Regents to discuss ability
to criticize UH president
The chairwoman of the University of Hawaii Board of Regents said changing a policy that prohibits regents from publicly criticizing the university's president will be discussed at the board's next meeting Thursday and Friday in Hilo.
CORRECTION
Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2003>> Patricia Lee has been chairwoman of the University of Hawaii Board of Regents since July; she was appointed by former Gov. Ben Cayetano as a regent in June 2001. A Sunday article on Page A13 incorrectly reported that she has been chairwoman since January and that she was appointed three years ago.
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In a wide-ranging talk before the American Association of University Women yesterday, Patricia Lee also said the regents are "looking hard" at a hiring and salary freeze on administrative personnel until faculty get a pay raise. However, the subject is not on the agenda for the Hilo meeting.
This month the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly and several faculty senates from UH's 10 campuses asked the regents not to hire more administrative personnel and not to increase administration pay until the faculty receives a general salary increase, Lee said.
"We need to compensate our faculty to bring it in line with their peers," Lee said, noting that anticipated raises from the governor's office over the next two years are "zero and zero."
Lee said until the board takes up the matter, she won't comment on the rule that prohibits regents from criticizing the university president in public.
In a memo, regent Ted Hong said he believes the rule that says: "No member of the board shall publicly challenge any act of the president as being contrary to established policy except in a meeting of the board," is unconstitutional and should be revoked.
On UH football coach June Jones' salary, Lee said she is concerned about the university's liability for Jones' entire $808,000 salary, even though $400,000 is coming from private donations funneled through the University of Hawaii Foundation.
Lee said she wants UH Athletic Director Herman Frazier to assure the regents that he has signed contracts for $200,000 in anonymous contributions.
Lee also said the high salaries of top administrators hired in June at what some say are excessive salaries were debated by the regents.
"The salaries that you see are what we were able to bring them down to -- not what was proposed," Lee said.
Lee wouldn't say which UH administrators appointed in June had originally been proposed for higher salaries, saying it's a confidential personnel issue.
Lee, an estate and trust attorney and Hawaii's honorary French consul, was appointed as a regent three years ago by Gov. Ben Cayetano and became chairwoman in January.
Of the eight new regents members appointed by Gov. Linda Lingle, "at first I thought that many seemed to be political," Lee said. But she's since decided that the new board members are "very intelligent and do their homework"
The variety of board member backgrounds allows them to bring different perspectives to the job, she said.
"I think the role of a board varies greatly depending on whether the institution is public or private," Lee said, and as a public board, "we are accountable to the citizens of Hawaii."
Whether its the $7.5 million expansion of the Institute for Astronomy's Maui office or $150 million for the new medical school campus in Kakaako, "we need to watch every penny. It's our dollars. It's the taxpayer's dollars," Lee said.
"I am very heartened by the fact that we are a unified board, working for the same goal: the betterment of the university," Lee said.
