Will UH-Manoa have faculty in 10 years?

First, the university and the faculty negotiated a six-year contract with 1, 3, 2, 5, 9 and 11 percent annual raises (31 percent over six years). Some senior faculty will retire after they get the final 11 percent raise in 2008-09. Many will wait to retire until 2011 so they get a higher pension based on their three years of highest salary. Even though these raises seem large, they do not bring UH faculty up to national standards, even considering the higher cost of living in Hawaii, and it is unlikely that salaries will even keep pace with inflation.

Such mass retirements might seem a good thing. Senior faculty members could be replaced by new blood who could be paid lower salaries. However, to attract new faculty, UH will have to offer nationally competitive salaries, which might not be much lower than those paid to retiring faculty, especially if moving and start-up costs for new faculty are factored in. Competitive start-up costs for a science professor can run a half-million dollars. UH can't afford this. In addition, new junior faculty generally do not have the ability to bring in large grants, so the university will experience a temporary decline in extramural funding.

There are several other barriers for recruiting high-quality junior faculty. Like many other families in Hawaii, they can't afford to buy homes or send their kids to private schools. And while UH might offer competitive entry salaries to attract the best and the brightest, pay raises once faculty are here start to lag behind the rest of the country. At present, junior faculty have to wait 10 years before they become part of the state retirement system. If they leave before then, they get nothing. Under the new contributory system, they can take it with them after five years, making them far more mobile.

The bottom line is that senior faculty will retire. We might be able to hire some excellent junior faculty, but we won't retain the best of them. Research will stagnate. Tired and dispirited teaching won't prepare students for much of anything. A narrow range of views will settle like a miasma on campus, while a few professors will still struggle to make a difference. Just when Hawaii needs to defend its unique society by being competitive nationally and internationally, it will finally lose the university that it has neglected this last decade.

It is late, but things could still be turned around. Competitive salaries and decent facilities would be a good start. A revived faculty housing program, such as most major universities have, would seem essential. It might involve working with private developers or even teaming up with other affordable housing programs. A program to attract husband-wife faculty teams would net us some top talent. Finally, if we can pay private-school tuitions for the offspring of coaches, maybe we should consider them for faculty kids.

All of the actions necessary to saving UH are within reach, but they require political will and leadership that recognizes the essential value of the university to the state of Hawaii as an option where you don't need to send your kids out of state to get an education, where we train students for a whole lifetime of learning and as the one place that can preserve the values of these islands while helping us be competitive nationally and internationally.