Chancellor faces mounting criticism

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

Peter Englert, University of Hawai'iiManoa chancellor, was greeted warmly upon his arrival on campus last year, winning points by moving into a dorm for several weeks to mingle with students and learn about their concerns.

ENGLERT

The dis-cord surfac-ed in May with the circulation of a petition of no confidence regarding Englert, a nuclear chemist and a renowned scientist with a history of research on the Mars Observer project. But the resignation earlier this month of highly regarded dean Barry Raleigh vaulted the situation into prominence and generated even greater concern on campus.

Critics say Manoa is beset by a climate of uncertainty about the future of established programs. And while they acknowledge that a decade of state budget cuts is a contributing factor, they say Englert is largely to blame, with a dictatorial, non-inclusive leadership style contrary to the ways of academia.

"It's the most ineffective and hostile leadership I've ever seen," said Jill Nuno-

kawa, civil rights counselor for the UH campus and a longtime advocate for the rights of indigenous people. "You cannot come in here with an agenda without listening and learning. The environment right now is contentious because he's created that."

Yet others, with as much conviction, feel that the former pro vice chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand arrived with a tenacious drive that will finally move the university in new research directions and catapult the campus and state into greater prominence. To do that, supporters say, he has to shake up fiefdoms and rattle cages.

"He has a vision for making the UH-Manoa an outstanding research university," said Chuck Hayes, interim dean of the College of Natural Sciences. "In doing that he has made hard decisions, and he's been making these decisions without worrying about political pressure."

Hayes said it's natural that someone coming in with a new vision is going to face resistance.

"If you don't do anything because of political pressure you don't get anywhere," he said.

Petition 'a harmless insult'

Englert acknowledges that key changes are under way at the Manoa campus throughout its 24 colleges and programs — each with its own dean — and they're causing resentment.

"The Manoa campus, until the point of my arrival, was 24 units that were all relatively independent, and all of a sudden they see themselves confronted with a chancellor who takes seriously the unification of the Manoa campus and increasing this university's research capacity," Englert said.

He has chosen to disregard as "a harmless insult" the no-confidence petition being e-mailed around campus with 50 to 100 signatures, and continues to push hard to bring a disparate campus to heel. But with a decade of budget cuts through the 1990s, deans and faculty are hunkered down, protective of what they've built and the financial support they've garnered.

"It's sometimes difficult if you've been used to more of a high level of independence and interacting with the administration as a free agent," he said. "But if you want to gain the $10 million to $20 million or $50 million research projects, we can't do that if we stick with the 24 units we have."

But where deans have had to fight for every dollar, sacrificing for the common good can be a tough sell.

Concerns of losing faculty

One of the major areas of contention has been allocation of the $31 million Research and Training Revolving Fund, which is sometimes used to pay for salaries to make up for shortfalls in money from the state.

"He came in and wanted to take all of these funds and use them for whatever purposes he had in mind," said Roger Lukas, professor of oceanography. "With 10 years of cuts, some people's salaries were being paid out of research funds. And he just swept (up) the summer school funds."

No jobs have been lost, but as deans lose control over money coming to their areas, that leads to concerns that faculty might be lost.

Englert said he wants to include faculty in deciding where the money goes, rather than having the deans allocate it. It's "something new," he said, "which some of my managers thought of course was going a little far. But I thought those who generate the money ... should have a say in the distribution."

Part of Englert's vision, according to Hayes, involves looking at new research areas where the campus can shine and pushing those areas forward. He's looking at expansion in broad areas: genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics, as well as optics. For the first three, he's marshaling 50 or so individuals throughout Manoa involved in this research and hoping to put as much as $1 million toward a new research laboratory to coordinate their efforts.

"We have a niche for these three things that's unsurpassed," Hayes said. "We are the only university in the U.S. that's strategically placed for research in tropical agriculture and tropical medicine. We have the greatest biological diversity in the world and 75 percent of the nation's coral reefs."

