Evan Dobelle

Today's session comes after months of controversy over last year's evaluation and amid a deteriorating relationship between the regents and the president.

But whether this is only continued upheaval or a turning point for the presidency and the university depends in part on today's private debate.

Regent Kitty Lagareta, co-chairwoman of the board and head of the task group overseeing Dobelle's third-year review, said the board has not discussed the evaluation, let alone decided what action to take or how it will affect the president's future.

"This is the first time the board has had a chance to come together and discuss the evaluation," she said of today's meeting. "We haven't had a chance to discuss any of it."

Dobelle, who is traveling with his family, called a recent published report based on comments from anonymous regents that the board was considering firing him, "a total violation of the evaluation process."

Lagareta said the subject "hasn't come up with the board as a group. Absolutely not."

Nor has the board discussed buying out Dobelle's contract, said Lagareta, which would include paying him an annual salary for the remaining four years of his contract, plus three years of accrued incentive payments. The total would be more than $2 million.

But Lagareta noted that the relationship between the president and his bosses "is not working as well as we'd like it to work.

"It cannot continue," she said, of their stormy relationship. "It absolutely inhibits everything. It's got to be sorted out. It's not a good situation."

Releasing a statement through his office, Dobelle said he welcomed "a fair and thoughtful review of my work" and said the regents had promised to review his self-evaluation, send him a statement to respond to, and then meet with him to complete the evaluation.

Board rules call for the regents to provide the president with a preliminary draft of the evaluation, to which the president must provide a written response. As well, the procedure calls for a meeting between the president and the board to finalize the evaluation.

Meanwhile, top-ranked faculty across the system are questioning the fairness of the process.

"We expressed concern that this was a little focused negatively," said McCoy, chair of the Faculty Senate at Windward Community College.

"One question all of us were asked was 'Why can't the president get along with the Board of Regents?' I said it was a two-way affair. I felt the board may not be getting along with the president, and all of us responded like that to that general question.

"Most disliked the questioning and supported the president," McCoy continued. "It was asking why Evan wasn't doing things correctly when we felt both sides weren't doing things correctly."

Based on concerns about the evaluation interviews, the All Campus Council asked faculty union president Mary Tiles to write a letter to the regents asking for clarification of the charge given Florida-based consultant Robert A. Atwell, whom the board hired to conduct Dobelle's third-year review. Tiles said she hasn't received a response.

Atwell is president emeritus of the American Council on Education, a national advocacy group representing more than 1,800 colleges and universities nationwide. He conducted 78 interviews during the first week of May, with as many as 10 half-hour or longer interviews each day.

Lagareta said the board did not suggest questions or sit in on any of the interviews.

"I didn't tell him what he could or couldn't ask," Lagareta said. "I didn't even know what he asked. He handled the interviews the way he saw fit."

According to interviewees, Atwell did not take notes or tape the conversations, and gave an oral evaluation report to the regents by conference call from his Florida home at the last board meeting.

The board chose people to be interviewed from two lists — half suggested by board members and the other half by Dobelle — said Lagareta.

Those interviewed have been guaranteed confidentiality.

Lagareta said no evaluation document exists at this point, but the board today could ask the task group to summarize the oral report from Atwell, and create a written document.

"The board has to give the task force a directive," she said.

Regents today also will receive a final report from an audit of the president's discretionary $200,000 protocol fund.

Several months ago, regents asked for an accounting of procedures overseen by the UH Foundation for everything from the president's travel bills to the way the foundation reimburses business charges on his credit cards. The regents want a clearer accounting of how money is spent, and the president's office has promised it will simplify what are now considered cumbersome procedures.