Higher Education

...students requiring remedial classes dropped to 31 percent in English and remained at 36 percent for math....

...state flagship universities are a waste of time and resources for many students....

... African American college-enrollment increased by 24 percent ....

In spite of all the alarm over rising costs and excessive borrowing for college, one person is confident that college will be far less expensive in just a few years....

Gov. Neil Abercrombie today announced the nominations of Eugene Bal III, Barry T. Mizuno, and Randolph A. Moore to the University of Hawaii Board of Regents. The nominations are subject to state Senate confirmation....

The Commission is deeply concerned about press accounts of the attempts of individuals within the government to demand specific personnel actions ... legislation has recently been introduced that could interfere with the University's ability to manage its own affairs....

Richardson Law School ranked 80th among the nation’s 144 best law schools compared with 106th a year ago....

Students using Army Tuition Assistance (TA) must register in GoArmyEd before NOON Hawaii Standard Time (HST) Friday, March 8 at which time it will be suspended....

UH boosted its annual bite on students 108%....

... he only selects his friends from a pool of hundreds of qualified Architects and Engineers in Honolulu ....

...the Regents Candidate Advisory Council (RCAC) delivered to Governor Neil Abercrombie's office a list of candidates for the University of Hawai'i Board of Regents....

In light of these trends, some states like Texas, Florida and Wisconsin are considering the $10,000 college degree....

Opening enrollment for the University of Hawai‘i System for the spring 2013 semester stands at 55,373 students, a slight decline of 1,303 students, or 2.3 percent, compared to spring 2012....

...a survey through which we could measure the military-friendly policies enacted at each school....

Overall, the $1.40 billion of education-related expenditures attributable to UHM generated $2.45 billion in local business sales, $735 million in employee earnings, $131 million in state tax revenues, and slightly under 20,000 jobs in Hawai‘i in FY2012....

...it will administer college and career readiness assessments to all middle and high school students statewide in grades 8, 9, 10 and 11 beginning next spring....

...Such a framework is necessary to preserve the availability of federal student aid funding under Title IV of the HEA....

...thank you for your support and patience as we continue to process all the confusion of the past few months....

“Ben Jay brings an extensive background in management and financial experience from big-time college athletics, has numerous valuable contacts, and possesses the vision, leadership skills, passion and integrity to take UH Athletics to the next level."

The UH BoR and Greenwood reviewed the findings of the Senate Special Committee regarding the oversight, accountability, and transparency of the operational and financial management of the university and agree with its recommendations calling for greater transparency and accountability (two out of three ain't bad).... 

It took three months for UHSC to stop Ing from misrepresenting himself but after Ing was threatened with expulsion from UH, he capitulated....

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." -- George Santayana

The University of Hawaii continues to publish groundbreaking discoveries from their mesothelioma research efforts. But does the precarious state of our American research universities put mesothelioma research in jeopardy?

"...a source of opinions and authority that is ultimately answerable to the Chinese Communist Party and which is not subject to scholarly review...."

...it is the role of academics to "correct" ... history. As one organizer commented, this will be more easily accomplished once the WWII generation has passed away. Another wrote, "America's nostalgic war memories are beginning to fray around the edges"....

After being hounded for years by charges of sexual harassment leveled against him by a former aide in a 2006 EEOC complaint, former Big Isle Council Chair and Mayoral candidate Stacy Higa has been named Executive Director of the Hawaii State Commission for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps programs in Hawaii.

KITV reported that the accusations against Dr. Palafox may have been false and driven by two DOH employees he was about to lay off. Information I have confirms that the Federal Government does not view Dr. Palafox as one under any investigation.

What you are observing below is the beginning of what will become a sustained campaign to re-write the history of “The Good War” and “The Greatest Generation” to fit the mold of social-democratic propaganda.  BTW: Dan Inouye is paying for all of this….

Adding to its developing reputation for secrecy, the Abercrombie Administration has now clearly lied about at least one aspect of the sudden withdrawal of Dr Neal Palafox’s DoH nomination.

Governor Abercrombie’s nominee to head the State Department of Health, Dr Neal Palafox MD, has suddenly withdrawn his name from consideration. HNN and the Star-Advertiser report that Palafox may be “involved in a medical reimbursement investigation.”  Palafox was picked over Senator Josh Green MD of Kona.

