UH Manoa Faculty Senate Censures President Lassner
The resolution contends that David Lassner fired former UH Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple without consulting faculty, students and others.
The University of Hawaii at Manoa faculty Senate voted Wednesday to censure UH President David Lassner because of how he handled Tom Apple’s removal as UH Manoa chancellor.
The demonstrates how dissatisfied the Senate — a that was created to represent and act on behalf of all UH Manoa faculty — is with Lassner, who’s only been on the job since June.
PF Bentley/Civil Beat
The censure, however, doesn’t appear to have any direct bearing on the president, a longtime IT executive who was appointed as interim president last year after former President MRC Greenwood resigned. Ka Leo that the Senate opted not to take the resolution one step forward and move for a vote of  no-confidence in the president.
The resolution cites several reasons for Lassner’s censure:
- Lassner, as interim president, overrode Apple’s decision to remove a UH Manoa director (the Cancer Center’s Michele Carbone) — “a clear violation of line authority”
- Lassner removed Apple “without sufficient consultation” with key stakeholders such as faculty and students
- Lassner’s removal of Apple violates the Board of Regents’ policy stipulating that UH Manoa faculty evaluate campus administrators
- The “precipitous firing” of Apple threatens the school’s accreditation, autonomy, fiscal stability and ability to recruit qualified administrators in the future
Nearly two-thirds — 72 percent — of the 70 or so members present approved the measure, , the UH Manoa student newspaper.
The resolution is the latest development in a controversy that surfaced in late July, when news broke that Tom Apple — a relatively popular administrator who was hired in 2012 — was being fired from his post as chancellor of the university’s flagship campus. Apple is now working as a professor in the school’s chemistry department.
Students and faculty members were quick to speculate that Apple’s firing was the result of inside politics at the university — in particular, the campus’s Cancer Center, a unit that’s come under fire for its controversial leadership and spending.
After he was dismissed, Apple blamed the decision on his efforts to remove Carbone against the will of a few key decision-makers with vested interests in the center’s success.
Lassner denied the claims, reasoning that Apple failed to build a sense of camaraderie on campus and mishandled the school’s budget. Just two weeks before news broke about the firing, Apple distributed a memo among department heads and chairs announcing that the campus’s coffers were so depleted that it would have to freeze all hiring.
Lassner said his decision to let Apple go was based on a series of confidential “unsatisfactory performance reviews.”
