Minutes & Agendas

1995-1996

University of Hawaii at Manoa Faculty Senate, August 24, 1995

Architecture #205

Presiding: Co-Chairs Alison Kay and Kiyoshi Ikeda, Manoa Faculty Senate 
Executive Committee

Senators Present: Belinda Aquino, Barry Brennan, John Casken, Sandra 
Chang, Joanne Cooper, Joel Cohn, Linda Cox, James Dator, Steven Dawson, 
Austin Dias, Joel Fischer, Dolores Foley, Patricia Fryer, Gregg Geary, 
Patrick Gilbert, Richard Guillory, Kathryn Hoffmann, Ruth Horie, Kiyoshi 
Ikeda, Wayne Iwaoka, Alison Kay, William Lampe, Bruce Liebert, Chrisopher 
Measures, Ralph Moberly, Jane Moulin, Peter Nicholson, Cynthia Ning, Aiko 
Oda, C. S. Papacostas, Robert Paull, Thomas Pearson, Tom Ramsey, Raul 
Rudoy, Jurgen Sang, Leon Serafim, Janice Shoultz, Thomas Speitel, John 
Stimson, Glenn Teves, Jane Tribble, Alice Tse, Roy Wilkens, Lorrie Wong, 
Ming-Bao Yue

Senators Absent: James Brandon, Gaye Chan, David Chappell, Marilyn 
Dunlap, Sue Hanson, Patrick Henry, Adelheid Kuehnle, Barry Labonte, Nancy 
Lind, Margaret Maaka, Fred MacKenzie, Karen Meech, John Melish, Marian 
Melish, Robert Meyer, Deane Neubauer, Stephen O'Harrow, Victor Olgyay, 
Nicholas Ordway, Neva Owens, Karen Peacock, Teresita Ramos, Joseph 
Stanton, Patricia Steinhoff, Victor Stenger, Rosemarie Woodruff

Senators Excused: Donna Rae Ching, Patricia Edelen-Smith, Bert Lum, 
Robert McLaren, Marita Nelson, James Silva, Judy Weightman

Visitors: Senior Vice President Carol Eastman, Senior Vice President Dean 
O. Smith, Director Rodney Sakaguchi, Assistant Vice President Tom Bopp, 
Linda Johnsrud, Alona Trinidad, Jason Gipson, Helen Josephine, Christina 
Bacchilega, John  Pincince, Glenn Man

Meeting was called to order at 3:06 PM by Co-Chair Alison Kay.  The 
minutes from the previous meeting, May 3, 1995, were approved as written.


The members of the Senate Executive Committee (SEC) elected by the Senate 
for this year are Linda Cox, Jim Dator, Richard Guillory, Kiyoshi Ikeda, 
E. Alison Kay, Tom Pearson, and Ming-Bao Yue.

Co-Chair Kay explained that, because of the unusual volume of extremely 
important business before the Senate this year, the SEC decided at a 
meeting held immediately before the present Senate to elect two co-chair, 
instead of a chair and vice-chair.  Alison Kay and Kiyoshi Ikeda will 
share the job of chairing the Senate and SEC this year.

Linda Cox was chosen as the Secretary of the Senate Executive Committee 
and Jim Dator will serve as Secretary to the Senate and the Faculty 
Congress.

SEC Liaison to Senate Faculty Committee are:

Committee on Academic Policy and Planning--Ming-Bao Yue
Committee on Student Affairs--Linda Cox
Committee on Professional Matters--Richard Guillory
Committee on Administration and Budget--Tom Pearson
Committee on Faculty Service--Alison Kay and Kiyoshi Ikeda
Committee on Athletics--Jim Dator


Chairs' Report: Co-Chair Kay apologized for calling a meeting of the 
Senate so early in the semester--an August meeting is almost without 
precedent.  However, she assumed that everyone was aware of the urgency 
of Faculty response to the budget crisis afflicting the University.  She 
pointed out that the SEC had been meeting over the summer with the 
President and other University officers in order to stay informed of 
fast-breaking developments.  She also mentioned to meetings in August, 
one with the President and the Board of Regents (BOR) and the other with 
the Deans and Directors of UHM, where budget cuts were discussed.

