Bad judgment reigns at UH

If this is what it takes to run a "world-class" university, perhaps Hawaii, sadly, is doomed to mediocrity.

The $200,000 that the University of Hawaii lost on a bogus Stevie Wonder fundraiser concert is being followed now by continued lucrative employment for ousted UH Athletic Director Jim Donovan, who had been on paid leave while his and others’ roles in the apparent scam were investigated. The attempt by Tom Apple, UH-Manoa’s new chancellor, to justify the action is absurd.

Donovan and Rich Sheriff, the manager of the Stan Sheriff Arena and son of its namesake, were put on paid leave after the scam broke on July 10.

On Monday, Apple lavished Donovan with praise for "a fantastic job" as UH athletic director but then shifted him out.

Donovan will be offered a three-year contract in a newly created job paying more than $200,000 a year — his pay as athletic director was $240,000. Sheriff, meanwhile, has been returned to his position at the arena.

Donovan’s new job will involve "significant responsibilities in designing, creating, articulating, marketing and communicating to the community, including assisting with the evolving land grant mission of the University."

Donovan said he is "pleased that I have been cleared of any wrongdoing."

Soon after the concert debacle became known, UH President M.R.C. Greenwood said, "We don’t know if this is bad judgment and poor policy or whether we have something more serious on our hands."

Greenwood has not commented recently.

The supposed clearance of wrongdoing at this stage is puzzling, since what has been billed as a thorough investigation assigned by UH to the Cades Schutte law firm of Honolulu "is not complete; it has not been turned in, submitted and accepted," according to university spokeswoman Lynn Waters.

If Donovan was both innocent and splendid, why wasn’t he returned to his job as athletic director?

His contract in that job began in 2008 and was to expire March 23, so UH was under no obligation to keep him on the employment rolls beyond then.

The decision to slightly reduce Donovan’s salary and create a new lucrative position for him to fill is being described as a "compromise."

How this arrangement serves the interests outside of this tight circle, though, is dubious. Donovan is said to have wanted his job back and UH was not willing to give it. In dollars, Donovan clearly won.

Speculation is that Rockne Freitas, UH vice president for student affairs and university community relations, is eying the job of athletic director, for which he applied twice before. A former all-pro football player, Freitas has served in that role since Donovan’s paid leave began and the job is believed to be his if he wants it, according to the Star-Advertiser’s Ferd Lewis.

Indeed, it looks more and more like a job switch between Donovan and Freitas. Still, Apple says the university "probably" will hire a search firm to solicit applicants for athletic director. If the lines are drawn as they seem, that would be yet another waste of money.

Undoubtedly, there is worthwhile work being done at various levels of the University of Hawaii deserving of funds and support. But the alarming regularity in which upper-level administrators bungle their jobs then get rewarded for going away or enriched for hanging on — remember Evan Dobelle and Greg McMackin? — is revealing an institution that seems to care more about its cronies than its students.

All slick marketing aside, if UH’s reputation devolves in this way, these university administrators and their oblivious overseers will bear the blame.