State Sen. Donna Kim withdrew her proposal to cut specified staff positions at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and still uncertainty and tension hangs heavy over our campus (“State Sen. Donna Kim drops plan to cut 121 UH-Manoa faculty positions,” Star-Advertiser, March 22). Kim targeted these people — apparently because they had not taught or done research in the past two years — without even taking time to learn that they were out on sabbatical.

So we wonder, is this the new normal? Are sabbaticals — the protected time educators have to pursue their professional development — now a push out the door? How might future graduate students and professors view UH — an institute of learning and research or one where job security hangs on the whims of a state senator?

I turned down offers from Howard University and Columbia to transfer to UH. I believed UH already hosted faculty that compete with the best thinkers of the world. Now I wonder. Is UH competing on that global stage or is it a pawn for legislators looking for spare change?

Nicholas Price

McCully-Moiliili

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