Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. secretary of defense, may not be on the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, but his novel approach to spotting a problem has found a home at UH.

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know," Rumsfeld said in a 2002 defense briefing.

Regarding UH, the unknowns are: who applied to be president of the university, how many candidates made it to the last round and how the candidates fit the search criteria.

The regents might say their search has been the model of openness (http://goo.gl/nBy6nl), except for one thing: they aren’t telling you anything.

Yes, there were scores of public meetings around the state asking people what kind of new president should succeed M.R.C. Greenwood. As late as February, members of the selection committee were still going to neighborhood board meetings to get the public’s opinion.

Then on March 21, UH announced that the regents’ search committee would "forward to the full board either five or six names of the top candidates it recommends for consideration."

The board would pick the top three and they would be made public "and they will be invited to visit campuses and have conversations with various groups and the general public as extensively as is feasible."

One month later the selection committee announced things were not going so well.

"The committee will send a final report to the board prior to its special meeting April 28. The report contains fewer than five names. Some candidates chose to withdraw from the process because of its public nature," reported the committee.

Now we are getting into the "things we didn’t know we didn’t know territory."

Regents are meeting Monday and, in a closed-to-the-public executive session, the search committee will brief the regents on the remaining candidates.

Sources at the state Capitol and in the UH system say there are just two candidates: David Lassner, the interim president, and Lt. Gen. Francis "Frank" Wiercinski, retired commander of the Army in the Pacific.

Wiercinski is a mostly unknown heavy-hitter who is recommended by J.N. Musto, the faculty union executive director, and Art Ushijima, president and CEO of Queen’s Health Systems.

He had originally been nominated by community members for the position of interim president and was backed by Eric K. Shinseki, who runs the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and is the former chief of staff of the Army.

Lassner took over the job of interim president last August and is drawing a salary of $325,000.

Some legislative leaders have said that if there are only two candidates, the regents should reopen the process, recalling the missteps of 2009 when Greenwood was one of three finalists and became president because the other candidates withdrew.

While the regents noted their process has been "transparent," the unknowns include such basic information as how many candidates did the regents question, who was on the first short list, and who and how many applied.

Without an open process, what happens is UH will have a new president with a nice salary, in a state filled with doubters wondering if we are served by the best available.

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

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After this column was written, the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, without explanation, canceled their scheduled Monday meeting.

The University’s Regents webpage now says a special meeting is  scheduled for May 1 at 9 a.m. at the Manoa campus Information Technology building.

The stated purpose of the new meeting is the same as the old meeting "Receive and review report from the Regents’ Committee on Presidential Selection."