UH asks
House for extra
$30 million

The medical school is
in jeopardy and enrollment
is down, officials say

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By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin

University of Hawaii President Kenneth Mortimer says that without an extra $3 million a year for the John A. Burns School of Medicine, the state may have to consider shutting it down.

Joyce Tsunoda, chancellor for community colleges, said if she doesn't get an extra $1.2 million next year, she won't be able pay the electricity bills at the schools.

And Charles Izumoto, a senator in the Associated Students of the University of Hawaii, said doubled tuition and sliced budgets are making the campus a lonelier place, with 6,000 fewer students systemwide in the last five years.

What used to be a lively campus is now "deserted by 2 o'clock," Izumoto said. "We're beginning to feel the emptiness."

University officials and students painted a bleak picture at a briefing yesterday before the state House Committee on Higher Education.

The university is asking for an extra $30 million in each of the next two years over Gov. Ben Cayetano's no-growth budget request.

Of the total, $18 million would go to the UH-Manoa campus, with a priority on fattening the budget of the medical school, which is facing possible accreditation problems.

"We can't sit back and watch it slowly decay," Mortimer said.

Dean Smith, executive vice chancellor at UH-Manoa, said other priorities include matching funds needed for research in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology and the Institute for Astronomy. Because of recent successes in research, "it's a problem of our own making."

And UH needs more money for maintenance, library services and new equipment, officials said.

While lauding the university for accomplishments, especially in research, Mortimer said an 18 percent cut over the last five years to the current $260.4 million budget is leaving deep scars.

He said UH's ranking in book and journal expenditures has fallen from 58th place to 107th out of a total of 108 research libraries in the nation; that facilities remain in poor condition with a backlog of more than $60 million in repairs; and that lower-level classes are getting bigger. The university is one of only two state universities with declining budgets for public higher education.

"Hawaii will not be able to benefit from the potential that high technology and other economic revitalization strategies promise if the state does not commit to these additional investments in the University of Hawaii," Mortimer said.

Cost-cutting measures by UH include a hiring freeze, slashing maintenance spending and consolidating programs.

Rep. David Morihara (D, Kula), the committee's chairman, said the state wants the UH to help lead economic expansion, but getting more money would be difficult with the poor economy.

Yale professor declines UH medical school job The University of Hawaii is focusing on another candidate to head the John A. Burns School of Medicine after a Yale University professor turned down the position. Dr. Edwin Cadman, professor of medicine and an executive at Yale New Haven Hospital, declined the offer for personal reasons, said Alan Teramura, senior vice president for research and dean of the graduate division. Attention has shifted to Dr. Larry Shapiro, chief of pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco medical school, considered an outstanding choice to help develop a research-intensive medical school. UH Senior Vice President Dean Smith had conducted lengthy negotiations with Cadman, hoping to have a deal to take to the Board of Regents yesterday. Cadman withdrew as a candidate on Thursday.