If you are a resident of the State of Hawaii and have not heard a lot, or any news for that matter, on the public presentations by the candidates for President of the University of Hawaii, don’t feel bad.
With our general news cycle more focused on, among other first-stories on the evening news, stories about dog bites in Halawa and the crackdown on illegal game rooms, the news on the presentations have shown up after the first commercial break, just before the next break for the weather report.
If one were reading the newspapers on this story, one would find that an article from the Hawaii Tribune is the only one that discusses the first candidate – Wendy Hensel, with the Star-Advertiser being more robust in its reporting on the second candidate – Julian Vasquez-Heilig.
So, again, don’t feel bad if you as a reader don’t know what is going on.
Yet the presentations have occurred, and the importance of the choice has not waned. The fact that the next University president will oversee a personnel count of 9,225, with Manoa, at 5,770, taking up most of the personnel count. If you include the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, which has, according to this report, 2,669 employees. In that case, the new president will oversee a university system that is one of the largest employers in Hawaii.
So, knowing who the candidates are is important. The choice will set a tone for higher education in this state for years, if not decades to come, depending on the longevity of the choice.
When considering the importance of evaluating each candidate, there are commonalities. Both candidates are from the same continent and do not currently have strong ties to the state. Additionally, they both hold administrative positions at public higher education institutions located east of the Mississippi River. Some of this information was featured in Stan Fichtman’s article “Race for the 16th President: Meet the Contenders” in Politics Hawaii.
The differences if you have just heard the media on this, are less stark. However, in one set of reports, comparing Hensel’s focus on Artificial Intelligence with Heilig’s emphasized Hawaiian culture, one would not see any depth in the differences.
However, this humble blogger listened to each of the presentations and took notes. And contrary to the reporting, the differences are much starker.
In short, the choice of candidate, from this blogger’s point of view, will come down to whether the University of Hawaii Board of Regents wants a strait-laced administrator or an activist who will emphasize cultural, environmental, and inequality issues in their leadership.
(Both perspectives, presented here are from the presentations each made to the Manoa audience, typically the last presentation on their tours. This link will take you to the landing page where the recordings of all presentations are).
Starting with Hensel, when discussing the issue of protests at her current employer, the City University of New York (CUNY), she made it clear that while she understands why the students and faculty were protesting the current situation between Israel and the Palestinians – something which even UH has had to address, albeit way more quietly – she did make a statement that she didn’t like how professors encouraged their students to protest the way they did.
She added that she didn’t like how they did that and then went home, with the police coming in just a few hours later and clearing out the encampments. She felt that if one is going to be a faculty activist, one should be with the students and, albeit she didn’t say it this way, be there when the police come.
If chosen, she will need to figure out that balance and make her position known to the faculty activist when the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) construction resumes. The outgoing president, in comparison, David Lassner, didn’t have as clear a position on how UH Faculty involved themselves with the last TMT protest in 2019.
Next, with Vasquez-Heilig, his approach in comparison to Hensel, is much more along the lines of a traditional activist, complete with the language that is associated with it. From the outset of his presentation, he made it clear that he wanted the audience to know that he had a good grasp of indigenous understanding.
He continued by blending this “knowledge” with the other key issues that are discussed when it comes to Indigenous issues – respect for the environment, addressing inequality, and as he put it, acknowledging colonial history and resistance.
Vasquez-Heilig seemed more willing to engage in discussions with the Regents about renewing contracts between the University of Hawaii and the United States military, while Hensel’s response was more formal and lawyer-like. Both acknowledged that the decision ultimately rested with the Regents, but Vasquez-Heilig appeared more inclined to be actively involved in the decision-making process compared to Hensel.
While the language expressed by Vasquez-Heilig was not activist in nature, he did have a more robust answer on why Hawaiians should trust him should he be chosen.
“Don’t trust me,”, was his answer.
Additionally, he urged the audience to approach his current and former employers and inquire about whether we in Hawaii can rely on him regarding Indigenous issues. By contrast, this seemed more assertive and straightforward compared to Hensel, showing at least to this blogger what his approach would be on this and many other subjects if he were selected.
With the process now going behind closed doors – with the Regents having their turn at interviewing the candidates and a final selection being done by the middle of October, a final read by this blogger is that there will be a selection between the two.