Educator to evaluate Dobelle
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
Robert H. Atwell, president emeritus of the American Council on Education and a former president of California's Pitzer College, has been retained by the University of Hawai'i Board of Regents to handle President Evan Dobelle's third-year evaluation.
The American Council on Education is a national leadership and advocacy group representing more than 1,800 degree-granting colleges and universities.
The regents retained Atwell on a contract of between $15,000 and $20,000. They and Dobelle will submit lists of potential people to interview in gathering information for the evaluation.
Because of the divisiveness over the evaluation process last year, the board sought outside counsel to conduct the third-year evaluation, generally expected to be the most thorough of the first three years.
Atwell, who lives in Sarasota, Fla., has had a prestigious career, including serving as chairman of the council of presidents of the Claremont Colleges; assisting in presidential searches for such colleges as Dartmouth and the University of Wisconsin; and served on numerous college boards.
UH regent chairwoman Patricia Lee said the board and president "should work together" on the evaluation. "We seek your input," she told Dobelle.
"I have no problem with him conducting interviews as long as we know who's being interviewed," said Dobelle. "A fair and open process is all we can ask for."
Nonetheless, the subject turned into a brief, heated exchange over the second-year evaluation process in which the names of those interviewed were not revealed. Both Lee and regent Kitty Lagareta took issue with Dobelle's characterization of the meetings as "secret."
They were "not secret, but validly closed," said Lee, with Lagareta saying "there's a distinction between secret and closed meetings." Lee said Dobelle had been offered the opportunity to make redacted minutes public if he so chose but has not done so. Dobelle has said he has put that issue behind him.
According to a report by the Office of Information Practices, the board acted improperly by amending its agenda after the meeting was closed.
Yesterday's meeting was marked by other debate, including concern from community college students and faculty over the lack of "articulation" — credit transfer — in a handful of courses, particularly those at Honolulu Community College and Kapi'olani Community College in ethics and oral communication that have become upper-division courses at Manoa.
"I have friends who say, 'This is ridiculous, I'm going to Chaminade,'" said student Gary Nakamura.
Ron Pine, an HCC ethics professor, said preventing transfer of these courses to Manoa as core curriculum credits would have affected 1,000 students.
In handling the controversy, David McClain, vice president for academic affairs, postponed Manoa's decision to deny the transfers until spring 2005, and has asked faculty to take another look at the issue.
In one of his last acts as a regent, Ted Hong, who leaves the board this month, demanded that the administration solve this problem. With the reorganized 10-campus system and a new education core at Manoa, a "seamless" credit transfer has long been a major goal. While administrators point to tremendous success so far in meshing 1,800 courses systemwide, 1 percent of courses are still at issue.
In other business, regents appointed a task group headed by regent James Haynes to review board policy on conflict of interest and political activity. At the same time, Dobelle announced that the interim vice president for research, Jim Gaines, would head a special task force investigating Lyon Arboretum issues involving conflicts over leadership and the arboretum's mission.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
