Chancellor of UH-Hilo stepping down in 2010

Regents vote to give Rose Tseng a raise and a year's leave

Longtime University of Hawaii-Hilo Chancellor Rose Tseng is retiring as the leader of the 3,500-student campus in January 2010.

UH Regents install new group of leaders The University of Hawaii Board of Regents approved two new chancellors and an interim chancellor at three community colleges at its meeting yesterday. Manuel Cabral, the interim Leeward Community College chancellor, will make $155,016 in the first year of a three-year contract as Leeward chancellor starting Sunday. Cabral has been interim chancellor since March 2007. He has worked at Leeward since 1980. Cabral replaced Peter Quigley, who is now an assistant vice chancellor at UH-Manoa. Helen Cox, associate vice president of instruction at Salt Lake Community College in Utah, will become the new chancellor at Kauai Community College starting Aug. 12. Her three-year contract starts at $150,000 annually. She replaces Peggy Cha, who is retiring after more than 30 years in the UH system, including 10 years at Kauai Community College. Michael Rota, the UH system vice president for community colleges, will become interim Honolulu Community College chancellor starting July 1. He will make $168,216. Rota will fill in for Ramsey Pedersen, who is retiring June 30 after 35 years at the college, three as chancellor.

Tseng, who became chancellor in 1998, said she has accomplished many of her goals and wanted to give notice to give the regents enough time to find her successor and allow for an orderly transition.

"I feel like the big things are done," Tseng said yesterday, citing the growth in campus enrollment every year for the last 10 years; the new School of Pharmacy; the 'Imiloa Astronomy Center; the new U.S. China Center, which will include new student housing; and an increased emphasis on science and native Hawaiian language and culture as among her major accomplishments.

The UH Board of Regents approved Tseng's retirement as chancellor, a retroactive pay raise and a one-year paid leave of absence yesterday.

But the board required Tseng to return to the university after her leave, although what she would do is still to be negotiated.

"She laid the foundation for a successful campus expansion and service to the community for years to come," said UH President David McClain.

Tseng said she will likely stay in Hilo, although she still has a home and relatives in California and a daughter and grandchildren in Boston.

"I love Hilo," Tseng said, adding that she has not decided what she wants to do after January 2010. Tseng did say she will not take another job as a university leader.

The board also granted Tseng a pay raise to $287,760, retroactive to July 1, 2007. McClain said the amount is slightly below the average pay of a chancellor at similar-size universities. Tseng had been making $266,448.

During the public comment period of yesterday's board meeting, University of Hawaii Professional Assembly Executive Director J.N. Musto criticized the board for not listing Tseng's proposed salary increase on the agenda and also noted that most professional leaves require faculty members to return to the university to share something of what they have learned.

The original agenda proposal would have allowed Tseng to leave the university after her one-year paid leave.

Board Chairman Alan Landon said the board followed legal advice from university attorneys in making up the agenda.

Landon defended Tseng's salary increase, noting that UH-Hilo's growth put Tseng into a higher pay category when compared with similar institutions. Landon said the board had started looking at raising Tseng's salary last year, which is why the raise was retroactive.

According to Tseng's biography, she is the only Asian-American woman to lead a university.