $240,864; Allan Ah San as pointman for building projects at $99,264; Edward Laws as interim vice chancellor for research and graduate studies at $176,484; and Rod Sakaguchi as interim vice chancellor for finance and operations at $104,004, — he engendered criticism for hiring East Coast associates.

They include J.R.W. "Wick" Sloane as chief financial officer at $227,000; Paul Costello as vice president for external affairs at $184,000; executive assistant Prescott Stewart at $104,856; and Kristin Blanchfield, personal administrative assistant at $87,576.

Despite the criticisms, Dobelle can point to a respectable punch list of accomplishments in the past year, including:

• Legislative approval for $400 million in total construction spending (including $70 million for overdue repairs, $30 million to replace the Frear Hall dorm, $5.5 million to buy Paradise Park as a Pacific Islands environmental research center.)
• Approval by the regents of a new strategic plan that validates Native Hawaiian issues and will chart growth over the next decade.
• Hiring Peter Englert as Manoa chancellor, and Herman Frazier as athletics director, bringing international reputations in science and sports to the state.
• Launching of a $20 million student information network.
• Creation of a task force on economic opportunities for UH research.
• Moving forward on site selection for a new West O'ahu Campus.
• Pushing forward with planning to make Maui Community College a four-year institution.

And then there is a new plan that will open Hawai'i cancer patients to the latest drug trials. The Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i, part of UH, has just signed an agreement with The Queen's Medical Center to explore cooperation for an outpatient cancer treatment center near Queen's.

Now it's up to Dobelle to find another $150 million of private money to make that happen. It's a major issue on his agenda for the coming year.

It's not like Dobelle to hedge, but now he chooses his words carefully. "We have some significant requests out," he says. "You're going to start seeing things here in the next few months that will be significant, large contributions. And strong leadership from a lot of people who hadn't been involved in the university before."

While the UH Foundation has raised $17 million in his first year and launched a major centennial campaign to mark the university's first 100 years, the big money he's after is in the "relationship" stage, he said.

"You don't just introduce yourself and ask for money," said Dobelle. "They have to know you, have confidence in you, feel you're going to stay for a while and that your leadership will be effective. And they want to be with a winner."

As Dobelle travels this week from Kyoto to Kuala Lumpur and beyond, chumming for money among UH alumni in Asia, he's already looking to the future when he can begin delegating authority to a team fully in place, co-teach a course in urban planning with Kim, and focus on revitalizing the campus and surrounding neighborhood.

"I'd like to walk across campus and hear music," he says. "Music, life, comedy, speakers...I want to see energy. That's what universities are about. They're about transformation and common bonds. We don't celebrate enough."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.