Declining
enrollment worries
UH-Manoa

Faculty say smaller
campuses are offering
freshmen more

By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin

University of Hawaii President Kenneth Mortimer has asked faculty members to help him come up with ways to increase enrollment, saying a fourth year of declining numbers "will be very bad news for us."

But faculty members at a UH-Manoa Faculty Senate meeting complained that the administration has not supported a program to improve the quality of education for freshmen students, and they said community colleges are offering more attractive incentives.

Mortimer also said he didn't believe legislators would further cut the university budget, already slashed in recent years, unless state tax revenues looked "disastrous."

The House Finance Committee is asking for budget cuts, including a 2 percent cut at the university, because of feared shortfalls in tax revenues.

Mortimer said legislators are aware that further cuts at the university will be very difficult.

Mortimer told faculty that UH enrollment has declined 15 percent during the past three years, to about 17,000 last fall from 19,700 in fall 1995.

Faculty members suggested several reasons why freshmen may be choosing community colleges over the university: lower tuition, easier parking, smaller classes and being able to transfer credits directly to the university.

"Why would anybody want to come here?" asked Kenneth Kipnis, a UH philosophy professor.

"We can produce a better education experience for freshmen. The problem is, we are not. We must improve the product."

Kipnis heads the Faculty Senate's Committee on the Undergraduate Experience, a program passed by the faculty last spring. It would put all freshmen in 9 to 12 hours of cluster courses with the same 20 students in each course. At least one hour a week would be spent with a tenured research professor.

"The idea is to reduce alienation and provide some handholding," Kipnis said.

The administration has scheduled 18-19 clusters for next year, but 60-80 are needed to include all freshmen, Kipnis said. He believes the program has not moved further because Mortimer failed to appoint an administrator for the project.

Faculty also suggested more outreach programs, evening and weekend classes, and tuition differentials for freshmen. Mortimer said he would put all ideas on the table for discussion.

Mortimer also said he expected to announce in a few weeks that the university will purchase Internet connections from the federal government, possibly the Department of Defense. He said the increased capacity would take care of UH needs for the next 20 years.