Co-Chair Kay pointed out to the Senate the existence of a draft of a 
letter from the Senate which she had drafted, and which the SEC and 
others had helped modify.  She urged Senators and others to submit their 
suggestions in writing on the draft immediately, and to give them to her 
at the end of the Senate meeting.  Otherwise, she asked that any 
suggestions be submitted to her before 10 AM the next morning (Thursday, 
August 24).  She will incorporate whatever suggestions she can, and will 
submit the statement to the editors of the Advertiser and the 
Star-Bulletin, as well as to Ka Leo.  While students and individual 
faculty have expressed their concern publicly, and while the editors of 
the Star-Bulletin have also supported the University in their editorials, 
the Senate per se had not taken a public stand on the extreme seriousness 
of the budget situation.  The statement in hand is intended to rectify 
that.

Co-Chair Kay also said that the General Education Project, which had been 
begun in a symposium last year, is continuing its work and will be 
meeting with representatives of the entire UH system this year to define 
goals and objectives for UH General Education.

The Focus on Manoa group had finished its meetings and a statement to the 
Faculty about its recommendations would be forthcoming very soon.

The two primary issues before the Senate so far this year, said Co-Chair 
Kay, are a review of the current Tenure and Promotion procedures of UHM.  
An ad hoc committee convened to begin work on this, and chaired by 
Patricia Fryer, will become part of the Senate Committee on Professional 
Matters.

The main matter of concern will be preserving the integrity and quality 
of the academic program of UHM during this period of drastic downsizing.  
This will initially be the concern of the Senate Committee on Academic 
Policy and Planning.

Co-Chair Kay then introduced SVP Carol Eastman, SVP Dean O. Smith, SVP 
Tom Bopp, and Director Rodney Sakaguchi to discuss the current situation 
of the budget crisis.

SVP Eastman began by reiterating Co-Chair Kay's statement about the Focus 
on Manoa report.

[The rest of SVP Eastman's discussion was devoted to the budget crisis.]

While the Administration had asked the Deans and Directors of all units 
last year to indicate what the impact of an anticipated 5% budget cut 
might be, at the end of the summer, Governor Ben Cayetano announced that 
the University System must take a 10.6% immediate cut.  At an unusual 
August meeting, the BOR decided that the UHM proportion of that cut 
should be 67%.  This was because UHM already gets slightly more than that 
percent of the System budget, and that a larger entity, such as UHM, can 
absorb a larger hit better than a smaller entity, such as West Oahu, can.


There are also many other financial uncertainties (such as the full 
consequences of Early Retirement) and many constraints on cuts (such as 
guaranteeing Student Access to Higher Education, EEO, Audit & Control, 
and professional accreditation requirements, and the like).

The UHM administration decided not to take an "across the board" 
budget-cutting approach but rather to use the results of the recent 
Prioritization Process along with the Faculty Senate Prioritization 
Recommendations, and the assumption that "different responsibilities mean 
different funding" to cut some units more than others. 

The Deans and Directors of all units have been informed by the 
Administration what their allocations will be, and they are to tell the 
Administration next week what the impact of those allocations are on 
their unit.

Each Department or Unit head should find out from and/or discuss with 
his/her Dean or Director how the Dean or Director then intends to 
allocate the severely restricted funds within his/her unit.  Faculty 
members should then find out from and/or discuss this with their unit 
heads.

[A question and answer period then followed.  Among the many points 
raised and responses made were these {Note: None of the below is intended 
to be an exact quotation of what anyone said, except when included within 
quotation marks}]:

Q: Can we expect a cut of "only" 5% next year?

Eastman: Hope and work for it, but expect and plan for at least 10%.

The seriousness and extreme undesirability of the current restrictions on 
the Library--a 25% cut-- was widely expressed by many and acknowledged by 
SVP Eastman who hoped the severely restricted hours, and freeze on 
purchasing new books and journals, would soon be lifted, perhaps within 
three weeks or so.

The fact that access not only books, but to the CLIC computer lab, was 
severely impacted with the extreme restriction of Sinclair Library hours 
was acknowledged.

Q: A recent Ku Lama article listed specific units to be eliminated or 
reorganized.  How was this list determined?

Eastman: The article was mistaken and misleading in its phrasing. It was 
a semantic disaster. None of the units listed will be closed, though all 
may be reorganized.

