Here’s a bit more detail from Tom Apple’s perspective on the reasons behind his dismissal.
Hawaii News Now provided links to three previously internal documents. They include President Lassner’s letter in which he gives general reasons for his “unsatisfactory” rating of Apple’s performance, which became the basis for the dismissal. In addition, there are two letters from Apple to Lassner, one written before the evaluation was received, and the other written as a rebuttal.
There are several deletions in both of Apple’s letters where names have been deleted, ostensibly for “privacy” reasons.
Key sections of those letters relating to the UH Cancer Center controversy are reprinted below with the deleted names restored.
From Apple’s initial letter, “Re: Confirmation of Notification of Violations of Law and My Contract.”
As you know, my job was made much more challenging last year, when the Legislature unexpectedly cut our funding by $7 million. I then had to identify places where those cuts could be made up. It took a lot of work, but I did so. The “make up” included a modest $1 million reallocation from the JABSOM — which then had a total $10 million surplus which had been increasing, year-to-year in total carry-forward and which has a long history of having been heavily subsidized by tuition funds from other departments at UH-Manoa. Despite the need for this reallocation, and despite there being strong and prudent reasons for it, I have encountered extraordinary resistance in efforts to do this from the dean of JABSOM. You have mentioned relying upon his counsel in your critical comments on my leadership.
I also identified the need to address very serious looming financial shortfalls with the UHCC, which is currently overspending its current income by $10 million per year and which is rapidly eating up its limited reserves of slightly more than $30 million. This pattern threatens its ability to continue, including as a national cancer institute center, a key designation for it. The UHCC’s director is Dr. Michele Carbone. Dr. Carbone has a history of vigorously opposing those who seek to curb his overspending or who otherwise attempt to prudently manage him.
These include Gary Ostrander, Reed Dasenbrock, and Brian Taylor. I also acted to protect faculty that were attacked by Dr. Carbone. These include Larry Kolonel, Loic Le Marchand, Lynne Wilkens, Carl Vogel, Adriane Francke, and Robert Cooney. I thus also attempted to address the lavish overspending by Dr. Carbone, for example the inexplicable attempt to hire an assistant, Shreya Kanodia, for $300,000 per year who had just two years earlier been a post-doc.
I have encountered extraordinary resistance to this from Dr. Carbone, from you and others including the Board Chair. You have mentioned this frequently as a reason for loss of confidence in me from you and the Board. I hasten to add that I admire Dr. Carbone’s vision and he has done some excellent work — however, the financial and personnel issues still must be addressed.
And this from Apple’s rebuttal to the “unsatisfactory” grade given by Lassner:
Your negative comments in my evaluation about interactions with community stakeholders thus do appear to refer to those few powerful people who support the Director of the Cancer Center, whom I tried to remove with your initial consent. Indeed it is that area which caused your criticism of me in the first place.
So, I must very respectfully remind you that I carefully and fully discussed the removal of Dr. Carbone as Director with both you and (then-Board Chair) John Holzman well prior to attempting to do so. I did this in a context where, as you know, Dr. Carbone has driven away two of our top researchers (Goodman and Kolonel), alienated two other top researchers (Le Marchand and Wilkens), and angered, alienated and persecuted several others. In addition to this thoroughly embarrassing and truly awful history, Dr. Carbone now requires one full-time $300,000 ‘assistant’ (Blanchette) and another $300,000 advisor (Hinshaw) to oversee his conduct.
The grievances and prohibited practice claims against Dr. Carbone are so numerous, that it has been suggested that they total more than the combined number of grievances racked up around the entire balance of this University! These grievances require enormous amounts of staff time and resources and precious money to work through. Meanwhile, funding, publications, and our ability to attract and retain quality Principal Investigators (“PIs”) at the Cancer Center continue to decline under Dr. Carbone’s watch, (a trend which predated my arrival). There has been frightful overspending by him with no real oversight. To add insult to injury, a small cadre of community members has since than badgered UH into going even further into reserves to the tune of $15M/yr. with no known source of revenue on the horizon to cover the projected shortfall.
In light of Dr. Carbone’s history, you initially indicated your support for my decision to remove him as Director of the Cancer Center. Then at the meeting with the Consortium Board which followed our discussion, John Holzman watched in silence as Director Carbone’s supporters made repeated personal attacks on me —rather than addressing the serious problems at the Cancer Center. A word from him in support of the actions you and he approved would have diffused the personal nature of that exchange.
Instead, you chose to disregard all of the information which had convinced you that removal of Dr. Carbone was appropriate. You then put in place not one, but two high level, very expensive, overseers to monitor Dr. Carbone. In so doing, you rendered me powerless to continue working effectively with the Cancer Center. Had you not abruptly and unwisely reversed your earlier position on this issue, we would not now still have dysfunctional, erratic, and incredibly expensive leadership at the Cancer Center.
