I must be crazy. I just sent the following email to the entire UHM faculty congress -- some 1600 faculty? ----- Aloha colleagues, Thanks to everyone who came out for the rally today. We had a good turnout for such a last-minute event, planned less than 24 hours in advance. Some 30 faculty, students, and community members gathered and conveyed heart-felt expressions: some felt that the way the firing was handled was unjust and disturbing, some really appreciated Chancellor Apples work, while others were just really confused about what is going on (here especially the students as they do not have a listserv to study for strands of information). As for me, I feel really sad. As I see it, Chancellor Apple was really just trying to do some good things for our great UHM: fix the budget, improve student advising, improve graduate student salaries, and for his efforts he got fired. And in a very disrespectful way. I am left with these questions: 1) If it can happen to a Chancellor who was well-liked by so many students, staff, and faculty, what hope do we have for the future? How can anyone do the tough work? 2) Given recent events, who in their right mind would ever apply to be Chancellor of UHM? No disrespect to Dr. Bley-Vroman, who I hear is an excellent fellow, but he’s local talent on an interim basis. How will we ever get someone good on an external search. I was so hopeful while Chancellor Apple was doing his work, I could really see improvements for my students. And now I feel ashamed. More ashamed than I have ever felt about our great university. However, it is now clear to me that if we are ever to bring our university to the standing that the people of Hawai’i deserve, we need to move these conversations off of our listservs and into the public. Anyway, thanks to everyone of participating in this important and great conversation. Marguerite
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 08:30:24 +0000
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