The proposal, suggested as a
way to deal with budget cuts at UH,
is one of the few areas where
there is agreement

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

Two faculty reports suggesting ways to deal with the fiscal crisis at the University of Hawaii differ sharply but agree on one significant issue: Eliminate the clinical medical school and move its research programs elsewhere.

They also agree that the College of Education; Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific studies; and other areas need changes. But they don't agree on what should be done.

The committees began at odds -- formed by different administrators and given different charges. That created a dilemma, according to Senior Vice President Dean O. Smith. "When they (committee reports) came in, they varied in size and the depth of analyses and quite different conclusions."

Faculty members, who worked about nine months on the recommendations at the administration's request, had pressed for public release of the findings, which have been sitting for months on an administration shelf.

After the Star-Bulletin obtained copies, Smith was asked about their status. He said they weren't being released publicly.

"They are a component of the decision-making process. We have them for reference and we are studying them."

However, copies were distributed Friday to the university's Board of Regents, Executive Council, deans and directors, the Faculty Senate and UH Professional Assembly.

Ralph Moberly, geology and geophysics professor, chaired the Vertical Cuts Committee. Roderick A. Jacobs, linguistics professor and chairman of English as a Second Language, headed the Academic Affairs Prioritization Committee.

Moberly's group of seven science professors particularly "went to a tremendous amount of work," said oceanography professor Edward Laws, who served as liaison between the committees and the administration.

Smith asked Laws to chair a "reconciliation committee" composed of the two groups and others to resolve differences. The effort failed. "They're simply too divergent," Smith said.

"There were certainly some things they agreed on," Laws said, "but some other things they didn't. I think what it came down on was defending turf, and the committees were not willing to budge on certain issues."

He also said: "The administration has to take the feedback and decide what to do. It can't expect the faculty to cut their own throats."

The Moberly committee submitted a 215-page report in June evaluating campuswide programs, reviewing needs and changes in jobs and higher education, and proposing cuts and restructuring to maintain and improve priority areas.

The recommendations sweep across personnel and administrative procedures, student and faculty selection and capital improvements.

The Jacobs committee's eight members represented teaching programs in such departments as Physics, Anthropology, Language and Art, as well as the Faculty Senate and Student Affairs.

They submitted a 30-page report in March with recommendations on "how we can maintain and improve quality at a first-class research university even in times of fiscal crisis ... without harming the institution's very fabric."

The Jacobs committee said it wasn't directed to recommend program cuts, "nor to advise on revamping the whole university. Given the limited amount of current data available to us, either would have been both irresponsible and presumptuous."

But his committee did say "there are a number of areas we should look at," Jacobs said.

It also said that if UH is to survive as a quality institution, "any cuts made must be vertical and purposeful, and they should relate to large-scale units rather than allow penny-pinching to undermine the level of all and devalue the university's degrees."

As researchers, Moberly's committee noted it is "perhaps more aware of the inevitability of change than any other academicians but historians."

Anticipating criticism, the committee plunged ahead with bold recommendations to cope with a likely budget decrease of $16 million to $20 million in the next fiscal year and to plan for the future.

Moberly said: "The only way the university is going to get any kind of general support from the state other than, 'Gee, I want my kids to go to the university,' is with specific ways to improve education, to improve the economy.

"We felt if we used a bunch of nice words and let it go at that, there would be no support."

Jacobs' committee said both groups worked earnestly "with one hand tied behind our backs" because of unavailable and inadequate data. Certain areas, such as the athletics program and higher administration, also were off limits, he noted.

Faculty members expect every school or unit to be cut 4 percent a year during the next three fiscal years on top of some 30 percent in cuts in the past five or six years.

Smith said all deans have been asked to address priorities within funding restrictions. "I'm not predicting any radical changes."

The budget cuts will seriously damage university standards, Jacobs said. "This is to keep going the School of Medicine, which is training people not needed." Yet, he said, "I think it would be very difficult politically to cut medicine. It's easier to do death by 1,000 slices on the rest."

Moberly said, "It's absurd to think you can change things without eliminating programs or departments."

With most funding going into salaries, 4 percent cuts mean deans must eliminate something, he said. "They will probably say, 'Don't fill positions.' We will just continue to whittle away."

Jacobs agreed: "We're frightened we're going to lose some of our best people."

