CTAHR College-Wide Conference: Building A Shared Vision

A. Recruitment-related Questions:

1. Do you think recruiting undergraduates from the mainland is something your office should strongly pursue?
   
   Answer: We are presently working along with the UH Manoa’s offices of Student Affairs, Admissions and Records and School and College Services on a campus-wide recruitment plan to attract students both locally and from the mainland. We have also begun to work with our Alumni Association to gain contacts on the mainland that can help us with our recruitment efforts.
   
   
2. Given the job market in Hawaii, is it right to recruit students if there are no jobs for them when they graduate?
   
   Answer: There are many jobs available both in Hawaii and elsewhere that our students can apply for. Each department has provided a list of career opportunities for its graduates and some have greater needs than others. Also, there is a great need for secondary science teachers at this time and this is a market we in the process of addressing.
   
   
3. How is recruitment success being evaluated?
   
   Answer: There are multiple stages that students go through in the recruitment process and a survey could be put together to find out the effects of each stage on the decision of the student to actually enroll in CTAHR. Recruitment stages include: Prospect to Inquiry, Inquiry to Applicant, Applicant to Admit, Admit to Enroll. At each stage, various things are done to first interest the student in your college and then have them finally apply. Having completed one academic year with our programs in place and having worked with the university’s recruitment consultant, we have put together a plan for the year that we will begin implementing shortly. This plan will be presented to a college–wide recruitment committee soon to be created. With the help of others CTAHR can do a lot to attract new students. A recruiting workshop will also be held this summer for those interested in training and materials to take with you to presentations you do.
   
   Once we are able to put these strategies in place we should be able to measure their success by surveying entering students to find out what made them decide to come to CTAHR. A preliminary draft of the CTAHR Integration of College Recruitment with UHM Recruitment Plan is available upon request. As mentioned earlier, we will add to this as other ideas are presented in committee.
   
4. How can we make course and faculty evaluations mandatory and use it as a basis of reward?
   
   Answer: I will work with the CTAHR Faculty Senate this coming year to make course evaluations mandatory. This is for course improvement purposes and is not meant to be punitive. The college collectively through its Strategic Plan has asked for academic excellence. However, along with this request, a “Brown Bags to Excellence” series will be held during the 2002-2003 academic year to provide instructional strategies that promote excellence. If we expect faculty to do an outstanding job teaching, we need to provide the tools to make this a reality. These tools will be provided.
   
   I would like to see a Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence established in the college that would provide recognition for teaching excellence in the college and a monetary award as well. Evaluations could be used to support faculty’s candidacy for this award. I would think that teaching excellence should also be used as part of an argument for merit pay and evaluations could be used through this mechanism as well.
   
   
5. Can CTAHR provide funds to have students participate in recruitment (for programs or departments)?
   
   Answer: The responsibility for college-wide recruitment has been delegated to the Office of Academic and Student Affairs. There is a budget for recruitment that has been used to produce program brochures, purchase recruitment incentives and send students to schools throughout the state to make presentations. Requests that fit within the college’s recruitment plan can be submitted and funding will be considered. Also, the next round of the Native Hawaiian Serving Institution grant will include monies for recruitment purposes and student organizations are included and thus will be asked to participate and be funded for their involvement in recruiting activities.
   
   
6. Brochures – Is there a possibility of having substations of information at some buildings for from the Academic and Student Affairs Office?
   
   Answer: Each CTAHR department presently has brochures on the Manoa campus. They have also been given to outer islands and some are display and others available upon request. As far as the UHM campus is concerned, they are available at Admissions and Records to be sent out upon request. However, presently there are no substations on campus. I did place a call to the Office of Student and College Relations Director and she will present this idea at their next meeting to see if something along these lines is possible.
   
   

B. Faculty Retention Question:

How can CTAHR have excellence when top notch faculty members leave and are never replaced? Or why allow them to leave? CTAHR will have difficulty drawing students to come to UH when classes are not offered because there are no faculty to teach these classes.

