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Wanted: Visionary
to replace Mortimer

The university's next
president 'has to take UH
to a higher level'

By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin

Community leaders, faculty and students say the next University of Hawaii president must have vision to take UH to a higher level, communication skills to prevent the campus morale problems of recent years, and a good understanding of Hawaii.

They also say it will take a leader with a national reputation to maintain a university with national recognition, and that person most likely will come from the mainland.

Regent Ah Quon McElrath said yesterday that hiring a local person "carries with it a lot of baggage. We need a person with a world view not bound by provincialism."

By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
President Kenneth Mortimer says UH's future is brighter
now and the timing is right for him to announce his resignation.

Gov. Ben Cayetano talked about the kind of person he believes must replace Kenneth Mortimer, who announced he will leave his job July 1, 2001.

"I don't think there is a person locally who can do this job," Cayetano said. "We all know each other, and that makes change very, very difficult, so you need someone from the outside."

Cayetano said the Board of Regents should be willing to pay $500,000 to $1 million in salary plus attractive incentives. "That's why we got a good football coach, we got an outstanding dean of the medical school and school of engineering," Cayetano said. "We decided to go out and pay market for what we wanted."

The governor also said the regents must support the president's decisions. "They didn't support President Mortimer on the tuition increase, and I think that was a heavy blow for him."

Donald Kim, chairman of the Board of Regents, was not prepared to comment on any selection process or possible candidates. Kim said Mortimer had earlier approached regents about the possibility of resigning. After the April board meeting, Kim released a statement reiterating support for Mortimer even though regents rejected his proposed tuition increases in March.

Mortimer, 62, said he believed UH's future is brighter now and that the timing is right to announce his resignation, based on a personal choice to move on in his own life. He said no single event caused his decision. Asked about the student protesters who dogged his policies, he said he was "pleased about the increase of student activism" because it showed students cared.

State Rep. K. Mark Takai, vice chairman of the Committee on Higher Education, said he was disappointed that Mortimer will not be the president "to see things through" on the UH autonomy issue, which will be left up to voters in November.

Takai said he hoped a selection committee would look locally as well as nationally. "The most important thing is vision," he said. A new president "has to take UH to a higher level."

Mamo Kim, president of the UH-Manoa Graduate Students Organization, was a vocal critic of Mortimer's policies and style of leadership. She said it was important to find someone who understood the needs of the community so that any new president would "not be plopped here like a fish out of water and stumble along for the next four to five years."

Students and faculty members also said communities on and off campus must be part of the selection process and that students and faculty should be being appointed to selection committees. Kim said candidates should come to Hawaii to speak before the community.

Many on campus have complained about Mortimer's leadership style because he did not communicate well nor include faculty and students in decisions. Andrea Feeser, a Faculty Senate member from the UH-Manoa Art Department, said the new president must be "someone who knows Hawaii and how to talk to people."

Kim said Rose Tseng, the UH-Hilo chancellor who has been praised for her leadership, would be a good candidate.

But before regents hire a new president, they must first decide whether they will approve a separate chancellor for the UH-Manoa campus. The president now serves as chancellor as well.

Mortimer said it would take six to 10 months to finds a successor. He said any new leader would need "national credibility for the credibility of the institution."

He also said UH should not follow other universities that had appointed politicians to lead them. "I don't think that is appropriate."

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Star-Bulletin reporter Richard Borreca contributed to this story.

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University of Hawaii