September 13, 2016
Aloha Mānoa Faculty Colleagues,
I am honored to write to you as your new Manoa Faculty Senate (MFS) Chair. My name is Marguerite Butler, and I have been faculty at UHM for 10 years. I hope you had a great summer and that your semester is starting off with promise for great students and much creative and scholarly work. It has been a tumultuous summer after a year of difficult times, but I and my Senate Executive Colleagues remain inspired by the talents and efforts of you, our colleagues, and I write to you to provide an update.
Campus Leadership
As you may know, we have had a change in higher administration. At the end of August, Interim Chancellor Robert Bley Vroman stepped down, and along with him, the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (VCAA) Reed Dasenbrock. Both are returning to the faculty. The search for the new permanent Chancellor began last semester with campus visits expected this semester. In the interim, the Board of Regents has seen fit to appoint President David Lassner in a dual position as interim Chancellor and he has appointed Vice Chancellor for Research (VCR) Michael Bruno to concurrently assume the duties of the VCAA.
Although both MFS SEC and the Graduate Student Organization opposed these dual appointments, nonetheless the decision prevailed. Of no small concern is the “to do list” for UHM administration approved by the Board of Regents in July in exchange for their approval of proposed tuition increases over the summer. To quote from the Regents’ amendment (underline added to emphasize matters impacting academic governance):
- No increase in Manoa tuition in year 1, consistent with the other 9 campuses
- Require the Administration to come back within a year to report progress on:
- Alternative financing of repairs, such as has been done at the community colleges and with energy management
- Enrollment Management Plan to address recruitment and retention with target numbers
- Manoa Campus Master Plan that is based on a study of current space utilization and incorporating the findings of the integrated high level system-wide integrated academic and facilities strategic plan that the board requested earlier
- Internal academic restructuring and redesign of Manoa academically to enable the campus to move forward as a modern research university focused on holistic 21st century needs of the state of Hawaii
- Approach to budgeting and comprehensive resource planning, such as dollars, positions, and space, that focuses on overall campus priorities and recognizes the changing reality of financing public higher education in Hawaii and the nation.
Any one of these tasks are major efforts of academic planning, and while they must be done in order for UHM to succeed, it will be challenging indeed without a strong permanent Chancellor leading the charge, especially on such a short timeline. Realistically, it will take the better part of a year before a new chancellor is in place.
What is the role of faculty? By Regents policy 1.210, it is the role of the faculty to advise administration on matters of academics to ensure “that quality education is provided, preserved and improved.” Including, but not limited to research and academic programs, budget, and evaluation of administrators. To this end, the MFS will endeavor to aid President/Chancellor Lassner and VCAA/VCR Bruno in achieving these goals while strengthening UHM by providing consultation throughout these major transitions.
Major Challenges facing Mānoa:
With dwindling budget reserves, Mānoa has faced several years of fiscal austerity. Coupled with many years of “belt-tightening,” effects are being felt across campus, with some units in dire straights. Particularly hard-hit are many programs in the Arts and Sciences, facing critical personnel shortages after little hiring for a decade or more. Some units are down to <50% of their permanent faculty in the past 10 years and are facing difficulty offering not only elective but now required courses. Others have experienced tremendous enrollment growth with no additional resources. While research awards have held steady at UHM, VP Syrmos warned at the August BOR meeting that hiring slowdowns are expected to impact the research enterprise as well.
Further exacerbating these challenges is the fact that the allocation model that Manoa has used for decades is a static one, essentially what most units (schools, colleges, and ORUs) receive is what they got last year (“historical budgeting”). Therefore units with increased enrollment or any other cost-increasing changes are doing more with less, and increases in tuition dollars have not followed students but rather plugged holes in the budget. We need a budget process that aligns resources with the missions of the University.
We lack good data on the health of programs and units, making it difficult to assess academic quality. We are very concerned at the lack of accurate information and transparency surrounding major decision-making and see this as Mānoaʻs biggest obstacle toward improving our fundamentals.
As a campus, we need to develop a shared set of missions that involve all stakeholders. Can we agree that as a research university, our core mission is the education of our students, both undergraduate and graduate? If not, what is it?
The Path Forward:
The priorities set forward by the MFS SEC for the 2016-2017 year are:
- Implementation of Budget reform based on equitably returning revenues to the units that generate them, while ensuring that the budget supports the missions of the university. The MFS budget model is designed for this purpose.
- Strengthening Mānoa Autonomy via (1) Recruiting a strong Chancellor with delegated authority from the governing body to make necessary changes to preserve and improve the academic quality of UH Manoa befitting a research university. (2) Direct access to the governing body (BOR) for the Chancellor as well as duly elected faculty representatives to provide information for the governing bodyʻs decision-making process.
- Strengthening Shared Governance across the Mānoa campus, including our relations with administration, our self-organization as a faculty senate, and college senates. At present, there is no formal link between college-level senates and the campus-wide Mānoa Faculty Senate, which is the duly recognized voice of faculty consultation for the Mānoa campus. It has been many years since the structure of the MFS has been reviewed for optimal function and service to the campus.
- Implementing a Process for Review of Administration by faculty. Considering models used by other research universities, MFS will implement a review system in the hopes of obtaining better accountability.
The 2016-2017 Manoa Faculty Senate Executive Committee are:
Marguerite Butler, Chair, mbutler@hawaii.edu (Natural Sciences)
John Casken, Vice Chair, casken@hawaii.edu (Nursing and Dental Hygiene)
Kelley Withy, SEC Secretary, withy@hawaii.edu (JABSOM)
Sarita Rai, Senate Secretary, sarita@hawaii.edu (Student Affairs)
Vilsoni Hereniko, vili@hawaii.edu (Academy for Creative Media)
Lilikala Kameʻeleihiwa, lilikala@hawaii.edu (Hawai’ianuiakea)
Christine Sorensen-Irvine, sorens@hawaii.edu (Education)
As your SEC, we are committed to transparency, accountability, and shared governance.
We look forward to working with administration to better serve you, our staff colleagues, and the wonderful students of our great University of Hawaii at Mānoa to build a stronger and better institution of higher learning for the people of Hawaiʻi.
Please reach out to us with your concerns. We can only achieve a stronger shared governance and a healthier university through your participation and input. Please get to know your colleagues and show your support of our institution by participating in the Manoa Faculty Senate, we are always looking for new senators. Meetings are open to the public: http://www.hawaii.edu/uhmfs/minutes/2016_17/index.html
Sincerely,
Marguerite Butler
Chair, Manoa Faculty Senate
____________________________________________
Marguerite A. Butler
Associate Professor
Department of Biology
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