Posted on: Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Just keep the logo but fix UH

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

On the quietest little road on the fringes of Volcano Village — a road so quiet, even the birds call in hushed tones and the hapu'u ferns hold back from rustling — there is a faded sign on a weathered gate. On it, the sunbleached but indelible University of Hawai'i seal marks the UH agriculture station.

There's a similar scene on Kaua'i. Up above Wailua Homesteads, on a muddy road stained with Java plums and flattened toads, there's a humble sign with the familiar globe, book and torch.

The malamalama logo is on envelopes, book covers and diplomas. It is on van doors at UH-Hilo. It is on the beloved keepsakes of generations of UH students. It survived a thousand washings and nearly 40 years in a drawer on my father's P.E. sweatshirt. The shirt is puka. The logo is fine.

The logo IS fine. Why does UH need a new one?

Part of the reasoning given a year and a half ago, when Paul Costello, Evan Dobelle's vice president for external affairs, was pushing this thing, was that UH needed a unified brand image that would attract students, make alumni send donations, make faculty want to work at the university and make foundations realize that UH is worth large monetary gifts.

Let's see — enrollment is up, but there isn't enough housing to put up all the new students. Will a new logo fix that? Will a new logo make students feel OK about renting an overpriced crackerbox apartment three bus transfers away from campus?

What, about a new logo, will make alumni want to send money? Get rid of the malamalama book, torch and globe, and you throw away the image they wore on their P.E. sweatshirts and canvas gym shorts. What's the connection there?

How will a new logo attract faculty? You would imagine that academics would make career choices based on more than who has the hippest image on the job-offer stationery.

And you would think, after all that has happened recently, that donors and foundation officers would need a little more assurance than a new logo that the leadership at UH is stable.

This logo mess is a vestige of the Dobelle era. It was just the sort of thing that got him crosswise with people: the big idea without consensus, image over substance, and, initially, outsiders telling Hawai'i what we ought to do.

The acting university president and reconstituted Board of Regents can go a long way in "moving forward" from the Dobelle debacle by shelving the logo change. "Malamalama" means, in part, "clarity in thinking." It's a fine image. Leave it alone and fix the institution for which it stands.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.