By Bev Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

As the search continues for a chancellor for the University of Hawai'i-Manoa campus, the issues being raised involve more than finding the best person for the job. Most recently questions have arisen regarding both an office and a domicile for whomever accepts the new position.

Already the university administration is exploring several options, including:

• Moving the university president's office off campus to make way for the chancellor and signal to the 10-campus university community that no campus is considered more equal than any other.

Interim Manoa chancellor Deane Neubauer has already explored how the California system handles this issue, with the president of the system generally having an office in a nearby business district rather than on one of the campuses.

• Giving the refurbished College Hill to the new Manoa chancellor as his or her residence. It is standard protocol to provide either housing or a housing stipend to a chancellor, according to Paul Costello, vice president for external affairs. This, of course, raises the question of where president Evan Dobelle would live, what additional cost another residence for him would mean and who would pay for it.

Renovations, repairs, landscaping improvements and refurnishing College Hill and its adjacent cottage for the Dobelle family was put at $880,000, all paid out of UH and UH Foundation money. The president has said he will seek private donations to repay the university and also work to establish an endowment for continued upkeep of College Hill.

The last major renovations were done almost 40 years ago, in 1964, the same year the residence was given by the Atherton family to the university as a home for the president. Questions remain about whether that gift called for a specific use of the house — as the president's home — or whether it can be used to house the chancellor.

It was Dobelle who separated the positions, but there has long been a movement to do that.

In looking at these issues, the administration has explored creating a new arrangement with the Japanese Cultural Center, with which there has already been much cooperation. One of the ideas was to move the president's office there, in much-needed new space.

However, talks have broken down and veered away from the purchase of the center because the two parties have not been able to reach a financial agreement, according to administration sources.

Even if a purchase agreement were still to be forged, the center would likely be purchased through the UH Foundation.

The administration will likely continue to look at nearby property in Mo'ili'ili, according to sources, and continue to look at a variety of options involving offices for each of its two top officers.

Although the discussions regarding the use of College Hill may indeed have a practical side for the new chancellor and the university system, they may also be a way for Dobelle to ultimately distance himself from questions raised over the substantial increases in renovation costs above the original estimate of $171,000 in repairs for the main house alone.

Dobelle has said he has had little input into the home's renovation, which he said was spearheaded by university officials and begun before his term at UH started.

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