Posted on: Thursday, November 21, 2002
UH agreement wards off faculty move for censure
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
The University of Hawai'i administration and Manoa Faculty Senate smoothed over their differences yesterday and agreed to set up a new relationship giving all the faculty senates a full voice in continuing plans to reorganize the UH system's top administrative tier.
A day earlier, the Manoa senate was threatening to censure the administration for failing to seek faculty advice on reorganization plans that call for three new top-level administrative positions affecting academic issues. Official policy calls for faculty senate consultation on academic changes, and the faculty maintain that collaborative relationship is at the heart of a healthy system.
But the resolution for censure was tabled at yesterday's meeting, even though faculty continued to express concern over the proposal to create high-paid positions when some departments are having trouble meeting salary commitments.
"We want to develop a new system of consultation to get around the problems we've had," said associate professor Robert Bley-Vroman.
Despite the saber rattling by the representative faculty group, it clearly was willing to give UH President Evan Dobelle and interim Vice President Deane Neubauer a second chance and work together to make any reorganization efficient and workable.
Neubauer, who led the plans to reorganize the system, applauded the faculty senate's actions and vowed to pursue a smooth working relationship.
Dobelle and Neubauer met with faculty representatives earlier in the day, admitted they had failed to adequately inform the group of proposed changes, and agreed to set up a consultative system.
Professor Frank Sansone, who represented the committee that had proposed censure, said the president pleaded with the faculty to back him up in taking the reorganization proposals to the Board of Regents today and tomorrow on Kaua'i. Without the plans in place, Dobelle can't go to the Legislature in January with a blueprint of financial need for the future, said Sansone. The regents don't meet again until after the legislative session has begun in January.
But there was also a continuing undercurrent of displeasure among faculty members that so major a reorganization had originally bypassed their scrutiny. It was clear the tabled censure resolution can be revisited at any time. Censure is essentially the formal registration of a faculty complaint that is issued as an official rebuke.
The reorganization calls for additions of a chief of staff, vice president for international education and vice president for research.
Joyce Tsunoda, the chancellor for community colleges, has been tapped by Dobelle to take the international education job, but she told Dobelle she would accept it only for a year, because she plans to retire. The search for her replacement will be international.
The reorganization plans also call for moving community college provosts to chancellor positions and creating a Council of Chancellors that would elevate the force of the two-year colleges within the system.
The council would report to the president, as would all the new vice presidents. According to Neubauer, those changes were made to give various parts of the system the direct access to the president that was sought.
