COMMENTARY
Not all changes at UH are for better
By John Griffin
This month's rededication of the completely renovated Hawai'i Hall, oldest permanent building on the University of Hawai'i's flagship Manoa campus, was both an occasion for nostalgia and a sign of renewal.
Advertiser library photo • March 25, 2003
As I sat through the pleasant ceremony, I found myself thinking not so much about my student days as about how UH is changing in necessary but also sometimes controversial ways.
Newly renovated Hawai'i Hall — the oldest building on the UH-Manoa campus — represents a balance of tradition and change.
One key example: "Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University."
That's the title of a 1997 book by a pair of Mainland university educators. But it also refers to a trend that applies to UH as well as other public institutions around the country and in such places as Britain and Australia.
The basic point: Taxpayer support for public colleges has declined because of changing attitudes and recessions. In response, public university systems have pushed hard to raise more federal research money and more private dollars for research or as gifts. The book's authors tie this to globalization.
Some see the trend as an inevitable and beneficial extension of public research university functions. Traditionally, faculty are supposed to teach, do research and perform public service. Now, economic development is stressed more as part of research.
Moreover, with increased autonomy along with more nonstate financing, the university can operate more like a charter school, using additional dollars to help finance liberal arts and other essential classroom subjects that often don't attract as much money for research.
But others are wary. They fear distortion of the university's basic purpose of turning out well-rounded graduates who can adjust to a changing world. Increasing privatization and the pursuit of outside dollars can shift the name of the game from education to making money, with research entrepreneurship overshadowing the academic excellence and pure research that does not make money.
Those, of course, are broad strokes in a national debate with more nuances and considerations. For more perspective, take these quotes from a long article in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
"Even when the recession ends, state budgets could be pinched well into the future by a vicious combination of weak revenues and rising healthcare costs. Among the losers in this prolonged fiscal squeeze? Public colleges ...
"Now, some states are looking to hasten the trend by getting out of the business of public higher education like never before ...
"State government, like the public, has been somewhat confused about what it wants from the university ... They want high access, low tuition, top quality and no tax increases to pay for it ...
"The decline of taxpayer support is just one manifestation of the changing relationship between states and their public colleges. Lawmakers increasingly view higher education as a private good that should be supported more by students and donors, rather than a public good that deserves state support ...
"The more we engage in the rhetoric of privatization, the easier we make it for lawmakers to walk away ... It's outrageous that the state should become a minority partner in educating its undergraduates ... "
One might wonder whether some of this might apply to K-12 public education in Hawai'i as well. But that is another topic.
In any event, Hawai'i is, as we say, its own special place, even as it weathers national and international winds of change.
UH-Manoa is said to be 61st among the top 100 universities in luring outside research and development money. This year, that should top $300 million, double what it was 10 years ago. It ranks 16th in physical-sciences research.
At the same time, the UH share of the state budget has declined from 13 percent to 8 percent. That's still slightly ahead of the national average.
A point person in this situation now is David McClain, the respected Manoa business school dean recently named interim vice president for research.
McClain is working on several fronts, including efforts to make UH research more efficient, relations with the university's outside research corporation, ties among the system's 10 campuses, and work with the business community and other parts of state government.
While UH, with help from Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai'i, and others in our congressional delegation, has been successful in getting federal research money — a new contract with the Air Force should bring in $181 million over 10 years — it has been less so in luring private money. There, we rank below the national average, a situation attributed to earlier UH apathy, Hawai'i's long recession and the limits of the local investment climate.
Among those seeking to remedy that in recent years has been Keith Mattson, now based in downtown Honolulu as director of university connections. He promotes more networking between the UH research community and business.
McClain, a social liberal, is aware of the arguments that can be made about whether the entrepreneurial university might detract from the basic job of a well-rounded education provided by talented faculty. He talks about the value of the humanities and the need to nourish people such as English professors who don't bring in research money but provide a vital academic ingredient.
One final story: I was told how at a meeting, former UH President Kenneth Mortimer once pulled out a dollar and went around the table, asking each top staffer what they could get him with that.
Some deans promised they could use it to lure more than $1.50 in matching money for research. But one declined to play the game that way and said: "I can give you an educated person."
Obviously, the two university functions — money-making research and an education that produces graduates able to think and adapt to change — are not mutually exclusive. But if that is an old debate, it has some new dimensions in this age of increasing academic capitalism.
In the end, a balance is needed. As one on the Manoa campus put it: "We must change, but we also can't play wag the dog when it comes to educating people who are Hawai'i's future."
John Griffin, former editor of The Advertiser's editorial pages, is a frequent contributor.
