Remarks at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Centennial Celebration and Inauguration of Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw
President David McClain
November 19, 2007
Governor Lingle, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen… and most notably, Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw and Bill Hinshaw… Aloha!
Today is a great day for the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, for all 10 campuses in the UH System, and for the entire State of Hawai‘i.
In this our centennial year, at this our flagship campus, we inaugurate Dr. Virginia Hinshaw as the chancellor who will lead us into a second century of greatness.
Virginia Hinshaw is an internationally respected scholar, known for her expertise in the transmission of the influenza virus.
Virginia Hinshaw is an educator who understands the joy of learning, and who has been known to dress up as rock star Tina Turner in order to give students an unforgettable memory of how viruses spread.
Virginia Hinshaw is an academic leader of considerable experience, insight and wisdom, who’s achieved success as vice chancellor for research at the University of Wisconsin, and as provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of California at Davis.
I’m grateful that Virginia has accepted the call to lead UH Manoa at this time, for several reasons.
I’m grateful as a parent of a student currently enrolled at UH Manoa, for I know the value and priority that Virginia places on the student experience.
I’m grateful as a member of the UH Manoa faculty, for I know that Virginia appreciates the fact that excellent faculty are the heart and soul of a great university.
I’m grateful as the leader of the 10–campus UH System, for I know that we need a high–performing Manoa campus to achieve our goals for the System. These goals include first, improving opportunities for Native Hawaiians; second, helping to diversify the economy; third, meeting Hawai‘i’s workforce development needs; and fourth, increasing the State’s educational capital.
I’m grateful as a citizen, because I know that a precondition for a vibrant democracy is education, and that UH Manoa is the central public vehicle in our State for providing Hawai‘i’s people with a rich tapestry of knowledge spanning nearly 100 disciplines at the bachelor’s level, and over 50 masters and over 50 doctoral programs.
Nearly 45 years ago, at his inauguration as UH’s seventh president, Tom Hamilton stated:
"The community desiring excellence in its higher learning must know a great deal about the special nature of a university. A university is the most perplexing, frustrating, difficult, and wonderful social institution devised by humankind. And it is all of these things because it exists for paradoxical ends.
"A university is established by a society to insure that the values to which that social order subscribes are perpetuated; there is, in effect, an orthodoxy at stake.
"And yet, in its rarer moments society also acknowledges that it is equally important to examine, and indeed to modify, that orthodoxy.
"Thus the university is mandated to question the value system which it is also supposed to preserve.
"Problems inevitably arise, however, from the fact that the whole society does not uniformly subscribe to both of these ends. There are always some to whom it appears that the university ought to be preserving instead of questioning. And to others the reverse is true.
"This is why universities are so often misunderstood by the societies that sustain them. This is why a public university is not like any other agency of government, and cannot be so regarded if it is to achieve the excellence of its nature… ."
Virginia Hinshaw knows what public universities are all about, and has an uncommon gift in being able to communicate this essence to our many constituencies.
With Virginia Hinshaw as our leader, I am confident that UH Manoa, and what it means to our community, will be well understood by all those whom we serve.
Virginia, Wendie and I are delighted to have you and your husband Bill as our leadership partners, and we know that UH Manoa is in good hands with you at the helm. Congratulations and best wishes for every success!