"Well, yes, there are crucial times when loquacious white mouths need to stay shut...."  -- Segregated Sisterhood P197

...the meeting was disrupted by many Hawaiian Sovereignty proponents who dominated the session with loud and acrimonious statements....

According to an October 26 editorial piece thinly disguised as a news analysis, Save Our Sports’ success in raising $1.2 million for Hawaii’s 55 public high school athletic programs indicates a “shift toward an ‘American Idol’-style system of public funding that rewards popularity over merit.”

The Honolulu Community Media Council (HCMC) is working with Georgetown University attorneys from the so-called "Institute for Public Representation" to challenge the Raycom Media deal linking the news operations of KGMB, KHNL and KFVE.

According the the HCMC, the Raycom deal is "nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to avoid regulatory scrutiny by the FCC and that Raycom will exercise control over all three stations in defiance of the FCC ownership rules."

But the Honolulu Community Media Council has its own decades-long history of "thinly veiled attempt(s)" to "exercise control" over the media....

Gramscian ideas are far advanced in America. You see them in "hate crimes" laws, in gender equity legislation, in forced corporate "sensitivity" training, in the menace of coerced "right thinking" in the universities. You feel the nuances of it in casual conversation. It's an attitude at a cocktail party.

UH Manoa professor Farideh Farhi, an advisor to the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a group that lobbies for better relations with the Islamic Republic, challenged me a couple weeks ago...for a column questioning Iranian sincerity in diplomacy.... Today Tabnak (website of accused Buenos Aires bomber) suggests why: In the course of discussing the controversy, it mentions that Farhi worked some years for the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Indeed, her work at the Foreign Ministry coincided with Holocaust revisionist conferences.

(SB Headline is "GOTCHA!".  After OHA's rent-seeking lawsuits begin, it will become more clear what that means.  For now everybody is celebrating ....) 

HONOLULU – Governor Linda Lingle today praised the decision by the board of directors of the TMT Observatory Corporation to select Mauna Kea as the preferred site for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT)....

 "Having the most advanced telescope in the world on the slopes of Mauna Kea will enhance Hawai‘i’s high-technology sector, while providing our students with education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields." 

As hundreds of UH system president nominees whittled down to only one ethically-challenged candidate, many Hawaii political observers wondered how MRC Greenwood became the only choice left for UH system President. The short answer is political interference playing against the UH liberal arts faculty’s lack of respect for academic freedom.

On one side: Dan Inouye and his BoR cronies seeking a candidate who will defend federally-funded projects such as UARC, and the Thirty Meter Telescope, and defend UH biotech research on behalf of Hawaii’s contribution-rich biotech industry. On the other: the academic left’s open lack of respect for the academic freedom of anybody they disagree with—including those who wish to study plant biotechnology or do military-funded research.

The episodic challenges necessitated by Inouye’s political requirements contrast with many other US universities such as Greenwood’s former stomping grounds, UC Santa Cruz, which have simply caved into the demands of the left and no longer make any serious pretense of academic freedom.

Now--in response to the response--Frankel claims he “typed in the wrong date” for “Islam Day”. In a commentary posted May 25 on HawaiiReporter.com, Frankel pretends to “take full responsibility” for becoming the only person on Earth--other than Hawaii Legislators and Muslim Association of Hawaii (MAH) leaders --to claim that “the 12th day of Rabi ul-Awwal will fall on September 24, 2009 (Islam Day).”

Frankel then goes on to explain helpfully that, “September 24, 2009 should correspond to the 21st day of Ramadan in the Islamic calendar.”

Once again Frankel is dead wrong -- and has again exposed an utterly stupendous ignorance of his own field of study. One quick glance at an Islamic calendar shows that September 24, 2009 corresponds to the 4^th day of Shawwal. The 21^st day of Ramadan will be … September 11, 2009. Perhaps this is Frankel’s idea of a joke?

Some may have thought this problem was settled when activists were given plum jobs at Hilo’s shiny new Imiloa Astronomy center, but shakedown is the foundation of Hawai`i’s so-called economy and when Dan Inouye plops a $1.2 billion money bag on the top of Mauna Kea, the grasping begins.

“Nancy Aleck, the dynamic Exec. Director of the People's Fund, a progressive, grassroots, small-grants ($3,000 limit) organization, will be on the Big Island during Sept. 20-23 to present information and grant request forms ….”