Posted on: Friday, November 22, 2002
Regents call for 21.5% hike in UH budget
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau
PUHI, Kaua'i — The University of Hawai'i Board of Regents and President Evan Dobelle threw down the gauntlet yesterday for the Legislature and new governor, calling for a 21.5 percent hike in the university's operating budget.
Dobelle said that's what the university will need to turn the system into one that competes with the top educational institutions in the country.
The $99.4 million increase would bring the university's 2003-2004 fiscal year operating budget to $561.3 million, according to the university's chief financial officer, Wick Sloane. Faculty salary hikes account for a third of that, he said. The following year's budget is $578.7 million.
"We're saying that this is what it takes to become a first-rate university. This is what it takes to be equivalent to (University of North Carolina at) Chapel Hill, (University of Michigan at) Ann Arbor, (University of Texas at) Austin, (University of California at) Berkeley," Dobelle said.
The regents approved the budget in committee and were expected to affirm the action in a full meeting at Kaua'i Community College today.
Sloane conceded it's a big jump: "We're pushing for the sky in one leap here."
But he said the university has suffered such cuts in the last decade that next year's proposed budget only brings the school back to the share of the state's budget it had in 1994 — about 11 percent.
Regent Ah Quon McElrath said the university never has had the money it needs, and suggested that if necessary amounts are cut, the school might have to consider aspiring less to national excellence than being a simple career-oriented educational institution.
"Let us be prepared for the eventuality that we will not get what we want — we never have," McElrath said.
A regent committee deferred action on a related proposal to reorganize the university bureaucracy into a more streamlined form, which would have Dobelle and a Cabinet overseeing the university system's 10 campuses, each of which would have an independent chancellor.
Several student representatives complained they had too little time to study the latest form of the organizational proposal, and a Hawai'i Government Employees Association representative worried that lines would be blurred between the university administration and the nonunion, semi-autonomous Research Corporation of the University of Hawai'i.
The Manoa Faculty Senate had earlier opposed the reorganization, but dropped its opposition after meetings Thursday with Dobelle and interim vice president for academic affairs Deane Neubauer.
Regents called for a special meeting Dec. 12 to act on the reorganization plan, and asked Neubauer to meet with the HGEA and student organizations to resolve differences.
The regents also heard an aggressive plan from Paul Costello, UH vice president for external affairs and university relations, to reshape the university's image.
"We are being outspent. The competition is aggressive. ... Our brand image is fractured," Costello said.
By spring 2003, he said, the university should have a series of new plans aimed at shaping up the UH brand. The institution has hired three firms — Brand Strategy Group, the graphic design firm of Robert Rytter & Associates and Starr Seigle Advertising — to develop an advertising plan, consistent logo and image that says "educational excellence and real world expertise in a unique place," he said.
As an example of the problem, Costello said the university's various campuses and departments use 150 different logos, many of which exhibit no clear connection to the University of Hawai'i. A part of what he hopes to accomplish is a consistent graphic look for all university logos. Part of that will be a new version of the UH seal, which he called "dated."
Costello said the budget, reorganization plan and rebranding all come out of the new University of Hawai'i strategic plan approved in June.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
