Greenwood ends 5-year career at UH

Former University of Hawaii President M.R.C. Greenwood will not be returning this fall as a tenured professor with a six-figure salary, and instead says she will retire at the end of the month, marking the end of a five-year career at the university.

Greenwood announced last summer that she was stepping down with two years still left on her contract to spend more time with family and address health issues.

Although she and the university called it a retirement at the time, the regents approved a tenured faculty position for her to return at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, with a $24,470 monthly salary, or nearly $294,000 a year. It would have been effective Sept. 1 following her one-year leave for "personal reasons."

"I deeply appreciated the university and the Board of Regents’ grant of a one-year unpaid leave. However, after a period of rest and reflection, I have decided that I wish to pursue my writing and policy interests and that I prefer to remain on the mainland to do so," Greenwood said in a statement Tuesday.

Regents Chairman John Holzman had said Greenwood — an internationally recognized expert in nutrition, obesity and diabetes — was to focus on establishing a diabetes and obesity center at the medical school.

The regents have been criticized in the past for approving high-paying tenured faculty posts for senior executives to fall back on if things don’t work out. Greenwood’s faculty appointment was especially controversial because it would have made her the highest-paid professor among the medical school’s full-time faculty.

A university spokes­woman did not immediately respond to a request Tuesday to interview Greenwood.

Her previously announced departure came nearly a year after UH became mired in the so-called Wonder Blunder from a botched Stevie Wonder fundraising concert that shook public confidence in the university’s leadership and spurred questions about UH’s operations and accountability. But she stressed that her decision to leave was not related to the fallout surrounding the bungled concert.

Greenwood stepped into her role as the university’s first female president in August 2009 and is credited with boosting graduation rates and completing major construction proj­ects during her four years at the helm of the UH system.

"During President Greenwood’s term we accommodated a 20 percent increase in enrollment under declining state support during the economic recession when the people of Hawaii needed us most," Holzman said in a statement Tuesday. "At the same time, we built the UH Cancer Center and, after 40 years of waiting, UH West Oahu."

Interim UH President David Lassner, who will take the reins as president July 1, praised Greenwood on Tuesday, saying her tenure was productive.

"President Greenwood led us in developing the Hawaii Graduation Initiative to meet the needs of Hawaii for an educated citizenry and workforce, and the Hawaii Innovation Initiative to build a new economic sector for the state, both of which remain on the regents’ agenda for the next president," Lassner said in a statement.

Greenwood, who was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs for the University of Cali­for­nia system before joining UH, said in a statement that her years at UH "were full of rewarding proj­ects and accomplishments. … I will always remember my fine colleagues and hold Hawaii in my heart. I wish only the best for the university."

Her departure last year set off a search for a successor that dragged on for a year and was heavily scrutinized.

The regents last summer tapped Lassner, the university’s longtime information technology executive, to serve as interim president before launching a national search.

A search committee said it would produce a short list of at least five candidates, but following a yearlong search, just two finalists were announced: Lassner and retired Army Lt. Gen. Frank Wier­cin­ski, who had no experience in higher education.

Amid calls from students, faculty and lawmakers to reopen the search, the board last week hired Lassner.

His appointment will be "continuous," meaning he’ll essentially be an at-will employee without the benefit of a multiyear contract that past UH presidents have enjoyed. He has said he will not be asking for a tenured faculty position to fall back on and has no plans to move into the university’s College Hill residence in Manoa or seek a housing allowance — benefits past presidents were given.