Board of Regents Minutes, 1908-2007
Origin of the UH Board of Regents
The Act 24 of the Territorial Legislature of 1907 created not only the College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, but a governing board, the Board of Regents, to be appointed by the Governor of the Territory. The Board began meeting in the spring of 1907 to arrange for a temporary location for the college and to begin searching for a suitable location for the permanent campus. It also hired Willis T. Pope, Vice Principal of the Territorial Normal School, as Acting Dean. (Pope declined to accept the title of Acting President.) The Board soon established a monthly meeting schedule with one or two exceptions each year.
At times, the UH Board of Regents has also functioned in related capacities for the State of Hawaiʻi. From 1973 to 1997, the Board functioned as the State Board for Vocational Education, and from 1975 to 1995, it also functioned as the Hawaiʻi State Post-Secondary Education Commission.
Scope of Collection
The minutes of the Board of Regents meetings were collected into various bound volumes. The volumes in which the minutes were stored did not correspond to calendar years. The first three volumes were initially marked with Roman numerals, but beginning with the fourth volume each volume was assigned a letter, with this fourth volume being labeled “D.” This system lasted through volume “O,” which ended with the minutes of March 1962. Later volumes have been identified only by the date range of the minutes within. The bindings for volumes I-III and D-O had deteriorated, and so are now stored in flat boxes, one volume per box. Where bindings had caused damage to the papers within the minutes were removed from the bindings and gathered into acid-free folders. The later volumes (labeled only by date beginning in 1962) will be maintained in the original bindings in which they came as long as their metal fastenings stay in good repair.
The current collection includes the minutes of the Board of Regents from 1908 to 2007 with two minor exceptions. Two volumes of minutes—February through September of 1999 and May through July of 2007—were missing from the accession from the Board of Regents Office. In addition to these gaps, the agenda for the meetings were also missing; nor does the collection include any of the supplementary materials, reports, appendices, sent to the members of the Board of Regents before each meeting for those time periods. The collection includes some materials beyond Board minutes. One volume of Rules and Regulations of the Board of Regents, dating from 1963 through 1979, contains regulations governing campus parking, student housing, and other issues passed by the Regents during those years. As mentioned above, the Board functioned in two other capacities for the State of Hawaiʻi beginning in the 1970s. Accordingly, the collection includes the minutes of the meetings of the State Board for Vocational Education in three volumes, covering the years 1973-1997, as well as one volume of Rules and Regulations from 1979; and the minutes of the Hawaiʻi State Post-Secondary Education Commission in one volume, covering the years 1975-1995.
The Minutes of the Board of Regents are in Manuscript A2008:014.
