The East-West Center needs to raise its public profile. That happened recently, but not in the way anyone would have hoped.

A week ago a noted energy expert, Fereidun Fesharaki, resigned from the center along with three of his colleagues. The complaints they raised centered on the Manoa institution’s leadership, primarily its president since 1998, Charles Morrison.

The center has not adapted well to budget cuts it already has endured, Fesharaki charged, and he said it’s unlikely to survive those to come, now more than a year following the death of U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, its champion on Capitol Hill.

Such rifts can be read in various ways, depending on one’s point of view about the center that first opened adjacent to the University of Hawaii campus four decades ago. Fesharaki said he wanted to make a statement, and this one provides grist for a new discussion about the center’s future, especially as the anticipated U.S. "pivot" to Asia plays out.

Morrison, who spoke Thursday with the Star-Advertiser, vehemently defended the center, which he said has been "reinventing itself" ever since its first precipitous budget cuts in 1994. That year the annual budget was cut by 60 percent, from $24 million to $10 million. The research staff also shrank by more than half, and the money for the center’s famous full-ride scholarships for foreign students withered away.

That sea change meant the center shifted to an emphasis on shorter-term projects, such as leadership training programs and exchanges and initiatives centered on promoting regional understanding.

Its current budget includes $15.8 million in appropriated federal funds, as well as $15.2 million in competitive government grants. About $3 million of that comes from private foundations, Morrison said, with about as much from foreign governments or foundations.

Morrison said the new fiscal realities have meant that it now "leverages" its funds by partnering on a range of research activities with other institutions; those who remember the original five institutes, each doing problem-oriented research with its own staff, miss the depth of knowledge available within easy reach.

But the up side, Morrison said, is that topics of more wide-ranging interest are now pursued, allowing the center to move into areas ranging from climate change to educational policy and human rights.

That said, the fact remains that in what President Barack Obama describes as America’s "Pacific Century," any institution known as the East-West Center ought to be more prominent than it now is. Obama has his own personal history with the center, his mother being one of its alumni scholars.

There should be a synergy there, especially with continuing efforts to establish some part of Obama’s post-presidential center in the islands. Morrison said he broached the subject himself, proposing some kind of partnership between the centers a few years ago.

The East-West Center, the Obama center, the proposed Inouye center: All of this suggests a convergence could be in order.

Morrison also said the center’s leadership in the next nine months will be reviewing the institution’s vision and plans. Meeting that timetable should be an imperative.

It would also be good to see more community-based outreach as well. Too many people pass the center en route to another place, unaware of what happens there. Morrison admitted he’s heard such questions himself.

For a center that’s been in place for more than 40 years, that’s a sign it’s not done with reinventing itself.