Upper campus gives a lesson on transparency

When this week started it was doubtful many following the University of Hawaii knew whether Carlo Montemagno was a walk-on candidate for punter on the football team or a finalist for the Manoa Chancellor’s job.

But by 1 p.m. today interested faculty, staff, students and community members will know better, having had an opportunity to hear Montemagno’s vision for the school and pose some questions at a Kuykendall Hall Auditorium public meeting.

Montemagno, Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at Cincinnati, is the first of four finalists for the chancellor’s job, all of whom are scheduled to spend two days on campus and make hour-long public presentations. In addition, UH is inviting online feedback (uhsearch@hawaii.edu).

It is the kind of refreshing, in-the-open format you wish they would employ in filling key coaching and athletic administration positions on the lower campus.

Contrast the public meet-and-greet of the current and past chancellor searches with the furtive processes used to hire the last couple of athletic directors, a football coach, basketball coaches….well, you name it.

There have been times when the school refused to acknowledge how many people had even applied for some athletic posts, much less trot out the front-runners for public inspection and examination.

I mean, is it any wonder that the public’s first assumption with any behind-closed-doors hire at UH is that a stacked deck is being employed and agendas as well as identities are being cloaked?

When athletic director Jim Donovan was hired in 2008, legend has it that candidates were given an hour’s notice and an address in Waikiki to report to for interviews. The sessions were taped but, according to officials, quickly “discarded” afterward.

When Herman Frazier was hired as Donovan’s predecessor in 2002, UH officials refused to acknowledge what city the interviews were held in (Dallas) or how many were interviewed, much less the identities of the finalists.

The interview process for the head football coaching job that eventually went to Norm Chow, who slipped into town on a weekend morning for an interview at a downtown bank, was only slightly less clandestine. The feeling is that UH got the right man for the job. But as history reminds us, that hasn’t always been the case.

And that is too bad because, with more openness and additional public scrutiny, some of the cronyism might have been avoided. Yes, you might have lost a candidate or two, but some of the major mistakes of the past might not have been committed.

Once upon a more enlightened time, UH deigned to announce finalists for athletic director or men’s basketball coach who were coming in for interviews. It would introduce them around to staff, students, boosters and media. The selection of Stan Sheriff as athletic director being one of them.

That scenario isn’t foolproof, of course. But at least you have an idea of what you are getting and, along the way, gain some insight and confidence in the process.

Things sometimes in short supply in Manoa.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.