240 UH posts up for Up to 240 people in top administrative posts in the University of Hawaii system will soon receive official notices that their jobs could be terminated within a year, said UH President Evan Dobelle.
possible termination
The possible cuts would
affect deans and other facultyBy Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.comDobelle explained yesterday the notices are meant to give him flexibility as he evaluates, trims and reshapes each job in the university's administration over the next seven months.
He said the notices are just to protect the university in case of layoffs, but it may turn out that no one will be terminated, he said.
Dobelle's planned evaluation of the UH system comes after a recent consultant's report said UH is a top-heavy bureaucracy that is not focused on the faculty and students.
Dobelle described that bureaucracy as a kind of "centipede on Prozac," and the changes are needed so the university can achieve its potential.
"I want to be respectful to people, and I don't want people to have low morale because they think their job is over," Dobelle said yesterday after talking to the UH-Manoa faculty senate.
"All I'm saying to them is, we're in a difficult financial situation at this moment, but regardless of that, we've just had reports that say this is a massive bureaucracy. Given that, tell me what you do and why you do it, and let me try to rationalize with limited resources if that's an appropriate and highest, best use of taxpayers' dollars. That's all I want to do," he said.
The president said UH policy requires a year's notice to terminate nontenured administrators and 30 days' notice for those who have tenure. He plans to issue such letters, most likely by year's end, to 230 to 240 deans, assistant deans, associate deans and tenured faculty members.
Dobelle said the evaluation of these jobs will take place on two fronts. Deane Neubauer, UH interim academic vice president, will review instructional posts, while Dobelle will use different criteria for noninstructional jobs.
Key to the reshuffling is a PricewaterhouseCoopers administrative audit now under way and expected in January. The audit should give Dobelle and his team guidelines on how to approach the reorganization.
One thing Dobelle wants to eliminate is the atmosphere in which administrators believe they have to compete between university departments and campuses to get things done.
"We're going to end the zero-sum game at the university, where somebody believes that if they don't get something, it was given at their expense to someone else," he said. "We have to have a system everybody understands."
Dobelle said he will know by next summer where people fit in the system. He stressed the entire evaluation process will include consultation with affected administrators and the Board of Regents.
He also wants to hold public meetings before such notices are issued so the plan can be discussed openly.
And Dobelle has notified the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly and the Hawaii Government Employees Association -- which represent university faculty and support staff -- that these jobs do not affect their members. He plans to meet with union officials later if a similar evaluation is done for union members.
"This is a time to stand up for the university. This is a time to be proud and tell me what you're doing and why you're doing it," Dobelle told the UH faculty senate yesterday. "And if you can't, then I regret it. Then the answer is obvious."
Dobelle also said his recent appointments of Paul B. Costello as UH vice president for external affairs and J.R.W. "Wick" Sloan as UH chief financial officer were not his first choices out of a field of a dozen candidates, eight of them women. Two female candidates were offered the jobs, but they declined.
Still, Dobelle said, both men are able, competent people who will work well with staff.
University of Hawaii
