Hilo may be getting closer to becoming college town

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — The idea of Hilo as a "college town" is catching on.

University of Hawai'i-Hilo students Joseph D'Amato, 20, and Martha Kawasaki, 19, take a break on campus. Kevin Dayton • The Honolulu Advertiser

Student enrollment grew so quickly last fall — to about 3,300 students — that UH-Hilo turned away hundreds of applicants because it had no housing for them in the five campus residence halls or in university-sponsored housing off campus.

There has been a surge in campus construction, and state lawmakers just appropriated $38 million in the 2004-2005 state budget for still more projects.

UH-Hilo feels more than ever like a self-contained village of students, and its impact on the surrounding town is growing. For all the growth, the laid-back, young and bookish atmosphere familiar to most colleges has yet to spread outside the campus bubble.

The strategic plan for the university calls for reaching an "optimum size" of 5,000 students in the near future. If enrollment continues growing at last year's rate of almost 9 percent, it would reach that "optimum" mark by 2008.

Chancellor Rose Tseng said the campus could eventually swell to 10,000 students or even more if the community is behind it.

Harvey Tajiri, a longtime advocate of growth at UH-Hilo, envisions an even larger campus with up to 15,000 students. "I truly believe if we had housing, we would be able to get many more students than we have," said Tajiri, a former state lawmaker who attended the Hilo college.

Barry Taniguchi, president and chief executive officer of the Big Island supermarket chain KTA Super Stores, is more cautious. He said he would like to see enrollment hit 4,000 to 7,000 students, or, at the most, 10,000. By comparison, UH-Manoa enrolled nearly 20,000 students last fall.

"I guess I'm a small-town boy. I went to Manoa; I saw how big it was and it's bigger now than when I went there," said Taniguchi, who helped lobby the Legislature this year for UH-Hilo construction projects. He said a smaller campus allows for a more intimate environment and smaller class sizes.

Some students agree. Martha Kawasaki, 19, grew up on O'ahu but selected the Hilo campus because UH-Manoa seemed too "cluttered" to her.

"What drew me was actually Hilo town, because it's so small," she said. "I come from downtown Honolulu, so I'm so used to everybody driving really quickly and not taking time to get to know people. People in Hilo really know each other."

UH Regent Ted Hong said he is always impressed by watching commencement ceremonies at UH-Hilo, as faculty and students break ranks, seek out one another and embrace.

"You can tell they've really made an impact," he said. "The faculty, the campus, the student experience really is a good one.

Hong has publicly advocated that UH-Hilo peel off from the rest of the university system so it can grow to its full potential, but said preserving that sense of campus closeness is more important than rapid growth.

"It's undeniable that the UH-Hilo is an economic engine, it does have a huge impact, in my opinion, right now on the East Hawai'i community," Hong said. But as the campus grows, "if we sacrifice quality for quantity, it's going to be a short-lived growth and it won't be growth that's welcomed by anybody — the community, the university community or the student population."

Hilo has a population of about 42,000, and the campus is a significant piece of the community. UH-Hilo began as the Hawai'i Vocational School in 1941 and now offers more than 30 baccalaureate degrees in the College of Arts and Sciences and more than a half-dozen bachelor of science degrees under the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management.

The College of Hawaiian Language, Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani, has undergraduate and graduate programs.

Two major projects that should spur expansion at UH-Hilo are a planned Student Life and Events Center and the proposed $60 million China-U.S. Center to be developed by GEO International Explorer Inc. of Taiwan on 36 acres of state land the company leases next to the main campus.

The China-U.S. Center would include meeting spaces, a shopping area catering to the campus, and 600 badly needed dormitory units Tseng hopes will be ready for occupancy in the fall of 2005.

State lawmakers included $15 million for the first phase of the Student Life Center in the 2004-2005 state budget, a project that will include a swimming pool, fitness room, weight room and other facilities that encourage students to socialize.

University officials say the project will add to the variety of on-campus activities and create more of a sense of a college "community," while the China-U.S. Center will make a sizeable dent in the student housing shortage.

Some students question those projects, arguing that the campus has other needs that require attention first.

Joseph D'Amato, a junior studying biology, said UH-Hilo seems to have much less money to spend on equipment, facilities and courses than the junior college he formerly attended in Southern California. He said the university needs to address those deficiencies before launching ambitious expansion plans.

"I think before they do all these dorms and life center projects, they should definitely take care of their own facilities, take care of their own students that they have right now, because I don't think they're really capable of doing that yet," said D'Amato, 20.

Tseng agreed that rapid growth without increasing state spending on the existing campus would compromise the education being offered at UH-Hilo.

"Common sense says the more students there are, there should be more state funding," she said. "When we did the 5,000 (projection), we were anticipating more state funding, but so far they haven't done that."

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.