A well-placed source at UH Manoa says there have been more than 15 administrative-professional-technical staffers laid off recently without warning, complete with the experience of being escorted to pick up personal items and then immediately escorted off campus. Those involved reportedly had all been in their jobs for less than three years and had no union protections.

If true, these would appear to be the first warm-body job losses at UH in some years.

Also from UH–some critical observations about the state of the Manoa campus made by a team of mainland academics as part of a review of programs in the College of Social Sciences completed earlier this month. I’ve added the emphasis in the following excerpts. These general comments preceded reviews of individual programs within the college, which ran the gamut from critical to relatively glowing.

Graduation rates:

…the 9% four-year graduation rate and 40% 5-year graduation rates on the M?noa campus are extremely low. Even when one takes into account the financial and educational background of the students, these graduation rates are far below those found at peer institutions. No one at the college, campus, or university level seems to take responsibility for addressing this situation. Faculty, staff, and administrators do not appreciate the huge financial burden this long time to degree places on students and on the institution. Changes are needed on many, many fronts if this situation is going to turn around.

Advising:

…though students praise the academic advising and mentoring they receive from the faculty within their field of study, there is uniform condemnation of the advising that occurs at the Arts and Sciences and university level. The student:advisor ratio in the Arts and Sciences is 529:1; it is 1,500:1 for students who have not yet declared their majors. Though the advising staff is excellent, supportive, and passionate about the work they do on behalf of students, the caseload makes it impossible for them to be effective. Advising is dramatically under-resourced.

Support for graduate education:

The very modest level of graduate student funding undermines the quality of graduate programs across the college. Although funding for graduate students varies widely across departments, there is not a single graduate program with adequate funds to recruit or support top students.

Fundraising:

We were surprised by how little focus there is on alumni relations and fundraising. There is a lack of clarity on the campus about who is responsible for leading these efforts. Over the past five years,
the college has raised only $4 million in private gifts, with half of that amount raised by the Osher Center. Given the large alumni base and its geographic proximity to the campus, there is a huge potential to deepen relationships with alumni and to dramatically increasing private giving. At the moment, there is no culture of private giving at the university, campus, college, or department level.

Space:

Space ranges from inadequate to totally unacceptable. The lack of space and the poor condition of the facilities make it difficult to recruit students, faculty, and staff. It undermines effective teaching and research. It can damage collections and other important research materials.

Campus leadership:

We are deeply concerned about the lack of effective campus and university leadership on many fronts – including research, undergraduate education, curriculum, advising, graduation rates, facilities, information technology, internal financial model, alumni relations, and fundraising. The success of the College of Social Sciences hinges crucially on the effectiveness of the campus as a whole.