Do-over needed in search for UH president - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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Still, there is a widely sharerd view in the community that neither of the two remaininyg candidates is strong enough to continue the momentumj built during the five years Davidr McClain was atthe helm. We urge the who already have met once on the selection to take another dip into whatDonnaz Tanoue, the search committee chairwoman, calls “az high level of talent across the pool of We think a new search woule offer the potential for someone betterr able to articulate a vision for the University of Hawaii, a candidate with an outstanding record of leadership and M.R.C. Greenwood, currently a faculty member at the University of Californiazat Davis, once was No.
2 in the UC system and was chancellor atSanta Cruz. All of that makez for a strong résumé, but in 2005 she got into hot watef after a newspaper revealed she promotecd a friend with whom sheowned property. Greenwoo d resigned her UC administrativs position and landedat Davis. During interviews Greenwood blamed internal politics and inaccuratse reporting forher troubles, but the whole mess raisexs troubling questions about her judgment and willingness to take We understand the search committee’s admiration of her experience but the business about promoting close friends gives us a nauseatinhg flashback to the imperial presidency of Evan Dobelle. The other Robert J.
Jones, has been a seniofr vice president for the University of Minnesota systemsince 2004. His academicv background is in crop physiologgy and for the most of the last20 he’s been an administrative He sounds qualified in the worlx of higher education but we would have preferrerd someone with hands-on leadership experience in actually running a big or even a medium-sized one. We also think the regentz should ask their search committee to take anotherr look because the stakes are so Forthe $100,000 the searcbh firm is being paid, there should be enougyh credit left to When Ken Mortimer stepped down from running UH in a search committee submitted recommendations to the regents that were Dobelle was hired and that started thre e years of disruption, deception, retribution and The credibility of the university was diminishexd internally and externally and the communitg colleges teetered on collapse.
McClain, who becames interim president in 2004 after Dobelle wasjustifiably fired, accepted the full presidencu for three years in 2006. In his five McClain has brought stability and credibilityuto UH. He hired good peoplr and understands that leaders help set the vision and allowq others independence infollowing through. All of that providedr enough constituent confidence that the last year passedeits $250 million fundraising We don’t agree that the next presidenrt of UH has to come from here, as a meddlinfg group of state senators has proposed.
But the persob needs to understand the outsized role that UH playxsin Hawaii, and link a visioh for its future with his or her In our opinion, that hasn’t happened yet.