UH regents to discuss bids from search firms

The search for the next University of Hawaii president should get a boost this week with the expected hiring of an executive search firm.

The Board of Regents’ presidential selection committee — which first began meeting last June — will discuss search firm bids Wednesday afternoon at the UH-Manoa campus, according to the committee’s meeting agenda.

While the bid discussions will take place behind closed doors in executive session, the selection and approval of contract terms are scheduled for the public portion of the meeting.

The selection committee sent bid invitations to about 40 search firms in October and said that month that it would be asking three finalist firms to make in-person presentations.

UH has said it expects to spend an estimated $75,000 to $125,000 on a search firm, according to procurement documents. The university said the outside help will assist with coordinating the search process, updating a job description, drafting job expectations, developing a search calendar and budget, and managing the identification, recruitment and vetting of qualified candidates, among other duties.

The university wants to make a job offer by the spring or summer.

The regents in July named UH’s chief information officer, David Lassner, interim president of the 10-campus system. He took over from M.R.C. Greenwood, who stepped down last summer to spend more time with family and deal with health problems. Greenwood had close to two years remaining on her contract.

Several other regents committees also are meeting this week ahead of the full board’s first meeting of the year on Jan. 23 at Kauai Community College.

The board’s Committee on Academic Affairs is scheduled to discuss the controversy surrounding leadership of the UH Cancer Center at its Thursday meeting.

It’s unclear what will be discussed, but an agenda item lists "UH Cancer Center leadership" under personnel matters to be reviewed in executive session.

The university has said it plans to retain Michele Carbone as head of its Cancer Center, despite calls for a leadership change by some faculty who say the director’s poor management has tarnished the center’s reputation and jeopardized its funding.

A university spokes­woman said UH is working on a solution that would involve the embattled director keeping his job while providing him support to help stabilize the center.

Carbone was first named interim director in November 2008 before being appointed to the post a year later by former UH-Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hin­shaw. He has been working without a formal employment contract, according to UH.

Some faculty have said privately that they’ve been told of a proposed plan to bring in Hin­shaw — now a professor at the medical school — to advise Carbone at the center.

Carbone has had more than 20 complaints and grievances filed against him through the faculty union during his tenure, which the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly says is the highest number of reported violations it has handled for any university unit.

The regents’ Planning and Facilities Committee will get an update at its Wednesday meeting on UH’s plan to address its growing backlog of deferred maintenance projects.

At a legislative briefing last month, the chairmen of the state House and Senate committees on higher education said they will not support UH’s plan to use tuition-backed revenue bonds to fast-track elimination of its repair and maintenance backlog, nearing a half-billion dollars.

To view meeting agendas online, go to hawaii.edu/offices/bor.