Picking new UH president is off to a dispiriting start

As the 15 regents for the University of Hawaii go out in search for a new president, they would benefit from mulling over the thinking of the late Bart Giamatti, who at 39 was the youngest person named president of Yale University.

In one of the great change-ups of American academic history, Giamatti left Yale to eventually become the major league commissioner of baseball. One of his biggest decisions was the banishment of Pete Rose from baseball.

During that time, Giamatti said: "No one man is superior to the game."

It would be a good thought to consider as the regents launch their search.

The UH panel is already headed to its own political decisions before it even gets in position to select a new university leader.

To handle the selection of a president, a selection committee has to be formed. Makeup of the committee will fall to the majority of committee. University and legislative observers are saying that not all regents are on the same page as that of Eric Martinson, the board of regents’ chairman.

"Before developing the search process, we need to define where we are and where we want to go," said Martinson earlier this month.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie has already had at least one private meeting with the regents to discuss the process.

Although Abercrombie has appointed a majority of the board, he has remained concerned that the state law regulating how regents are selected has limited his choices. The result is a board that may have been named by Abercrombie, but not guaranteed to do his bidding.

Already there are pressures to overhaul the entire UH system as a preface to picking a new president.

J.N. Musto, the long-serving executive director of the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, is recommending that the job be changed so that the UH president becomes chancellor of the entire UH system and be designated chief executive officer of the board. The separate college campuses now run by a chancellor would have that title elevated to president. The UH CEO-chancellor along with the regents would evaluate and pick the campus presidents, but decision-making then would be made by the campus presidents.

Also up for consideration is a plan to scrap the Manoa campus chancellor and give the UH president direct authority over Manoa.

Finally, Musto is also urging that the UH get over the current idea that in order to woo a president, the university must also give new presidents tenure. Hawaii certainly has not had an enviable track record of granting tenure to people it didn’t really want around campus, once they left Bachman Hall.

So after the regents get a committee running, they must also decide on an interim president.

Some are lobbying for that selection to be the real hatchet-wielder in a UH reform effort. The interim president, the argument goes, could be the one to prune a lot of dead wood and open up some of the barricades to reform created by various deans.

To put the UH back on track of fulfilling its academic and community potential, the regents, who have seen their own leadership questioned, will have to show that they know what they want and how to deliver.

Giamatti, in his inaugural speech at Yale, hit perfectly at what was needed.

"In order to repair what Milton called the ruin of our first parents, I wish to announce that henceforth, as a matter of university policy, evil is abolished and paradise is restored," he said.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.