Minutes & Agendas

1995-1996

University of Hawaii at Manoa Faculty Senate, March 20, 1996

Architecture #205

Presiding: Co-Chair Kiyoshi Ikeda, Manoa Faculty Senate Executive 
Committee

Senators Present: Belinda Aquino, Barry Brennan, John Casken, 
Sandra Chang, Donna Ching, Joel Cohn, Linda Cox, Jim Dator, Steven 
Dawson, Austin Dias, Patricia Edelen-Smith, Joel Fisher, Delores Foley,

Patricia Fryer, Patrick Gilbert, Patrick Henry, Kathryn Hoffmann, 
Ruth Horie, Kiyoshi Ikeda, Wayne Iwaoka, Alison Kay, Barry LaBonte, 
William Lampe, Bruce Liebert, Nancy Lind, Bert Lum, Margaret 
Maaka, Robert McLaren, Christopher Measures, Karen Meech, John 
Melish, Ralph Moberly, Jane Moulin, Marita Nelson, Cynthia Ning, C. S.

Papacostas, Robert Paull, Thomas Pearson, Teresita Ramos, Thomas 
Ramsey, Jurgen Sang, Thomas Schroeder, Leon Serafim, Janice 
Shoultz, Joseph Stanton, Patricia Steinhoff, Victor Stenger, John 
Stimson, Glenn Teves, Lorrie Wong

Senators Absent:  H. C. Bittenbender, James Brandon, Gaye Chan, 
Joanne Cooper, Marilyn Dunlap, Richard Guillory, Sue Hanson, Marian 
Melish, Robert Meyer, John Mount, Peter Nicholson, Stephen 
O'Harrow, Victor Olgyay, Nicholas Ordway, Karen Peacock, Raul 
Rudoy, John Sinton, Thomas Speitel, Jane Tribble, Alice Tse, Judy 
Weightman, Ming-Bao Yue

Senators Excused:  Gregg Geary, Deane Neubauer, Aiko Oda, Neva 
Owens, James Silva, Rosemarie Woodruff,

Invited Guest:  President Kenneth Mortimer, VPAA Carol Eastman, 
VPRGE Dean Smith

Co-Chair Kiyoshi Ikeda called the meeting to order at 3:05 PM, 
immediately following the Spring Faculty Congress.

The minutes of the previous meeting of February 28 were approved 
as submitted.

In introducing President Mortimer, Co-Chair Ikeda reminded the 
Senate that, according to the laws governing collective bargaining, 
the President is not free to discuss matters which are currently at 
issue or under negotiation, and thus that Senators should refrain 
from asking him such questions.

President Mortimer began by announcing that one-half million 
dollars had been restored to Hamilton Library, and 1/4 of a million 
dollars to the Law Library.  He is hopeful that there will be full 
restoration of funds to Hamilton during the 1996-97 budget period.

He is also hopeful that he will be able to inform all units of their 
budget allocations by April 1.

He reminded the Senate that he is proceeding under two 
assumptions: 1) that tuition will bring in up to $16 million, and that 
the Governor will restrict no more than the $14 already announced.

He noted that VPAA Carol Eastman had already announced that sixty 
positions had been released to be filled, but that no new money had 
accompanied them. The University currently has approximately 1033 
vacant positions and hopes to fill 150 of them.  Three hundred 
vacant civil service positions have been abolished. He hopes the 
Legislature doesn't sweep the remaining vacant position.  He believes 
it will not, but cannot be absolutely certain.

The President assured the Senate that he is fully aware of the serious 
hardship the freeze is causing, but he reminded us that he did not 
issue pink slips to all untenured people, as he could have, and that he 
kept the tenure and promotion system operating, while he could 
have closed it down.

The President did want to clarify one point of confusion which is still 
under collective bargaining, that having to do with intellectual 
property rights.  He assured the Senate that he has absolutely no 
intention of changing the faculty's ownership of the books and 
articles it writes.  On matters of patents and copyrights, there has 
been a committee since 1968 trying to develop a clear policy on that.  
The matter at issue is only that brought forward by new hardware 
and software technologies developed with considerable University 
expense for distance education.  He assured us that this is a matter 
being discussed by all universities everywhere and is not an issue 
unique to Hawaii.

There will be a BOR meeting on March 21 and 22 which he hopes will 
approve a plan to make the Law School virtually tuition dependent 
within four or five years.  He expects annual raises in Law School 
tuition so that by 2000, 80% of its income will be from tuition.  He 
expects to withdraw all G funds from the Law School by 1999.

