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The glittering past of the East-West Center brims with the names of significant historical figures.

The center was originally organized based on a suggestion by then Sen. Lyndon Johnson, established in a bill signed by President Dwight Eisenhower, and housed in facilities designed by legendary architect I.M. Pei, with some spaces donated by Thai royalty and Japanese business leaders.

The more than 62,000 alumni of its many programs include such notables as former chair of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rajendra K. Pachauri, the late mother of President Barack Obama — anthropologist Ann Dunham Soetoro — and Malaysian Prime Minister Razak Naji, among many others. It routinely attracts international political figures to its conferences and seminars, among them in recent years then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State John Kerry and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

But over the past two years, in particular, the EWC’s fortunes have dimmed.

Long a beneficiary of the budgetary largesse of U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, the center suddenly found itself without its patron when Inouye passed away in 2012. Despite a significant body of academic work and an impressive range of international partners, the center hasn’t been nearly as successful as it needs to be in landing competitive research grants or developing philanthropic support — the most common and significant sources of funding for premier education and research institutions.

Now comes word that longtime EWC President Charles Morrison will step down from his post next summer as the center is undertaking a strategic planning process and considering potential changes in its board structure.  Morrison, who has held the position since 1998, didn’t provide a reason for his departure; board leaders say he isn’t being forced out, but concede that Morrison “acknowledges … we are going to have to go through some changes.”

That such a singularly significant Honolulu institution could be facing an uncertain future ought to concern us all in Hawaii, particularly those of us involved in government, diplomacy, international relations, journalism and higher education. That a resource so potentially vital in the context of the United States’ ongoing “Asia pivot” — which Secretary Clinton announced in an EWC speech, by the way — should be on shaky footing should get the attention of every federal leader who cares about U.S. interests in perhaps the most important geographic region on earth.

Just this week, for instance, the EWC is prominent in international news coverage of military relations between the and on trade agreement-in-development. President Obama on Monday hosted a meeting with 75 participants in his , who recently completed their five-week program at the EWC. Few other institutions in Hawaii or anywhere else in America can point to such day-to-day relevance on how the United States understands and interacts with Asian nations.

There has been concern in recent years — notably expressed in the high-profile departure of its energy research team in late 2013 — that under Morrison’s leadership, EWC didn’t diversify its funding base while it continued to benefit from Inouye’s assistance.

Perhaps even more troublingly, the center’s lack of a forward-thinking strategic vision and plan have been called into question, and in Washington, insiders say its value to the State Department and other federal entities has significantly declined.

Those criticisms speak to the center’s recent past, however, and we must now be focused on its long-term future. The way forward must take full advantage of four critical opportunities.

Leadership. The center hasn’t sought new leadership since 1998, and the worlds of academic, government, diplomacy and international relations have changed enormously during that time. The EWC today demands a visionary, strategic leader who understands that, one who can bring a razor-sharp focus to the organization, assemble the right administrative team to lead that work and identify the resources to make it all possible. Ideally, the search to replace Morrison would identify a candidate with real standing in academia or foreign affairs and a strong track record in fundraising.

Any effort to fill the position with a local community figure or anyone else without such a pedigree would be highly detrimental to the EWC’s future and must be stopped in its tracks.

The center is also in need of new leadership on its board. Gov. David Ige has yet to choose his five appointees to the 15-member group, and we call on him to make this a priority, with selections prepared to help the center through a make-or-break transition period.

The promise of the East-West Center is every bit as substantial as when LBJ first articulated the need for “a meeting place for the intellectuals of the East and the West” in his 1959 speech — in fact, much more so.

Strategic Planning. EWC’s strategic planning efforts have foundered in recent years and must take on a new vitality. Potential opportunities for the center loom not only in Asia-Pacific relationships, but in the possible chance to partner with the and the . The latter two relationships simply cannot be leveraged without a thoughtful plan that can focus the center and show it to be strongly complementary to the vision of these two emerging institutions.

Partnerships. The EWC counts more than 750 universities, centers, foreign governmental agencies, foundations, think-tanks and other organizations among its partners. For most of its existence, the center historically had no reason to turn to those groups for support — in fact, it sometimes provided modest funding for those organizations. EWC is slowly changing that paradigm, having brought in $6.3 million last fiscal year from contracts and grants from such partners, and must make this a significant growth area going forward. The opportunities, particularly among Asian nations, are extensive, but it will take the visionary leadership noted above to realize them.

Philanthropy. The center also took in more than $6 million in donor support in the last fiscal year. While that number has grown modestly in recent years, at a time when campuses around the country are conducting capital campaigns for hundreds of millions of dollars and more, this, too, must be a major growth area. Many of the center’s alumni are in positions to make substantial gifts, but many other individuals and organizations, both domestic and foreign, could be enticed to provide significant support, inspired by a thoughtful vision and stewarded properly by EWC leadership.

The promise of the East-West Center is every bit as substantial as when LBJ first articulated the need for “a meeting place for the intellectuals of the East and the West” in his 1959 speech — in fact, much more so. But EWC board members and supporters must understand that the clock is ticking on their opportunity to make good on that promise.

The coming 12 months will determine whether the next 50 years have the chance to be as notable as the first five decades, or whether the East-West Center fades, just when Hawaii and our country need it most.