University of Hawaii regents are expected to approve the next chancellor for UH’s flagship Manoa campus today, with a proposed salary of $100,000 more a year than his predecessor.

Tom Apple, provost at the University of Delaware, is nominated to succeed Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw and would receive a five-year contract at $439,008 per year.

"It’s not fair to blame Tom Apple for that (size of his compensation)," said Bob Cooney, chairman of the UH-Manoa faculty senate who served on the search committee for the next chancellor.

"But he will be under pressure," Cooney said. "I’m not sure anyone’s worth $439,000 for that job. It is out of control."

When he visited the Manoa campus last month, Apple won over many Manoa faculty members with an air of honesty and humility, Cooney said.

Unlike the other three candidates, Apple and his wife, Anne, have made repeated trips to the islands after he first visited 22 years ago, Cooney said.

"He seems like a very sincere, honest person, very thoughtful," Cooney said. "He seems to listen to what people have to say. … We talked with him more about Delaware, which sounded very similar to Hawaii. Everybody knows somebody in the (Delaware) legislature and he was very used to that close interaction with legislators and didn’t feel it would be that much different than what he had been exposed to there."

The agenda for today’s regents meeting includes an executive session, closed to the public, that will discuss personnel matters including "Appointment of Thomas M. Apple as Chancellor, UH Manoa."

UH spokeswoman Lynne Waters, asked why Apple’s appointment was to be discussed in private, responded in an email to the Star-Advertiser, "The Board takes any and all public testimony at the beginning of the meeting. It goes into Executive Session to discuss confidential personnel matters as provided by in the Sunshine Law.

"The Board will have discussion and vote in public on action items before it."

In response to an emailed question, she wrote, "It is not correct to give the impression that regents will be ‘discussing Tom Apple’s appointment in executive session (with the decision announced in public).’"

Some faculty, students and parents said Wednesday they are bothered that Apple’s $439,008 salary would be $102,000 more than Hinshaw’s salary of $337,672.

After her contract ends June 30, Hinshaw will be paid nearly $300,000 for a 10-month sabbatical. At commencement ceremonies on Saturday, Hinshaw told students and families that she may assume a tenured faculty position in the College of Natural Sciences and the John A. Burns School of Medicine.

Ashley Castro of Ewa Beach said she will continue studying apparel product design and merchandising as a junior next semester but is cramming as many classes in as she can to graduate one semester early because of the cost of her UH education.

"I’m already working extra hard because the tuition’s so high," Castro said.

Apple’s proposed salary seemed high to parent Robin Bayus at a time when UH students face rising tuition and rising student debt — and parents such as Bayus have to pick up much of the costs of sending their children to UH.

"Tuition’s gone up and $100,000 (more than Hinshaw) is a lot of money," Bayus said Wednesday. Her son A.J. Bayus played on the UH baseball team and just graduated as an American studies major. "It does not seem right."

Robin Bayus was especially concerned that regents plan to discuss Apple’s salary and appointment today at UH’s John A. Burns School of Medicine in "executive session" closed to the public.

"It should be open for public comment and debate," Bayus said. "Something seems wrong that it’s being done in secret."

Regents also plan to go into executive session today to discuss the appointment of Erika Lacro as chancellor of Honolulu Community College. If appointed, Lacro would earn a three-year contract with a salary of $146,328 per year.

Apple was one of four mainland educators who were invited to tour the Manoa campus last month as part of the search for its next chancellor and won the recommendation of his potential new boss, UH President M.R.C. Greenwood.

But chancellor candidate Kim A. Wilcox, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Michigan State University, might have been even more impressive, Cooney said.

"In some ways, I liked Kim Wilcox better than Apple," Cooney said. "He just seemed to be a little more aggressive, but still good-natured, and also seemed to be very open and honest."

UH-Manoa journalism Professor Emerita Bev Keever, while eating lunch at UH’s Campus Center cafeteria Wednesday, said she was bothered by Apple’s proposed UH salary — and especially concerned about the regents’ decision to discuss Apple’s appointment in executive session.

In 2001, Keever was part of a group of UH faculty, students, Common Cause Hawaii and members of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Hawaii chapter who sued UH after regents decided in executive session to pay then-new UH President Evan Dobelle a salary of $442,000.

Keever and the other plaintiffs lost in Circuit Court and chose not to appeal, she said.

"We sued as a form of protest and after a while the issue became moot," Keever said.

At the time, Dobelle’s salary dwarfed that of his predecessor, Kenneth Mortimer, who earned $168,000 per year. Dobelle’s pay also was more than three times Hawaii’s governor’s salary at the time.

Hawaii’s Sunshine Law allows meetings held in executive session to be opened to the public if the person being discussed wants it that way, Keever said.

"If Apple were smart, he would say, ‘I don’t want a closed-door meeting to discuss anything about me,’" Keever said. "It’s unnecessary and raises suspicion at a time when the economic climate is still so bad. I don’t see them (regents) doing themselves any favor by holding a closed-door meeting."