As the current legislative session draws to a close, the President says 
that he remains very pleased with what has been happening there 
vis-a-vis the University, and in fact hopes that some of the $14 
million cut by the Governor will be restored by the Legislature.

Concerning the West Oahu/Land Swap proposal, he said that the 
Campbell Estate and the Legislature seem to have reached an 
agreement which does not require the State to begin construction of 
a West Oahu campus until 2011, and that no new State money for 
West Oahu will be required until 2000.  The President reiterated his 
commitment that no money will be moved from any campus to West 
Oahu for construction or operating expenses.

He said that newspaper accounts of a $150 million fund raising 
campaign were premature.  No goals of any sort have been set.  He is 
still reviewing over 200 proposals.  But he does expect to have a plan 
ready by the end of the semester.

The President noted with approval the responses on the Faculty 
Survey on General Education and looks forward to further 
conversations on strengthening the core and General Education 
generally.

The President observed that it was a great honor indeed that Prof. 
Rudy Rummel of the Political Science Department had been 
nominated for a Nobel Prize.  He also commented on the fact that 
Prof. Ian R. Gibbons in PBRC had received the 1995 International 
Prize in Biology from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 
in the presence of the Emperor of Japan.  In addition, Prof. Jaw-Kai 
Wang in Biosystems Engineering the CTAHR was elected to the 
National Academy on Engineering.  These all indicate the very high 
esteem with which UH faculty are held nationally and 
internationally.

Questions followed the President's brief talk.

Someone wanted to know if he planned to go through with 
retrenchment.

Pres. Mortimer replied that those programs which had already been 
identified for reorganization were continuing to be reviewed, but 
that no general retrenchment had ever been contemplated nor is it 
now.

He would not speculate about when collective bargaining would 
begin again, nor what the outcome might be but he did not anticipate 
any salary adjustments at this time.

What about the rumor that departments would be able to keep their 
tuition? he was asked.  He has no plans for that, and does not favor 
it.  He favors campuses keeping their tuition, but not individual 
departments, he said.  He does not like a tuition-driven model.

Co-Chair Ikeda thanked President at 3;25 PM, and turned to the 
matter of Faculty Senate committee reports.

Bill Lampe, chair of the Committee on Athletics reported on the 
Committee's review of the UH Self-Study for the NCAA.  It was, 
Senator Lampe said, a flawed document.  The Committee, in its report 
to Vice President Doris Ching, sent also to the SEC and available on 
the Senate Homepage, pointed out several major flaws, and eight 
pages of specific errors, omissions, or contradictions.  All of these are 
being corrected now, but a very flawed document was sent to the 
NCAA.

Among the many problems in the document, Prof. Lampe pointed out 
that a calendar of events in the report does not accurately state what 
went on and in what sequence.  For example, the subcommittee 
reports were substantially revised by someone, but they were not 
sent back to the subcommittees as the calendar would have one 
believe.  

Nor does the Self-Study follow the NCAA guidelines as required, with 
several major omissions and numerous minor ones.  There is no 
mention of the fact that the Senate last year passed a resolution, that 
was approved by President Mortimer, which would make the 
principles of the McKnight Commission those of the University of 
Hawaii. The foremost requirement is that the president be directly 
and primarily in control of intercollegiate athletics, but he is clearly 
not in that position, according to the Self-Study.

In addition to the Committee's evaluation, the Committee also 
submitted to VP Ching and the SEC a comment on the preferred 
relationship between the Athletic Advisory Board and the Committee 
on Athletics.

After a few questions, Co-Chair Ikeda pointed out that the President 
had recently asked for a faculty review of intercollegiate athletics at 
UH, and that the Committee on Athletics will be involved in that.

Prof. Wayne Iwaoka, chair of the Committee on Programs and 
Policies, described the process by which CAPP members were on 
each of the administration task forces considering downsizing or 
reorganizing academic programs. He then introduced a faculty 
member who had been on each of the task forces, who described the 
process followed by each task force.

Senator Marita Nelson described the process for the task force 
reviewing the School of Public Health. All possible options were 
considered from leaving it as it is now to abolishing it entirely. Three 
top options were looked at carefully, all involving downsizing to a 
program (i.e., reducing its stature from a school, with a dean, to a 
program within some existing school, and reducing the number of 
departments from five to two or three).

