Columbia hires
former isle official

Jeanette Takamura is the first
female dean at the university's
social work school

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By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

Jeanette Takamura, former deputy director of Hawaii's Health Department and member of the Clinton administration, has become the first female dean of Columbia University's School of Social Work.

"It was totally unexpected; I didn't plan to be doing this," she said yesterday in a telephone interview from her office in New York.

Takamura began work as head of the nation's oldest school of social work July 1. The university provided her with housing two blocks from campus.

"Columbia is very good. I feel I've been here three months," she said.

She had held the Edward R. Roybal Endowed Chair in Applied Gerontology and Public Service at California State University-Los Angeles since June of last year.

She said she received a call in April 2001 from Columbia University officials about the social work school's deanship. But she was on her way to California and felt the timing was not right, Takamura said.

But, she added, "They kept calling, and the more they talked, the more intrigued I became."

She went to New York for an interview and "was just impressed ... with the caliber of faculty on the search committee," she said.

On the flight back to California, she sat next to two Columbia students, she said.

After another trip to New York and further communication with Columbia's provost, she decided "it would be a wonderful opportunity."

She did not realize then that she would be the first woman to head Columbia's School of Social Work or that it was the first in the country, "in fact, the world," she said.

Takamura was born and raised on Oahu and is a University of Hawaii graduate. She directed the state Executive Office on Aging from 1987 to 1994, then went to the state Health Department as first deputy. She was named assistant secretary for aging in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration.

Takamura said the phone call she received from Columbia was similar to one she got from former U.S. Health Secretary Donna Shalala, saying, "'We've heard about you and want you to come.' I didn't know these folks. It took me off guard."

She did not take the first offer she received after Clinton was first elected because her daughter, Mari, was too young, she said. The White House and Shalala called again, separately, when he was elected to a second term, she said.

She received an award from the White House in 1999 for outstanding contributions to women.

She asked her husband, Carl, executive director of the Hawaii Business Roundtable, and their daughter what they thought about Columbia's offer.

Her husband said, "You ought to do it if you think it's the right thing," she said.

Mari, attending the University of Puget Sound, said, "Can I have a car?" Presumably that was to drive to New York, Takamura said.

Her husband and daughter plan to visit her in late August, she said. "They can't wait to see the place."