Regarding optics, the UH faculty includes the world's top two people in research on free electron lasers, including their inventor, John Madey.

But the emergence of new directions has prompted concerns about the future of well-established programs, including the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology.

SOEST is one of the most prestigious colleges on campus, bringing in $60 million annually in federal money. It has also attracted a stellar faculty and is considered third best in the country. It was a shock to many when Raleigh submitted his resignation, effective Aug. 31.

While Raleigh had no public criticism of Englert, others at SOEST said the resignation was influenced by the chancellor's new direction.

"We're very concerned," said Tom Schroeder, director, associate professor and chair of meteorology, within SOEST. "We could lose faculty. We're dealing with one retention case now and one of the questions he's asking is 'What's the future going to be without Barry?'

"We've had 10 years of bad budgets. There's no question that makes everybody extra sensitive."

Englert said that the structure of SOEST will not change and that SOEST faculty are beginning to assemble a list of names from which to choose an interim dean. "I have a lot of respect for Barry's achievements," he said, "but I also have a lot of respect for new people, like myself."

Even at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, where dean Edwin Cadman arrived four years ago from Yale and where research grants have skyrocketed from $3.2 million in 1999 to $25.6 million this year, there are issues with Englert's vision.

"The chancellor has a different set of priorities that sharply deviate from the medical school's strategic plan," Cadman said.

The medical school dean cited two examples: the Pacific Biomedical Research Center's merger with the Medical School and the School of Public Health initiative, both of which he said were started and stopped.

"We got a commitment from the previous administration to recruit an associate dean of public health," Cadman said. "This was approved by the Board of Regents. The responsibility of the associate dean was to lead the efforts to rebuild the School of Public Health. We were in negotiations with a preferred candidate when the chancellor told us to cease."

Moving quickly

Englert was hired by UH President Evan Dobelle at $254,000 a year and, like Dobelle, the chancellor moves fast and in many directions.

In his first year, Englert has established more task forces than he could recall offhand; launched an overall evaluation of student services; landed a nationally respected new law school dean; dealt with multiple budget cuts; and recently headed a delegation to New Zealand that included Native Hawaiian faculty and students.

So far, Dobelle has let Englert work things out. "He's got some big-time deans that have acted pretty independently, and maybe they need to," Dobelle said. "And maybe, at the end of the day, he'll find out the best way for the system is that they be independent. When there's good will, any issue can be worked out."

Even his supporters say Englert has made missteps, but is trying to heal wounds.

"He's taken a lot of grief," said assistant law professor Denise Antolini. "I don't think he deserves half of it. I think he's trying really hard to reconnect and rebuild relationships. Some of his favorite phrases are 'Crisis creates opportunity' and 'Change can be an uncomfortable process.' "

'He went to bat for us'

Englert said there are enormous stresses in trying to create a campus that is all things to all people — the creator of a state workforce, an economic engine through its research capacity, the educator of bright young minds.

"We're put into a stretch," he said. "That puts some stress into our decision-making."

Antolini praised the way Englert worked with the law school faculty to find highly respected dean Avi Soifer and persuade the Board of Regents to OK a hefty salary package. "He went to bat for us, and he really didn't have to," she said. "I felt like he was part of the team taking the school in the direction it wanted to go."

Antolini said she believes that Englert "is still learning about the culture and the language" of an American university after his time in New Zealand. And she said he's making more time for the important "person-to-person meetings."

"Personal relationships are critical and I think he's working on that," she said. "This year there hasn't been enough time for him to do that."

But the changes aren't going to stop, and Englert has formed the deans, directors and vice chancellors into what he calls the Manoa Leadership Team to help guide them.

"This is a very good university," he says, "but if you're not changing, you're going to be left behind by others who are moving faster than we are and are our main competitors for quality students and quality research projects. Sometimes the day-to-day stuff is harrowing. But I came for a challenge, and a challenge it has been."

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