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You nailed it. Lassner’s letter lacks specifics, only vague generalities and jargon. Apple is restrained in each correspondence as he documents his case chapter and verse. How Lassner can take offense that Apple didn’t go more quietly than he did reflects amazing naivety. Now Holzman is gone, leaving Randy Moore, who arrive only last year, to whatever shoe drops next. This is putting “the Wonder blunder” in the shade.
Political infighting is often more vicious in academia than in the legislature or even in OHA. I note that supporters of Apple dislike the way Lassner has dealt with Apple; and they seem to be the same folks who opposed the other candidate for UH President because he was a military general. I wonder whether the general would have made the opposite decision about Apple, because the general could have approached the situation as an outsider with no entrenched relationships with the medical school and the cancer center. I wonder whether those lefties who supported Lassner now regret their support for him.
A couple of readers of this blog have previously commented upon what they felt was the relative importance of medical school research at a university, which they described something along the lines of being monumental and indispensible. Indeed, the research and discoveries that are made important and useful in health care applications locally and beyond.
But be that as it may, it doesn’t make the deans, directors and administrators of those institutions akin to supreme beings able to walk on water. Yet, some of them have clearly let praise from fawning admirers go straight to their heads, making them act like prima donnas and believing themselves to be untouchable. Question or differ with their opinions in the least, and you had better prepared to face their wrath. Dr. Carbone is already there, while Dean Hedges isn’t far behind.
As vital as medical/cancer research is, it is not something that can be pursued with price as no object. Our university and our state has finite resources. As Tom Apple wrote to Lassner, he didn’t think UH of M (with its budget) could afford to keep Carbone on as UHCC director if it meant wastefully spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on administrative bloat focused on reining in the personal whims and volatile temperament of the director and doing little else.
Unfortunately, there are some power brokers at UH and in the state Capitol who think this guy is Jesus and does everything within their powers to make Carbone happy. Everything else is secondary, even if it is detrimental to the students and faculty. The blind fools,….
Apple complains that the Lege cut his budget by $7 million and he therefore had to do a whole lot of scrambling to set various departmental budgets aright.
But he seemed to have had no difficulty “forgiving” the athletic department’s $14+ million cesspool of red ink.
Sorry, this Apple is distasteful to my palate.
Hey, I think Dobelle is available….maybe Lassner will appoint him chancellor at Manoa.
It’s pretty amazing that so many people are so eager to accept Tom Apple’s self-serving spin as gospel. Hint: if he thinks UH Manoa can’t survive without him, he’s probably wrong (lying, actually) about a lot of other things too.
One doesn’t have to “accept Tom Apple’s self-serving spin as gospel” to be concerned about the machinations he describes.
“Hint: if he thinks UH Manoa can’t survive without him, he’s probably wrong (lying, actually) about a lot of other things too.”
now let’s get back to arguing about the horrible new buildings on Oahu, and how they ruin our own childhood memories.
– Peter Griffin
Thank you for posting these unredacted documents. Ugly situation, and platitudes and minimization/avoidance do no one any favors.
Athletics (football) are also third rail issues at Manoa. Like JABSOM and the Cancer Center, athletics is supposed to fall under the purview of the Manoa Chancellor, but in reality, is anything but.
No surprise that these are the 3 budget sucks that tied Apple’s hands in dealing with the budget.
looks like apple got voted off the island !
The complaints and grievances against Carbone started racking up BEFORE Apple became the chancellor. Sorry, the notion that Apple’s concerns about Carbone are a product of a personal grudge on the former chancellor’s part doesn’t wash.
Ken Conklin – This is NOT a bipartisan issue! Our USA and it’s institutions are NOT in trouble because of party affiliation and attributable dogma: it’s the string pullers in the background who stand to lose/gain influence and money that yank Repuglican and Democratic chains. How bout we dig into who’s yanking Carbone’s…..AND the massive chain that keeps holding up the you-gotta-be-kidding-me football program.
Kate – i totally agree.
start with Roz Baker. then follow the money. the common media observation is that Roz is a cancer survivor, but i seriously doubt this is the only reason Carbone is presently untouchable.
moreover, i seriously seriously seriously doubt Roz Baker is the only Hawaii state legislator who has fought cancer.
in Hawaii, many people have to deal with one particular cancer: it’s called inbred political nepotism. it’s deadly.
Is it a coincidence that Virginia Hinshaw is also a cancer survivor? She was enamoured enough with Carbone to have appointed him to permanently head the UHCC over the objections of those who thought the search process was not conducted properly. Even now, she’s watching over her Miracle Man as a grossly overpaid advisor/guardian angel.
Maybe what’s missing from the whole piece is whether Tom Apple helped the fiscal situation at UH Manoa or made it worse.
If someone has information to share, please get it to someone who can publish it.
What I haven’t seen is whether all the vice chancellor positions for Manoa were under Hinshaw or Apple. I can’t find any reference to the numbers, but thought the Manoa chancellors office was spending some $20 million annually b/c of all the vice chancellors and their staff.
Who made that happen? Hinshaw or Apple? (Or Greenwood or Dobelle?)