������Ƶ

Last Wednesday afternoon, the Faculty Senate of the University of Hawaii at Manoa met for its first session of the new year.

On the agenda were several items, mostly relating to the mundane business of shared governance to be found at any major American state university – should a particular sort of statistical analysis continue to be used to calculate faculty productivity, should certain proposed hallmarks on quantitative reasoning replace earlier hallmarks on symbolic reasoning, what about re-organizing the Office of the VP for Research & Innovation, and so on.

For most members of the public (and not a few professors), a slow yawn would be appropriate.

But the auditorium had a lot of spectators in attendance this time and they were not senators. There was something unusually interesting about to happen: a resolution proposed by the leadership of the Manoa Faculty Senate (called the Senate Executive Committee) to express “no confidence in” – essentially calling for the firing of – the most powerful academic officer on campus, the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Dr. Reed Dasenbrock.

The charges against him had been brewing for better than a year. They included “sexism,” “bullying,” “failure to embrace diversity” (i.e., racism),  and that he had created a “hostile campus environment via public threats and insults, lack of respect and civility, hostility, and retaliation against faculty and staff who disagree with his views.”  Pretty serious stuff.

The first thing I noticed, having just come back from sabbatical leave since last summer, was that the folks bringing the charges included a majority of our own Executive Committee, so we were dealing with heavy hitters. Clearly, this was no fly-by-night resolution and the implications were huge.

To start, a representative from the SEC got up and summarized the indictment. She said the accusations had been lodged for a very long time now, the Vice Chancellor had acted in a consistently appalling manner over an extended period, an unresponsive UH administration was “dragging its feet” on fixing the situation, and it was “time to act.”

The floor was opened for discussion, most of the senators who rose to speak were in favor of Dasenbrock’s dismissal, and their comments on his behavior were grim, to say the least. One lone voice expressed a great discomfort at what he saw as “premature strangulation of the VCAA.”

And so it went. Then it occurred to me that all we had before us was the case for the prosecution. And that the folks who had brought the charges were also the ones asking us to bring in a verdict of “guilty.”

Where was the defense?  Had the charges been proven?  Was there fact-finding? I had, absolutely no idea. I had never personally witnessed the terrible acts alleged. Were the really true? Had the VCAA presented a response for us to read?

This was starting to look like a very incomplete process and yet I was being called upon to take this fellow to the scaffold on the basis of as yet unsubstantiated charges. The bottom line was if he actually did what they say he did “it was a grievous fault, and grievously” should he answer for it.  I would be quite ready to support the resolution. But how could I tell? Should I just take it on faith?

Having worked as a court’s interpreter in the United States and having sat in on a number of trials in London and Paris, I knew there was something that didn’t add up and I was not about to add my vote to a flawed process, especially one that would possibly end the career of a colleague about whom I knew very little.

I voted “no.” I was one of 10. Forty-three voted in favor and a couple of profs decided they couldn’t decide.  Not my happiest day after a half-century in this business.