Posted on: Thursday, June 17, 2004
Shock of firing ripples through UH system
Advertiser Staff
Students on campuses across the state expressed shock and concern at the way the ouster of UH President Evan Dobelle was handled by the Board of Regents.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser "I liked him," said Ally Wakabayashi, 44, a liberal arts major at Leeward Community College. "He went to a community college, so he knows exactly what our experience is. It really is our loss."
Natasha O'Brien, a sophomore at Kapi'olani Community College, said although she had no strong opinions about Dobelle one way or the other, she was offended at the way his tenure ended.
"Didn't they announce he was fired before they even spoke to him about it?" she said. "I'm sure I wouldn't be happy about that."
Susan Sanger, president of the UH Graduate Student Organization, said yesterday she was shocked when she heard Dobelle had been dismissed.
"But the biggest shock," she said, "is that this didn't happen a lot sooner."
Sanger cited campus criticism over Dobelle's tapping Mainland people for top-paid administrative positions.
"And there were quite a lot of questions surrounding how he was spending," she said.
Chad Omiya and Conlan Browne, both students at Kapi'olani Community College, discussed Dobelle's firing as they worked in the campus bookstore yesterday.
Omiya said he was shocked and concerned about the university system's future. Browne said he saw politics at work.
"I think he just played his cards wrong," Browne said of Dobelle. "If he hadn't supported Linda Lingle's opponent in the last election, he might still have a job."
"I was sort of glad he got fired," said Jamie Lee, a junior at Honolulu Community College who will be attending school at Manoa next year.
Lee said she and other members of community college's student senate had asked Dobelle to do something to stop the deterioration of the campus.
"We took pictures of the broken desks and the bathrooms," she said. "We asked him for money to fix it. He wouldn't give us a straight answer."
Summer Engman, a Maui Community College student and member of the UH Student Caucus, said she appreciated Dobelle's willingness to meet with student organizations, a tendency that Kenji Rasmussen, vice chair of the student caucus at Manoa, said "is a big difference from (former president Kenneth) Mortimer, who didn't want to speak with students at all."
Trisha Kehaulani Watson, a graduate student at Manoa, said Dobelle was a president who had represented hope, not just for Native Hawaiians but for all students.
"It seems to me the only people bringing ridicule to this university," she said, "is this board."
Advertiser staff writers Karen Blakeman, Catherine E. Toth, Beverly Creamer, Vicki Viotti and Tim Hurley contributed to this report.
Their reactions to his tenure as president, however, showed less unanimity.
Kapi'olani Community College students Chad Omiya, 21, front, and Conlan Browne, 19, shared their opinions of UH President Evan Dobelle's firing yesterday. Browne says Dobelle "played his cards wrong."
