‘I have no reason
to hide,’ McCubbin
tells audience
About 70 University of Hawaii faculty and staff members turned out yesterday to hear Hamilton McCubbin, a finalist for the position of vice chancellor for academic affairs, describe his ideas for achieving academic excellence on the Manoa campus.
But the first questions he faced from the audience were personal.
He was asked about published allegations that he had an inappropriate relationship with a female staffer while he was chief executive of Kamehameha Schools, a position from which he resigned in May, and that he sexually harassed a female professor while he was dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology.
"If I was ethically and morally wrong, I wouldn't apply for this position, that I can assure you," McCubbin said in answer to questions posed by political science professor Neal Milner, who pointed out that sexual misconduct cases would be brought to the vice chancellor.
"It is the same set of principles that could lead me to make the choice to leave," he said. "Kamehameha Schools and I have an agreement that I don't talk about what is going on at Kamehameha Schools and they don't talk about my perceptions of Kamehameha Schools. You can draw an inference that Kamehameha Schools and I had a difference of opinion."
He continued after a second questioner followed in the same vein:
"First of all, what you read in the press is false," he said.
The report "leaked from Kamehameha Schools" was that he was investigated after an employee accused him of having an affair with another employee.
He went into some detail about the other report, "leaked" at the same time, about a former assistant professor at University of Wisconsin who claimed five years earlier that he sought an intimate relationship with her.
"What happens in a university setting when a person seeks tenure is they may not get it. People do get angry," he told the university audience. McCubbin, dean for 14 years, said he accepted a university committee recommendation against tenure for the woman.
"I have no reason to hide," McCubbin said.
His wife, two sisters and other family members filled the front row of the Architecture School auditorium. The appearance, which also drew a handful of students, was one of several meetings with regents, faculty and administration officials this week. Three other finalists from the mainland will make the same rounds later this month.
