Posted on: Sunday, January 16, 2005
Kapolei briefed on new college
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer
KAPOLEI — Possibly the most significant aspect of yesterday's Senate committee hearing on joint public/private plans to build the University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu College in Kapolei was that the meeting took place in Kapolei.
Normally, such hearings take place at the State Capitol in Honolulu. But Higher Education Committee chairman, Sen. Clayton Hee, D-23rd (Kane'ohe, Kahuku), said he thought it was important for committee members to familiarize themselves with the neighborhood where the campus would be built.
Area residents, accustomed to fighting a 30-mile traffic snarl most every time they drive to town, seemed only too happy to drive the short distance to Kapolei Hale for the briefing.
Most of the discussion concerned the Phase 1 plan to expand the current West O'ahu student body from 834 to 1,520 by 2008 on approximately 25 to 30 acres of a 500-acre UH site off Farrington Highway between Kapolei and West Loch.
A second and third phase would increase enrollment to 7,600 by around 2015.
UH Interim President David McClain emphasized that the people of West O'ahu have not had access to what UH has to offer.
"This area of O'ahu is clearly underserved," he told the committee.
UH West O'ahu interim chancellor, Linda Johnsrud, said her college currently offers a quality four-year education to students who have expressed a high degree of satisfaction.
Developing the new campus would allow the Manoa campus to focus on graduate education and research, "and remove this pressure to be all things to all people," she said.
Jan Yokota, UH capital improvements director, said the cost estimate to develop Phase 1 would be between $69 million and $88 million.
McClain explained that UH has 10 campuses — the research campus at Manoa, seven community colleges, one comprehensive university at UH-Hilo, and the UH-West O'ahu College — which he said will become the state's second comprehensive university once it is developed.
"We're here before you today to talk how we might make progress on this long standing commitment to fulfilling that pledge of access," he said.
