[ TEACHER STRIKE ]
Some UH faculty LIKE MANY University of Hawaii-Manoa scientists, Kenneth Kaneshiro supported the faculty strike, but he also had to go to work each day to protect 30-year-old cultures of native Hawaiian insects and meet other federal-funding goals.
had to mind
the store
The union worked out a system
of passes for researchers who
had unusual obligationsBy Helen Altonn
Star-BulletinKaneshiro, who heads the Conservation Biological Research and Training Program and the Hawaiian Evolutionary Biology Program, said he obtained the union's permission and worked without pay.
He said he respected the picket but has been doing research since 1963 on native insects of Hawaii.
"Most of these species have been in culture for nearly 30 years now. I can't let those go."
Twelve species are being considered for the Federal Endangered Species List, he said, "so we definitely need to protect these kinds of cultures."
Also, it was critical to be by his office phone and e-mail to work out details of an evaluation team site visit for a National Science Foundation project, he said. The visit was scheduled this month but has been delayed until mid-May.
"What's ironical," Kaneshiro said, is that the site visit is for a $1.4 million NSF-funded project enabling graduates in his program to work with students and teachers in kindergarten through 12th grades. Public school teachers have been on strike for two weeks.
This is the second year of the three-year project, and Kaneshiro hopes to renew it for three years with another $1.4 million. The evaluation team was concerned that an extended strike could jeopardize the project's goals, he said. One graduate student is working with Big Island schools on studies of a new alien ant, he said. Hundreds of students and parents, assisting young ones, are putting bait traps -- peanut butter on chopsticks -- in yards to learn the ant's distribution, Kaneshiro said. Students collect the traps in Ziploc bags and take them to school for identification.The data are put into a Global Positioning System map where the students can see it, Kaneshiro said.
"Most of it is negative. We're hoping they're not finding this particular ant, but every time they find the ant ... it makes a spot on the map."
The students have discovered two new ant species, unknown from Hawaii, he said.
"It's just tremendous," Kaneshiro said. "The K-12 community has contributed to the scientific process in understanding distribution of the ant."
The state Department of Agriculture will use the data for a control program, he said.
In another project being planned during the NSF site visit, a graduate student is coordinating a field trip with 320 seventh-graders, Kaneshiro said.
"That's why we researchers at the UH were sort of in a bind," he said.
Although they supported the strike and tried to participate in pickets, he said, they had to fulfill obligations and goals under federal and private grants or possibly lose the funding.
"I think there is some concern that people didn't understand why we were coming to work."
Douglas Vincent, chairman of the Animal Sciences Department, said a number of faculty members in sensitive areas had passes to cross the picket line to take care of their research.
"The union set up a system where they showed passes and crossed through but agreed to support the strike and not sign in for a paycheck."
Animal caretakers and the UH veterinarian continued to work, and animals were cared for, Vincent said. Operation of regulatory programs also continued, he said.
Some faculty members would walk the picket line a shift or two, then tend to research or meet with graduate students and technicians on the picket line, he said.
"So, there was a fair amount of communication going on all the time."
Charles Hayes, interim dean of the College of Natural Sciences, said some faculty in his college also worked without pay to keep research going.
"I know of no disasters," he said.
C. Barry Raleigh, dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, said about 20 percent of the school's faculty members did not go on strike because many get no state money, or it's only part of their salary.
"Their obligation to the federal government is much greater," he said, pointing out they cannot let research programs drift or they will be in trouble.
Raleigh does not anticipate any long-term impact from the strike, saying he is "much more concerned about recruiting." Quite a few researchers will be recruited in the next year in molecular biology and biotechnology, and a prolonged strike would have discouraged applicants, he said.
"I'm delighted it's behind us."
Alan H. Teramura, senior vice president for research, believes problems with research experiments and laboratories were minimized during the strike because many nonunion people or those in other bargaining units were able to work, such as postdoctoral researchers, technicians, electricians, clerical and fiscal staff.
Many faculty members also left detailed instructions for staff on what to do, he said.
About 160 faculty members were declared essential workers, primarily those working on clinical trials with patients in the medical school and cancer center, Teramura said.
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