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Highlights of ideas
for UH budget

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

Here are highlights of recommendations to cope with budget reductions at the University of Hawaii that have been made by two faculty groups -- the Vertical Cuts Committee (VCC) and Academic Affairs Prioritization Committee (AAPC).

Develop as research school

VCC: The Manoa campus should "embrace proposals to bring knowledge-based industry to Hawaii through accelerated development of UHM as a research university."

Do not create more layers

AAPC: "Reorganization, planning, personnel and reallocation of existing resources should not require centralization and the creation of an ever more hierarchical administrative structure, with the higher levels ever more distant from the students and teachers who form the true core of any good university."

Revamp biological programs

VCC: Reorganize biological programs into a special School of Integrated Life Sciences to take advantage of Hawaii's unique resources in that area and provide a better foundation for biotechnology developments.

Change Hawaiian studies

VCC: Expand Asian-Pacific-Hawaiian studies into a single school with related languages, literatures and scholars, anthropology and linguistics to achieve academic excellence in those areas of "comparative advantage."

AAPC: The School of Hawaiian, Asian, Pacific Studies appears "seriously overstaffed ... and should be studied with a view to downsizing." It could become "a facilitator for Asian-Pacific program development by faculty throughout the university."

'Monster units' misguided

AAPC: VCC proposals "to restructure the entire campus by creating two monster units ... are misguided budgetarily and academically."

Changes in Arts, Sciences

VCC: Merge the four Colleges of Arts and Sciences into a single college with strong undergraduate programs.

AAPC: Forcing the four arts and sciences colleges into a giant single college "would be a retrograde step, threatening both educational values and, very significantly, faculty morale."

But some programs in the schools might be considered for consolidation into one unit, such as Communication, Journalism and Speech.

Examine low-priority units

VVC: Examine research and instructional units with low priority rankings, according to criteria given to the committee, to see if they should be improved, merged or eliminated to free resources for higher-priority programs.

Eliminate Summer Session and Continuing Education, tied for lowest ranking, and have departments that want them assume the responsibilities.

AAPC: Retain and merge Summer Session and Continuing Education, as proposed to the Manoa Faculty Senate. Require the new unit to be self-supporting as the Summer Session is now.

Doctoral plans debated

VCC: Cut small, mediocre doctoral programs that have little local or national demand, and free resources to improve undergraduate and masters programs.

AAPC: Eliminating doctoral programs would achieve little cost savings and cause serious harm to central university departments.

Law, Medical, Public Health

VVC: Examine the law, medical, public health and social work schools to determine if they can be made self-sufficient; otherwise, abolish them. Split basic sciences from the medical school and put them in the proposed new life sciences school.

AAPC: It would be better to support students for medical training elsewhere than continue a School of Medicine that has only 2.3 percent of UHM's total enrollment yet 14.39 percent of Manoa's instructional money.

Undergraduate priorities

VVC: Give highest undergraduate priority to biology, chemistry, economics, English, foreign languages and literature, history, information and computer science, mathematics, philosophy, physics, political science and psychology.

Improve situations where essential or moderate-priority programs are ineffective, costly or of poor quality. Concerns: art, English, history, mathematics, music and most languages.

AAPC: Proposals to modify instructional areas "need to be securely based on valid data and knowledgeable analysis of those data." VCC conclusions were based on "faculty data," "errors of judgment" and "biases and prejudices."

Ideas aimed at Education

VCC: Reduce the College of Education to less than one-fourth of its size. Change mission to provide a shorter, more rigorous program for elementary teachers and some assistance to arts and sciences majors to become teachers. Eliminate doctoral degrees. Retrench some departments; create three new departments for K-5 elementary education, 6-12 secondary education and special education.

AAPC: Consider concentrating College of Education resources for training teachers and counselors for K-12 and special-need students, and for Department of Education research and evaluation needs. Consider merging Curriculum Research and Development Group and its Laboratory School into the College of Education, and charge a tiered fee at the Lab School based on family income.

Combine or cut programs

VVC: Consolidate or eliminate certain programs. For example, put American Studies and Women's Studies into Sociology. Combine Communication, Journalism and Speech. Close Geography and put remnants not suitable for the Asian, Pacific, Hawaiian school into other departments. Similarly, close Religion and put remnants into Philosophy.

VCC: Examine the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology's mission.

Entrance requirements

VCC: Raise entrance requirements so the median SAT of undergraduate UH students is the same as at peer universities. Raise out-of-state tuition and remove the cap on out-of-state students.