In his rebuttal letter to a negative evaluation by the UH president, Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple touted his own attempts to control the budget. His responses to the president spent a lot of time explaining how he was prevented from reducing the flow of campus cash to the medical school and cancer center.

But Apple’s rebuttal also contained this short, orphaned paragraph which appears to contradict his other arguments by blaming the financial mess on the cost of faculty salaries.

In addition to these measures, I pointed out that our student/faculty ratio was unsustainable. This was the reason for my recent request for a hiring freeze. [emphasis added]

Elsewhere, Apple commented that UH is “a faculty-rich environment” with a 1 to 11 faculty-student ratio.

But a cautious approach is appropriate here.

Most campuses push for a lower ratio, since those who rank universities regard this as a plus. US News and World Reports uses these data every year to rank universities, with lower ratios getting higher rankings.

Places like Harvard (1:7), Stanford (1:5), and even Whitman–where Meda and I graduated– at (1:9), make much of these low ratios as evidence of teaching quality.

The UHM website reports a faculty-student ratio of 1:14, while the Johnsrud “study” had us at 1:12. Other public research universities are University of Washington at 1:12 and University of Michigan 1:16.

There are no doubt public universities, especially in the budget-decimated California system, that currently may well have higher ratios.

We really need to examine the data behind Apple’s “faculty-rich” description, as these numbers could reflect lots of hidden factors.

A recent study on the cost of higher education was based on flawed data and faulty comparisons, resulting in “a less than positive impression of the University of Hawai?i at Ma?noa and its faculty,” according to a resolution to be considered by Manoa faculty senate this afternoon.

The resolution, presented by the Senate executive committee, says “the decision to release a flawed and premature report reflects the poor judgment of the UH System administration.”

It calls on the university administration to publicly acknowledge and correct the errors and consult with the faculty before drawing any conclusions from the study.

The resolution identifies several types of errors.

• Outreach College courses, which are funded by a separate system, were listed;

• Cross-listed courses were double counted as if they were separate courses and thus appear smaller than
10 when they are in fact larger;

• Courses that many faculty teach above and beyond their normal course loads were listed;

• Courses that are designed for small enrollment, including internships, field experiences, music and arts were listed.

As a result, according to the resolution, “the data on faculty instructional workloads is flawed, the report does not reflect the actual cost of instruction or present an accurate depiction of faculty workloads in the full range of teaching, research and service responsibilities expected at a research university like the University of Hawai?i at Ma?noa.”

The resolution also points out that while UH Manoa may be comparable to “peer institutions” used in the report “on the basis of student characteristics, it is not comparable with respect to the research that is expected of UH Ma?noa faculty.”

The faculty senate meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. today in the Architecture Auditorium.