LEADERSHIP CORNER
UH research director seeks funding base outside of state treasury
Interviewed by Catherine E. Toth
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Name: Michael Hamnett
Age: 57
Title: Executive director
Organization: Research Corp. of the University of Hawai'i
High school: Ewing High School, N.J.
College: Bachelor of arts, English literature, Upsala College, N.J.; master of arts and Ph.D., social anthropology, University of Hawai'i-Manoa
Breakthrough job: Being the director of the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Hawai'i, which supports research focusing on social, environmental and economic problems.
Little-known fact: Hamnett was seminary bound, but the bishop at his diocese convinced him to join the Peace Corps, which eventually led him to economic development and research management. He's also an amateur cabinet and furniture maker.
Major challenge: Coming into an organization where everybody here knew more about the operation than he did. "It was a little awkward applying for the job," Hamnett said with a laugh.
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Q. Most people think of colleges and universities as institutions of learning before research. How important is research and training to any university?
A. Well, UH-Manoa is a research university. It's the flagship campus. And much of its success will be measured in terms of the quality and quantity of its research and training. And given the fact that the general funds for the university is on the decline, support from extramural sources has to increase proportionately. You can look up the figures, but the amount of money that came into the university from contracts and grants for research and training (last year) exceeded the general fund by a significant amount ... It's not to say the instruction effort has declined — it hasn't — it's just that the university has grown because of the extramurally funded research and training activity. If we're going to grow in the future, we're going to have to get funds other than state general funds. It's going to come from research and training and tuition, and ultimately from gifts and donations.
Q. RCUH is managed by a board of directors that consists of five UH regents. How do you feel about the Board of Regents' recommendation of David McClain as acting president following Evan Dobelle's ouster?
A. He's one of the few people, if not the only person, who can restore trust between UH administration and the Board of Regents. He's known, he's respected, and he's run the university for much of Dobelle's tenure because Evan wasn't here.
Q. Is that, in your opinion, what the university needs in a president?
A. Right now it needs some stability and to build trust between faculty and students and administration and regents. That trust is desperately needed right now.
Q. What about in the long run?
A. In the long term, the funding base for the university needs to be built outside the state treasury. And part of that is the continued growth of contracts and grants for research and training.
Q. Research had brought a lot of money into the university already, in the form of contracts and grants. In fiscal 2003, UH set an extramural funding record, bringing in $324 million from outside sources.
A. We're managing a lot bigger volume of contracts and grants and that's a function of two things. One, the decision by the (former UH president Ken) Mortimer administration in 1999 to send all federal contracts and grants to RCUH and have us administer them on behalf of the university. In his mind RCUH could do a more efficient job of managing the money and employment of project staff than the university. And the other part of that is because of budget cuts at the university, the ability of the university to handle contracts and grants in addition to the tuition and general funds had declined.
Q. In what fields has most of the growth been?
A. A lot of that growth has been at the medical school. Of the total $176 million in UH projects, $20.4 million of that went to the (John A. Burns) School of Medicine.
Q. Why the growth overall?
A. Well, there's been growth (in contracts and grants) nationally, but there's been a lot of growth here because of support from our congressional delegation. And because we've got more researchers and trainers at the University of Hawai'i seeking contracts and grants. Look at the SSRI and the College of Social Sciences. They combined for about $3.4 million in 1998. Last year that went up to about $10 million.
Q. You spent three years in the Peace Corps working in Micronesia. How did that experience shape your career path?
A. I wanted to go into economic development in the Pacific Islands. That sort of got me into the Pacific Island Development Program at the East-West Center. I was interested in policy that related to social and economic development, and the Pacific islands is a place where you could get access to leaders who were interested in working with you and listening to ideas and you could actually make a difference. So I basically served as a policy advisor to prime ministers and presidents of the these islands while I was at the East-West Center. It's just to make a better way of life for people in the Pacific islands, to help them build capacity so they could run their own affairs.
Q. In 2001, the Raleigh Task Force, of which you were a member, made recommendations to improve the research infrastructure at the University of Hawai'i. What were those suggestions?
A. "The report said we need more space at the university for research. We need an electronic research-administration system. We need to streamline policies and procedures. And we need to move toward a single entity in the management of contracts and grants."
Q. Would that single entity be RCUH?
A. We're a very important helpmate to the university. We're partners in that in order for both to flourish, in particular the research and training area, RCUH and the university have to work very closely together and just keep on pushing to get the resources we need to support the faculty
