The History And Challenge Of Searching For A UH President

Eleven University of Hawaii regents — including a banker, a former governor and Gen Z student — shall select the next UH president before current President David Lassner retires at end of 2024.

Their mission comes amid searches for new presidents of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale, universities that rank in the Top 10 global research institutions. University presidents are beset by congressional inquiries, no-confidence votes and campus riots.

Also, this year more Americans surveyed expressed doubts regarding a university degree’s value. The Economist published “Is Running a Top University America’s Hardest Job?” The Wall Street Journal called any university president search “Mission Impossible.”

Whom did past UH regents choose as president? Simply, what were the regents’ reasons behind their 15 past choices? Delving into the presidents’ profiles, we can infer regents’ high-level thinking, but not many details, many of which are lost to history.

With a track record operating agricultural schools in Asia, Cornell-trained No. 1 John Gilmore was the regents’ choice in 1914 (the year World War I began) to lead “Ag”-focused UH, emphasizing “King” sugar driving Hawaii’s economy.

No. 2 was a Yale Ph.D. in chemistry (Arthur Dean) who served for 13 years. Dean, who was in his 40s, brought the latest scientific innovations to the Territory of Hawaii. Today, that would be like UH regents selecting an AI expert as president.

The regents envisioned a small scientific institute (think a mid-Pacific Caltech). Even today UH engineering faculty grumble about the school’s bias toward science.

After World War II No. 4 Gregg Sinclair, who taught in Japan and had a Columbia M.A. in English literature, launched the Oriental Institute for Asia-Pacific research and teaching. It was aligned with the UH regents’ positioning of Hawaii as the Asia-Pacific “bridge.” The U.S. government validated the regents’ prescience by funding the East-West Center adjacent to UH.

No. 5 was Paul Bachman, whose name graces the president’s office building. With a University of Washington Ph.D. in political science, he was appointed president in 1955, and sadly passed away two years later after a 30-year career at UH.

In 1958 — the year before statehood — UH regents returned to science: No. 6 Lawrence Snyder, a Harvard-trained geneticist. During his term the new state Legislature increased taxes to pay for 37 new buildings at the Manoa campus.

Unfortunately, Snyder incurred the regents’ and community’s displeasure when he terminated the UH football program (no scientist would be selected again until No. 14 in 2009).

Statehood leaders, especially Gov. John Burns, believed a first-class state must have a first-class university. Burns said, “In every phase of the full development of our school system and our university, we shall decline to settle for the ordinary.”

In 1963 the regents appointed No. 7 Thomas Hamilton (University of Chicago Ph.D.), who led the State University of New York system. Hamilton’s vision was that UH should be the same quality or ranking of a top mainland state university with emphasis on the “core curriculum” — English, math, social sciences, engineering et al.

Under Hamilton, Hawaii Department of Education vocational schools become UH “system” community colleges, and the UH law and medical schools began their trajectories during his brief five years. Vietnam War protests and a faculty tenure case forced his resignation.

Hamilton’s leadership stopped abruptly, so there exists a lingering “What if?” over Hamilton had he led the university for a longer term.

Returning to global engagement as the Vietnam War raged, UH regents selected No. 8, a diplomat and journalist who worked in Europe: Harlan Cleveland. Like Gilmore, Sinclair and No. 3 entomologist David Crawford, Cleveland did not have a Ph.D. His books on leadership influenced Fortune 250 CEOs.

Then the regents swung from “internationalist” to consummate insider. Born and raised in Hawaii, No. 9 Fujio “Fudge” Matsuda was celebrated in 1974 as the first “local” UH president. A McKinley High School “Tiger” with an MIT engineering doctorate, Matsuda’s career was almost entirely with the state government. Like Cleveland and several others, he was never a tenured faculty professor.

Matsuda was surrounded by World War II’s “Greatest Generation” leadership at their peak: 442nd veteran and U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye turned 50 at that time, and the first Nisei governor, George Ariyoshi, was a youthful 48.

The No. 10 UH president search is described in UH physics professor David Yount’s “Who Runs the University? The Politics of Higher Education In Hawaii, 1985-1992.” He depicted UH as a sprawling Carnegie Classification Research 1 center with “internal” and “external” influencers, including the Legislature, unions and regents, navigated by Albert Simone, who held an MIT Ph.D. in decision sciences (and to Yount was never a “decider”).

The regents then prioritized “how to run a university” background (higher education administration doctorate), and chose No. 11 Kenneth Mortimer. His tenure had a recession and 13-day UH faculty strike.

No. 12 Evan Dobelle proposed 8,000 dormitory rooms in Moiliili (“College Town”) and was recognized for his Native Hawaiian outreach. From 2001 to 2014 — equal to pre-World War II Crawford’s tenure — the regents chose four UH presidents.

Dobelle and No. 14 M.R.C. Greenwood, the first female president and award-winning scientist (Rockefeller University Ph.D.), encountered controversies that cut short their terms and embroiled the UH regents.

No. 13 and current No. 15 had UH roots to ensure stability: Shidler College of Business professor David McClain, an economist with Japan experience like Sinclair, and David Lassner, a UH chief information officer, who spent four decades at UH (his UH Ph.D. was on Asia-Pacific telecoms).

Twice in 14 years UH regents responded to “instability” with “stability.” After No. 15’s 10-year tenure, the regents must now choose No. 16.

Looking back, UH regents’ plans for a science institute was overwhelmed by Asian immigrants’ children who enrolled at UH — the ticket out of the plantation. Statehood leader Patsy Takemoto Mink’s father graduated from UH in 1922, so he was born in Honolulu around 1900 (the Chinatown Fire).

Masayuki Tokioka, the founder of Island Insurance, went from immigrant to UH to Harvard MBA in 1925. An aunt sailed from Maui to a Manoa dormitory to study elementary school teaching in 1940, a liberating journey for a Kahului girl whose parents barely spoke English.

Statehood leaders overwhelmingly had UH degrees, which gave them “disruptive” skill-sets and rigorous preparation for top graduate schools.

They included Mink (Maui High School, the University of Hawaii, University of Chicago), Spark Matsunaga (Kauai High School, UH, Harvard), Daniel Inouye (McKinley High School, UH, George Washington University), George Ariyoshi (McKinley High School, UH, the University of Michigan) and Thomas Gill (Roosevelt High School, UH, the University of California Berkeley).

(Having dropped out of UH, Burns always regretted not having a college degree.)

These leaders led purpose-driven lives: to end the Big Five-controlled territory, and to create an equitable society with new opportunities for all. If UH did not exist, the state of Hawaii may still be in the future.

That post-statehood society be without an impactful UH leader would be anathema to Burns and statehood leaders.

A recent essay, “Answering the Call,” on the university president role (a job unlike any other; a “calling”) stressed that “higher education is fundamentally our society’s future.”

Today, with Hawaii’s society struggling with the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) cost-of-living crisis, housing woes and outmigration, whom will the 11 regents select as No. 16?

Will the next UH president lead UH to become the “engine of economic growth” or in Harlan Cleveland’s words always be “five years to greatness”?

And again: “Why”?