Guarded optimism University of Hawaii faculty have high expectations for incoming President Evan Dobelle.
greets new UH
President Dobelle
A former colleague praises
his leadership abilities as
he prepares to take overBy Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.comThey want a charismatic, passionate leader, an innovative, independent thinker, a chief fund-raiser and a receptive administrator all rolled into one.
While many at UH are reserving judgment until Dobelle has demonstrated his abilities, Ronald Thomas, acting president at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., is confident that Dobelle fits the bill.
Filling Dobelle's shoes is a tough task, Thomas said. "I wear size 11, and I don't think there's a shoe fitter that can measure Evan's shoes," he said. "I'm going to have a tremendous challenge filling the gap over here."
Dobelle left the Trinity presidency and will take over the UH presidency Monday as successor to Kenneth Mortimer.
"I think the mood on the campus is guardedly optimistic at the time," said Jim Dator, director of the Center for Future Studies at UH-Manoa.
"I still think while Dobelle can do an awful lot and intends to ... it's going to be a tough job on his part."
His job is not likely to be as tough as Mortimer's, however, at least in terms of the economic hits the university took in the 1990s.
"The economic situation is better than it was then," Dator said. "Even if we go through another crisis, I don't think it will be as sudden."
The difference in Mortimer's and Dobelle's personalities could also play a role in dealing with potential budget cuts. As the UH budget was slashed by $18 million from 1995 to 1996, "Mortimer was almost invisible and silent through the whole process and felt that this was the way to behave," Dator said.
"Dobelle just seems to be a very different type of person and would respond to it with more noise," Dator said.
Gov. Cayetano has responded favorably to Dobelle's appointment, suggesting he could have a positive impact on the university in the way of medical school Dean Edwin Cadman and football coach June Jones.
In reference to the $442,000 salary Dobelle will be paid for the position, Cayetano said he thinks it is a worthwhile investment.
"I want the best for the University of Hawaii," Cayetano said. "From everything I've seen, I think he will be worth the money. In order to get good people, you have to pay what the market demands."
Cayetano said Dobelle's accomplishments at the City College of San Francisco could be more relevant than those at Trinity.
"When the governor there (in California) cut the budget, what he did was, he made the adjustment, cut the administrative staff in half and applied the money to the academic side," Cayetano said.
Mortimer, though hemmed in by budget cuts, laid a solid foundation for Dobelle by tripling private fund-raising and gaining constitutional autonomy for the university, the governor said. "Dobelle has the opportunity to raise the university to another level."
David Stannard, a professor of American studies, said he holds little hope that anyone in the presidency could be effective without a change in the system.
"The reason I say I'm not optimistic about change is that the presidency is constantly locked into the state Democratic Party," Stannard said.
"Obviously there is no autonomy for the university if the president is appointed by the Board of Regents, who are appointed by the governor," he said. "There seems to be a problem structurally."
According to Stannard, the system demands a conservative president who "really doesn't have the freedom to move unless he does not value his job." Of recent presidents, Mortimer probably put up the most resistance to party pressure, Stannard said.
"(Dobelle) seems an odd choice for this university largely because he seems so independent," he said.
A recurring theme among the faculty is that they, as well as students and staff, have had little say in UH's leadership. "I would just like us to be able to participate in governance somehow," Dator said.
Ronald Thomas, who moved into his administrative role from a faculty position in the English Department, said Dobelle made many of Trinity's senior faculty into senior administrators and advisors.
"His personal style is one to be personally engaged with the entire community," including faculty, students and administrative staff, he said.
Thomas said he had been at Trinity for five years before Dobelle arrived. During that time, he had been at the president's house twice.
While Dobelle was president, however, he and other faculty members were in the house twice a week.
"He opened his home to the entire community for various kinds of receptions, events, personal dinners," he said.
Another thing DOBELLE did every year was to take a small group of faculty members to an international conference where they participated in seminars and sightseeing, thereby offering faculty the opportunity to engage the president on both an intellectual and personal level, Thomas said.
He also responded personally to e-mails and other communications. "Evan was not inclined to develop a screen of administrators to shield him from inquiries," Thomas said.
At UH, faculty are waiting to see who Dobelle will select as his senior staff members. One of his first duties will be to appoint an interim Manoa chancellor.
Mortimer and his predecessor, Albert Simone, both held the role of president and Manoa chancellor.
Dator said he has been opposed to re-establishing the chancellorship, calling it another expensive layer of bureaucracy that would interfere with getting to the president.
"Dobelle is a very active leadership person," Dator said. "He's going to want to have an awful lot of influence over what happens in the university. I don't think he'll appoint the kind of chancellor that the faculty has in mind, a strong and effective advocate. We want our Joyce Tsunoda (chancellor for the community colleges), and I bet we're not going to get it."
But Thomas said Dobelle likes to surround himself with talented people who enjoy being challenged and enjoy challenging him.
"He's not so insecure that he needs to surround himself with yes-persons," Thomas said.
He said some of Dobelle's appointments have been surprising.
"Evan is not necessarily bound by choosing the most predictable person," he said. "He has great, incisive judgment of character. He sometimes makes surprising but inspired choices for positions of leadership."
"He likes to set the bar very high and then raise it about two feet," Thomas said. He surrounds himself with people who have "the energy and wherewithal to find a way to get over the bar."
Alexander Malahoff, president of the UH faculty union, said after doing "due diligence" on Dobelle, he is very optimistic.
"Dobelle comes into a mood of revival," Malahoff said. "Something is going to revive the university. He's coming at the right moment."
Malahoff said his feelings about the past administration were mixed.
"Maybe they didn't have the time. Maybe they were in a box and they couldn't get out of it. I wish the administration would have shown some passion for the university," he said, adding that the same applied to the Board of Regents.
Perhaps the most telling testament to Dobelle's abilities is the search for his permanent replacement at Trinity.
"What people seem to be looking for is someone very much like Evan," Thomas said.
Pressed to identify at least one of Dobelle's faults, Thomas just laughed.
"I think you have a terrific leader over there," Thomas said, "a remarkable person to lead the institution."
>> Education: B.A., M.Ed., Ed.D., University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Master of Public Administration, Harvard University Dobelle's career
>> 1995 to 2001: President of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
>> 1990 to 1995: Chancellor and president of City College of San Francisco; president of the California Consortium on International Education; president of the San Francisco Consortium of College Presidents
>> 1987 to 1990: President of Middlesex Community College; adjunct professor in public administration at Boston University
>> 1979 to 1981: Chief financial officer and treasurer of the Democratic National Committee; national finance chairman for Democratic Party and President Jimmy Carter
>> 1977 to 1979: U.S. chief of protocol at the White House, assistant secretary of state with the rank of ambassador
>> 1976 to 1977: Commissioner, Department of Environmental Management, Massachusetts
>> 1973 and 1975: Elected mayor of Pittsfield, Mass.
>> 1971 to 1973: Executive assistant to U.S. Sen. Edward W. Brooke; adjunct instructor at Kennedy Institute of Politics, Harvard University
>> 1970 to 1971: Assistant to superintendent of schools, Temple City, Calif.; and adjunct instructor in teacher supervision, California State University at Los Angeles
>> 1970: Research associate, President Nixon's Commission on Campus Unrest and Governor Reagan's Commission on Educational Reform
Source: Trinity College
University of Hawaii