Q: Since Ku Lama is an official organ of the Administration, how did this 
error happen?

Eastman: "I have no answer for that."  But no vertical cuts (complete 
elimination of units) are being planned at this time.  The School of 
Public Health, for example, will continue to offer courses and grant 
degrees though perhaps not as a separate unit as it is now.  It is not 
possible to make any sensible vertical cuts at this time.  There has not 
been adequate time to assess the consequences of such.

Q: Will overhead be confiscated by the Administration as has been 
rumored?

[SVP Smith responds]: "Over my dead body."  Smith then explains that more 
will be known about overhead shortly, but that new expenses for RCUH 
management and reduction of the UH Federal overhead rate mean immediate 
increased expenses for UH.

Q: What about the big computerized accounting system we bought?

Smith: It is still being developed.  It is expected to be phased in a 
year later than originally anticipated.

Q: Will this delay cost the UH more money?

Smith: "I don't know."

Q: Will the Administration provide the Faculty with a list of units which 
the Legislature has ordered be protected? [This later was expanded to a 
request for a list of all Legislatively-mandated units at UHM].  Director 
Sakaguchi agreed to provide such a list, noting that none was immediately 
available.

Q: How much more can the University take and still be a viable 
university? Is there a point where we will say to the Governor that we 
just can't take any more?

Eastman: The President has been effective in one-on-one talks with the 
Governor to prevent some cuts and to restore some funds. The faculty and 
students need to help by informing everyone what the consequences of 
current and impending cuts truly are.   Only you know.  The 
Administration can not know the true effect of the cuts until you tell us 
and others.

Co-Chair Ikeda intervened at this point saying that he feels he has been 
on a roller coaster this summer--every meeting has produced a different 
set of budget numbers.  He is working to set up an email Hot Line so that 
faculty members can immediately send in statements about the impacts 
and/or suggestions concerning what to do about or to prevent them.   
Rumors abound.  We need facts.

Co-Chair Kay reminded everyone that UHM is not very popular in the 
community.  We need to work to get community support; to show that we 
deserve adequate funding.

SVP Eastman noted that the Administration PR office is extremely thin and 
understaffed.  In fact it has itself been cut.  So it is very difficult 
for the Administration to get the word out by itself, and it certainly 
can't hire more PR types at this time.  The Faculty must be more active 
in informing everyone of the impact of the cuts.

Q: What is the position of the BOR on teaching vs. other Faculty duties? 
It seems to want us just to do more teaching and to abandon everything 
else.

Eastman: The BOR just wants to be assured that the Faculty is doing its 
job. They need to understand that Work Load does NOT equal Teaching Load, 
and we are getting that message across to them.  It turns out that room 
size is a factor seriously limiting class size.  We just can't squeeze 
more students into existing rooms.  We need to show the BOR that we all 
are working our utmost, and I think we are getting them to see that.

Q. What if my Dean/Director doesn't inform me or get me involved?

Kay: Let the SEC know.

Eastman: And me too. My door is open.

Q: Is there some way to eliminate all of the needless form-filing and 
reporting we are required to do that takes time away from teaching, 
research and service?

Eastman: I am with you on that one 100%, but it is very difficult to do 
because it is often someone's job description, so we have personnel and 
union problems.  It takes time, but we are working on it.

Q: I have read that there will be an increase in high school graduates, 
and that is the justification for West Oahu.

Eastman: West Oahu is a State Priority.

AVP Bopp:  For UHM, increased high school graduates is not a factor.  Our 
increase comes from "non-traditional" students. 

Eastman: Also, UHM is NOT slated to grow any more.  No new acreage exists 
and their is not much new building space.  If there is growth, it will 
come elsewhere, such as West Oahu.

Q:  Is the Governor withholding money for West Oahu?

Eastman: "I don't know."

Q: What is UHM going to do if we can't grow?

Eastman: Perhaps place a cap on admission here, with Access to Higher 
Education guaranteed elsewhere.  We can do that if we tie the cap to an 
increase in quality at UHM.

After determining there was no old or new business, Co-Chair Kay 
adjourned the meeting at 4:14 PM.

Respectfully Submitted


Jim Dator
Secretary