Faculty censure of Lassner feeble, but still meaningful

Lost somewhere in what Jim Leahey likes to call the "Manoa mists" is the reason for the University of Hawaii-Manoa Faculty Senate’s vote to censure David Lassner, the new UH president.

The reason given in the Faculty Senate resolution that passed last week is that Lassner removed Tom Apple as Manoa chancellor "without sufficient consultation with UH-Manoa faculty, students and other important constituencies."

Bouncing Apple, the faculty said, "threatens the accreditation of the university, its autonomy, fiscal stability, and its ability to recruit highly qualified external administrators in the future."

Was it really that worrisome an act by Lassner?

Did Lassner the manager behave tough or tone-deaf?

It may be that the Faculty Senate was in more of a "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I guess I’m gonna eat some worms" moment, than carving a bold new stand to preserve academic freedom.

First the Faculty Senate backed away from taking a no-confidence vote and instead stayed with the vote of censure, which passed 43-16.

Observers said the no-confidence vote would have sent a stronger message. Faculty members interpreted a no-confidence vote as a call for Lassner to leave.

Of course, if the faculty wanted Lassner to leave, it was also free to pass a resolution saying, "We want President Lassner on the noon bus out of Manoa."

As it turns out, even a no-confidence resolution doesn’t have the stinging power it once did.

Back in 2006, Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard, resigned after its faculty passed a no-confidence vote because of conflict-of-interest concerns and remarks he made about the abilities of women in science and engineering.

Today, no-confidence votes are viewed as something of a "there they go again" reaction and not a real cause for concern.

"No-confidence votes are not all that unusual in higher education," says Sara Hebel, assistant managing editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education in an email.

Hebel pointed to an article published in the Chronicle last year by Seth Zweifler noting that "voting no confidence has become a common strategy for faculty members to express disapproval in their institution’s leadership."

"The broad use of the no-confidence vote, however, may in some cases be diminishing its effect," the article read.

As the impact is lessened, the reaction becomes less certain. In many recent cases, the board running the university just stonewalls the faculty and supports the president, according to the report in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

For his part Lassner, who was traveling, said he was disappointed in the vote, but looked forward to discussing the future of UH with faculty members. And the regents, who hired Lassner, didn’t say they wanted Lassner to leave.

If there are to be some meaningful consequences to the censure vote, Lassner, the regents and the faculty have to find a way to let some real sunshine into the processes of governing the university.

The process of hiring Lassner was handled without the public knowing all the candidates’ names, or even a detailed job description for the new president, and as it turned out, neither of the two finalists fit those sketchy job qualifications.

Still, if Lassner can start holding inclusive, on-campus, open-to-the public meetings with his constituencies and the regents can pry open the door to their repeated executive sessions, some good will come from the feeble censure effort.

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