The major stumbling block is into which college the new program 
should go--the College of Health Sciences, the College of Social 
Sciences, or the School of Medicine.  No alternative satisfies all 
faculty members currently in the School. So the process is continuing.

Prof. Tom Ramsey discussed the Social Science Research Institute and 
the School of Medicine.

The task force on SSRI has been working for six months, during 
which time the budget of the Institute was cut by 50%, and all of the

nontenured, rotating positions were removed.  The remaining units 
within SSRI were evaluated as providing valuable service to the 
University and Community. The only question was where they 
should be placed within a re-organized social science research unit, 
or in various colleges UHM.  The task force is continuing its work 
here as well.

The matter of the School of Medicine is much more complex, Prof. 
Ramsey noted.  There was no task force, like the others, so CAPP has 
come into the process very late and has had a great deal of difficulty 
finding out what was actually going on.

It appears that six departments are scheduled for termination. The 
faculty of these departments will be absorbed in a new medical 
research unit yet to be formed, possibly moved into other existing 
UHM Departments, or may take retirementg.  The administration has 
already approved a stop out of the six departments, so no new 
students can register as majors in them. Existing students are being 
protected.

Two of the departments have embraced the reorganization, and their 
faculty have decided where they will go.  A third is on the fence, and 
three are fighting the change and deeply resent having their 
departments destroyed around them without their full participation 
and consent.

The thorniest problem is that many other units at UH depend on 
certain courses in the six departments for their own majors, 
especially at the undergraduate level.  This is very worrisome.

Many faculty members rose to express their dissatisfaction with this 
process, indicating how their programs would be hurt by the process. 
Others wondered how the "fourteen steps" necessary to terminate a 
department could be carried out if we are still basically on step 
minus one, and the deadline is July 1, 1996. 

Vice President Smith tried to assure everyone that every effort had 
been made to listen to all sides of the debate and that inspite of an 
apparent July 1, 1996 deadline for decision, he will make no final 
decision until all issues have been resolved to his satisfaction.  He 
urged concerned faculty members to contact him, or other members 
of the review committee.

Senator Ruth Horie described the process which is resulting in the

reorganization of the School of Information and Library Sciences.  In 
contrast to the other reorganizations, this is one which was not 
precipitated by the budget crisis, but rather by the desire of the

recently-retired Dean of the School, Miles Jackson, to create a more 
modern and future-oriented multidisciplinary school of information 
sciences.  Various options have been considered by a task force 
which Prof. Jackson himself chairs, and a recommendation is 
expected very soon.

Co-Chair Ikeda noted that the relationship between the 
administration and faculty on the overall review process has 
generally been very open, cordial and fruitful, and shows that faculty 
can and should be actively involved in making these difficult 
decisions. He observed that if the faculty had not been involved as it 
was, that we probably would be facing much more severe problems 
now.

Senator Patrick Henry then described the work of his committee on 
review of deans and directors.  There is a BOR policy in place which 
requires that deans and directors be evaluated annually, but this has 
not in fact been carried out.  The Committee therefore has prepared a 
draft of a policy which requires a specific set of annual review 
procedures and a major review every four years.   The report has 
been sent to the SEC and is on the Faculty Senate Homepage.  
Basically, the process involves the DPC (or the chairs of several DPCs) 
for each Dean and Director, and the creation of a DDRC (Deans and 
Directors Review Committee--similar to the TPRC).

Senator Patricia Fryer brought before the Senate a draft document of 
additions to existing tenure and promotion guidelines which focus 
more clearly on instructional and service activities.  The present 
document is fairly detailed on research/creative activity criteria, but 
weak on instructional and service criteria.

All members of the Senate attending were given a copy of the draft, 
and it will be sent to absent Senators.  It is hoped that the final 
document can be voted on at the next Senate meeting in April so that 
it can be in effect for next year's tenure and promotion actions.

Finally, Co-Chair Ikeda gave a brief Chair's report.  He pointed out 
that a faculty workload policy was soon to be reviewed by chairs  
and directors, and that faculty should be sure to make their views 
known about that draft policy.

President Mortimer also requests faculty input to the draft Strategic 
Plan which he has previously distributed.  Comments should be sent 
directly to the President.

And, in an effort to bring the President closer to the Manoa academic

community, he will begin a series of breakfast meetings at College 
Hill for department chairs, and will invite new and old Faculty 
Senators to College Hill after the last Faculty Senate meeting of the 
year.

The meeting adjourned at 4:34 PM

Respectfully submitted


Jim Dator
Secretary, Faculty Senate