West O'ahu students will make case to UH regents

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

Dozens of University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu students will rally today before marching across Leeward Community College to confront several members of the Board of Regents about new opposition to a long-awaited four-year campus and a short-lived proposal to close down their school.

"Everybody was mad," said Xavier Foster, the 27-year-old student body president. "Everybody couldn't believe that was even being considered."

UH-West O'ahu has operated for 27 years out of temporary buildings at LCC, clinging to hope that promises of a four-year campus of its own would one day come to fruition.

Until Gov. Ben Cayetano's second four-year term ended last year, this appeared to be their decade.

But last week, four of 12 regents expressed serious concerns about going forward with a four-year West O'ahu campus in Kapolei on 500 acres of state land that has already been set aside. Dovetailing with Gov. Linda Lingle's views regarding the campus, they cited the high cost — $350 million over 12 years — and a $180 million backlog of repairs and maintenance on existing campuses. That backlog will be trimmed in the next year or two by $57 million in fixes that were recently authorized.

Foster said when the students meet with a small group of regents at 1 p.m. today on the single lanai of the campus, they'll ask for the rationale behind putting the brakes on moving forward with the four-year campus that has always been part of plans for the Kapolei second city.

And they will plead their case for how important it is to maintain what they have, and continue to meet the needs of the growing population on the Leeward plain, as well as those of people in the farthest corners of O'ahu.

"We provide a service that Manoa doesn't," Foster said. "We provide a chance for education to working fathers and mothers and to professionals. That's the most important service West O'ahu provides to the community. It's hard to try and get evening classes at Manoa."

As well, Foster said, a campus on this side of the island provides an opportunity for students from Wai'anae and the North Shore to attend. Without a four-year campus offering access to those living in remote areas, he said, less privileged people are being cut out of higher education.

"It's the most important group we have to reach," he said. "If this state wants to improve on the problems we're having now, the social problems like the 'ice' epidemic, or just giving hope to the citizens, then I believe education will do that."

The average age of West O'ahu students is 33, and 36 percent of the 820-person student body is enrolled in night classes. Another 440 take classes through distance learning.

West O'ahu also provides outreach for its unique programs such as substance abuse counseling and addiction studies via distance learning, offering it to Neighbor Island students. It's the only professional degree program in the system that trains substance abuse counselors, said West O'ahu chancellor William A. Pearman.

The program has 150 students. It's so popular that some students from West Hawai'i on the Big Island, Moloka'i, Lana'i and Kaua'i have had to wait until the spring 2004 semester to begin because there wasn't enough room to accommodate everyone, Pearman said.

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