The Star-Advertiser’s top story on Friday reported on UH athletic director Ben Jay announcement of a broad fundraising plan designed to “address the urgency of a program in decline.”
I didn’t see anyone follow up on this implicit assessment that UH athletics is “a program in decline.”
There was a lot of talk about fundraising goals, little on just what is being proposed to get there.
The highlights:
• Increase the annual athletic budget from $32 million to $40 million within five years, a 25 percent increase (if we’re lucky, that would keep the budget just ahead of inflation).
• A $60 million fundraising campaign.
• According to the Star-Advertiser: “Raise $700,000 in new revenues from donations and entrepreneurial activities.”
So many questions.
There are questions about the fundraising plan itself.
Was it reviewed by the Board of Regents before being publicly announced in an athletic department news conference? If not, why not?
What is its impact on overall fundraising for the university? Other program budgets have been squeezed to make up for past athletic deficits. To what extent does this plan set up a new competition for fundraising from external sources? Does it pit teaching and research against athletics? Is it meant to pressure legislators to shift additional money from academics to athletics?
Over what time period does Jay propose raising that $60 million? And what’s included in that total? Does the $60 million refer to “new money” or does it include the average of $6.2 million already raised annually by the department?
It appears that just under $1 of every $10 raised in donations by the UH Foundation already goes to athletics (Athletics reported average annual donations of $6.2 million, while the foundation recently reported raising $66.3 million in its most recent fiscal year. If Jay’s plan moves forward, is that percentage supposed to increase? By how much?
Another aspect here is governance. One of the lessons of the Steve Wonder fiasco was that the UH Manoa campus is supposed to be fully in charge of and responsible for athletics, and problems arose in part because athletics ran outside of normal channels. What are the “normal channels” for Ben Jay’s “audacious” and “aggressive” fundraising plan? Was the fundraising plan reviewed by the Athletics Advisory Board, or the Manoa Faculty Senate’s Committee on Athletics? If so, what were their comments?
It’s hard to tell at this point whether this is mostly smoke and mirrors, bluff and bluster, or whether there’s real substance and a realistic chance of success.
I guess we wait and watch.
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My mother graduated from the UH and during her lifetime gave significant contributions to the UH Foundation. It was her understanding and intention that the money would be used for educational purposes, student scholarships, research grants and the like. However, recent events have made it apparent that much of the money is used to support athletics and as a slush fund for UH administrators to hire lawyers and PR persons. My mother would have been very unhappy about that and I can state with 100% certainty that the UH will never get another dime of my family’s money.
I agreee. My wife and I are both UH graduates, but neither one of us will give any money to the UH Foundation. The UH athletic program has metastasized and the academic excellence of the institution has suffered accordingly. Indeed, the decaying physical institution itself looks like the dumping ground it has become for failed mainland administrators and local political hacks. Nothing in Hawaii justifies our local inferiority of spirit more than the UH.
I can’t find anything in the Board of Regents agenda on this fundraising initiative, but it might pass as an internal matter for just the Manoa campus. In any event the questions you raise merit greater openness and accountability for possible consequences.
Remember Chancellor Apple said he was going to write off $12 million (or more) from upper campus fund to pay for the Athletics deficit. I didn’t see anything about paying that back. That $12 million must have blown a hole in somebody’s budget. Also while on the subject of openness, the Chancellor apparently plans or has implemented major cuts across campus, apparently a response to the $7 million hole left/created when the Leg decided not to reimburse Manoa for faculty payback/raises.
So it appears UH BOR and administration have not learned any lessons about accountability or openness. As usual the students, faculty and staff will take the hit.
Bluff and bluster? That’s being kind. There isn’t any “there there.” If we had a real media in this state they would have laughed him off the stage. “We’re not just going to try hard, we’re going to try really hard..” To do what? Be better?
“Think lovely thoughts and up you’ll go…. Look- I’m flying.”
Has anyone considered a Stevie Wonder concert promotion……..wow we pay this guy to think big!
Will just get nets and catch it as it falls.
I get a sense of stagnation from UH athletics, not decline. Maybe that’s because the football team, men and women’s basketball team and the baseball program have been mediocre the past three or four years.
It’s a time of tremendous change in college sports, driven mainly by college football teams searching for the most lucrative TV deals. UH is at best a mid-major football program and has to be aggressive to keep up. Sometimes it seems UH sports best hope is to land a whale of a donor, similar to Jay Shidler giving $25 mil to the business school back in the mid-2000s. Of course, that’s like banking on the lottery for your retirement.
I’m a UH grad and have been somewhat interested in UH sports over the years. Like many others I have hoped for improving the university’s academics. I have contributed financially towards that end.
When I visit the Manoa camus these days, I am disappointed by the lack of maintenance and poor condition of the campus. I have visited mainland campuses. I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that we need to lower our participation in major college sports. I realize that UH sports is about the only game in town for many here. But we have to get back to the mission of our state university, which is to educate our youth.
My personal experience with government officials Mercado-Kim, Takai, Ben Jay et al… they don’t have the courtesy to reply to your concern, complaint. Which speaks volumes to me. Perhaps they are bombarded with calls, emails etc. But as a government official they should extend common sense. Otherwise don’t ask for a donation, contribution. Oh, they can plan big and ask for the moon but my answer will always be “No.” Sign me ,a former donor to the UH foundation.
Your questions on governance and “normal channels” are key now and for the future. The UH does not appear to have a management structure that can put it on a path to improving governance. Worse, there’s probably nothing in place that would prevent the floundering (and expense) that resulted after the Stevie Wonder initial error and compounded the expense.