Answer: All outstanding faculty that have left CTAHR during the current administration have been given counter offer to retain them. However, in some cases they were offered their dream jobs and we could not compete. However, we did try to retain them. Also, as mentioned during the conference, we have many more outstanding faculty that still remain who are doing excellent work both in the classroom, in the field and in their laboratories. We all need to take a walk around sometime as see the great things that continue to be happening in our college. Also, we are bringing in many new and promising faculty that will not only replace those leaving, but add to our numbers. This is a decision that was made by chairs, faculty and staff together with administration as this continues to be one of the greatest needs of the college.

C. Curriculum-related Questions:

1. Is there a way to have more community/course practicums such as in FSHN in other courses where a student-work program can help fund education and research and enhance experience of hands-on to students?
   
   Answer: Presently each undergraduate program requires an internship for all its students. Some of these are paid and others not paid, depending on the goal of the internship.
   Other suggestions have been made to initiate a program where scholarship monies are matched with research grant money to bring undergraduate students into research labs for experience. We have a foundation who recently has offered to match its money with ours, as well as other scholarship donations coming in that may fit with this very promising concept.
   
   
2. How are you integrating Research, Extension and Instruction in the curriculum so 1) our CTAHR students benefit from hands on research with their undergraduate experience and 2) our communities benefit from the energy and enthusiasm of our students applying their new knowledge to improve conditions in the field and the community?
   
   Answer: As mentioned in #1 above, required internships provide this opportunity and new programs to place students in research labs are in the works. Also, our use of Distance Learning Technology for our Student Ambassadors Program has taken our students into high school classrooms via the internet as well as in person to share the many programs we have at CTAHR and specifically their own fields of study.
   
   There is much more that can go into this and this is where we all need to collectively come up with new ideas that can make our whole land grant concept excel.
   
   

D. International Relationship Question:

I have been trying to develop a relationship (faculty and student exchanges, etc.) between CTAHR and UNESP Brazil since 1988 with no results because of CTAHR’s apathy. Is this something you might be interested in?

Answer: Anyone interested in international agreements, please contact myself or Catherine Chan-Halbrendt. Both of us have been involved in helping to establish memorandums of agreement with foreign institutions. Some are easier than others, but we can try on your behalf.

SUGGESTIONS AND COMMENTS are listed below. Thank you for these and they will be taken into consideration and used and/or addressed where applicable and within our capabilities.

• Utilize our 4-H program to publicize and recruit for our college
  
• Offer a credit program in pre-award (proposal) class to
  

1. increase sponsored research
   
2. allow students to work with a mentor (prof) to develop a proposal
   
3. how to do a budget
   

• Create a credit program for fundraising
  

1. hands-on experience for students assisting college administrator in the
   development program
   
2. economics of fundraising
   
   

Comments:

• It really matters what we do after the conference that is important. So the faculty/staff need to be reminded (nagged) or encouraged about their commitments. Don’t let the momentum generated by today return to the inertia of old days.
  
• I am just a pair of ears. One faculty said in a private conversation, that it is the same old thing we have heard in the past. The vision, goals, etc. The presentations didn’t excite this person. This college lacks warmth (people relationship?) Just thought I would mention this observation.
  
• Lecturers – second class teachers
  

1. there, but not there
   
2. involved, but included sometimes
   
3. not in hierarchy of academic BOR appointees
   
4. reapply for work every semester
   
5. no official authority in making changes or deciding matters
   
6. often last to get equipment
   
7. reapply for ID card and library privileges each semester
   
8. pay out of pocket for parking after taxes
   
9. not eligible for payroll deductions, but eligible for direct deposit of pay which is only procedure which continues from semester to semester
   
10. not in loop for curriculum development
    
11. mentoring needed
    
12. often not eligible for research proposal submission
    
13. often not eligible for travel and conference support
    
14. not connected to mainstream of UHM and CTAHR
    
    

Good News:

1. no meetings
   
2. few politics
   
3. independence
   
4. entrepreneurial, must do well to stay on job
   
5. campus knowledge sources
   
6. wonderful students