Chancellor's remarks to UH Mānoa Faculty Congress
October 21, 2009
Mahalo for the opportunity to be with you today.
David had invited President Greenwood but she had to be off island so last week he asked if I would like the time - I welcomed the opportunity to provide an update because a lot is happening on our campus.
1. First, I respect and have appreciated the listening sessions, the teach-in and related meetings because those provide important information for everyone. Civil dialogue about tough issues is what universities do so very well so that is healthy in a lot of ways. So I am planning additional sessions to discuss solutions and hope that many of you can attend.
I've surely learned more about the strong concerns regarding faculty salary and retrenchment which are collective bargaining issues, about executive salaries being too high and the view that more advocacy would have avoided cuts. The reality is that the magnitude of this financial crisis is really the biggest we've seen in our lives, so escaping cuts is unlikely for anyone and unfortunately those cuts are already in place for this year. The size and speed of the cuts, particularly for our campus, surely seems unfair and it is, but unfortunately Mānoa is seen as a source of cash in harsh times like these.
Many of our campus members, including myself and many of you, meet continually with community leaders, alumni, friends and state decision makers to provide information about Mānoa's contributions and our campus has made important advances in communication—such as:
a campus communicators group to magnify our message,
the Mānoa experience for prospective students,
website redesign to reach others,
the new Mānoa Arts and Minds to promote our events and draw people to the campus,
homecoming activities to bring people back,
electronic communications such as the Mānoa blog in the Advertiser, Mānoa ʻOhana for parents, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and others. Many of you may have seen the filming crew on campus—a donation I received is being used to film a series of TV ads to highlight learning and research opportunities here. More is being done but clearly there is much more to do.
In addition to faculty, there have been listening sessions with students—their passion for this institution is impressive, along with their deep concern that the university will not be able to provide the experience they want and need. They are also willing to work with me and you to promote the university with the state government and their voices are extremely important to have.
There are a number of other avenues opening up for us.
Alumni—now, after much work, we are actively communicating, connecting and visiting with our alumni and they are gratefu—that may well be related to the fact that our alumni giving is approaching 20% whereas 11-12% is average for institutions like ours. They are increasingly supporting us with their voices and their resources and we need them. Just last week, at the Board of Regents, I had for the first time a real opportunity to present a more comprehensive picture of UH Mānoa and its contributions. David Ross indicated he would share my welcome and the PowerPoint with you which are also posted on my website.
Some facts I shared—UH Mānoa is responsible for:
79% of all UH bachelors' degrees,
98% of graduate degrees,
92% of all graduate degrees for Native Hawaiians,
89% of the research funding,
74% of the private giving.
Mānoa distributes over 110M in financial aid each year to our students, continues to improve articulation with community colleges and has almost a 1000 Mānoa alumni working and contributing on other system campuses.
Our priority in the last biennium was repairs and maintenance and we educated many people about that problem—as a result, Manoa received $97M, the most we ever have for R&M and that is helping us operate in a more sustainable manner, reducing electricity consumption by 7 % last year, adding Mānoa Green Days and highlighting our efforts under the new website Malama Honua. Even so, we still have major facilities needs that must be addressed—our buildings are old and haven't been maintained for decades so they are failing, such as Gartley Hall.
I did tell the Regents that UH Mānoa, in my view, is at a tipping point and that this is the critical time to plan for investments in this campus. Our goal is that by providing the Regents with facts, they will be well prepared to advocate for this campus.
Legislators—I continually host legislators on the campus and just yesterday Senator Jill Tokuda and Rep. Jerry Chang, the Chairs of the Senate and House Higher Education committees, met with the Mānoa Executive Team, along with a ASUH representative, to discuss the budget cuts and seek advice on working with the legislators in their decision-making. These two legislators are strong supporters and had a number of concrete suggestions—such as:
- They have great respect for Mānoa's expertise so we need to ensure that legislators can readily tap into that expertise—that means you.
- We need to tell legislators how many students and alumni live in their districts so they truly recognize that Mānoa serves the whole state and that includes their constituents.
- We need to brag a lot more because there is so much we contribute.
One question was—why cut Mānoa so much? Their response—Mānoa has more resources and a greater capacity to pay and, since the economy was going south, they knew many people would first return to community colleges so they protected them more. We did point out that Mānoa is the next stop for those same students in the near future.
Legislators also had anticipated that the $14.4M of stimulus money would reduce Mānoa's cut to 20M which was more manageable but no one anticipated the additional 30M that basically broke the camel's back.
It was a highly productive discussion that will continue. They were also honest about the budget reality Hawaiʻi is facing and that there are tough times ahead for them and for all of us in dealing with a diminishing budget.
Our next step is that we will be providing a briefing at the legislature focused solely on UH Mānoa. How to brag in a good way—some talking points and facts we have been using to promote Mānoa are:
- every year we educate over 20,000 students who become critical members of Hawaii's work force;
- our campus members provide compassionate public service to our broader community;
- our faculty, staff and students generate $1 million dollars worth of research each and every day of the year;
- every $1.00 invested in UH Mānoa produces $5.34 of spending in Hawaii.
We need a much longer list that we can all use to equip everyone we touch with the facts regarding UH Mānoa's positive impact. As Hawaiʻi only research 1 university, an investment in us based on the facts is essential to this State.
Overall, the reassuring aspect from listening and seeking input from others is that there are many people who support this institution and there are many creative ideas being generated to advance our efforts.
At this time, it is critically important that we all pull together and work on solutions that will help us during these tough times so we are prepared in the best way possible to move forward as the economy improves.
Mahalo for your time today and for all that you accomplish each and every day,
Virginia S. Hinshaw
Chancellor
vhinshaw@hawaii.edu