Living up to the "Year of the Student"

By Jenn Boneza

Ten projects have been set into motion by Chancellor Denise Konan to improve students’ educational experiences and live up to the chancellor’s mission to make this the Year of the Student at UH.

 The initiatives were based on results from two surveys - a satisfaction survey and a priority ranking survey - over 3,000 students participated in during Nov. 2005.  “I focused on things that are do-able and things that we can do sooner rather than later,” Konan said.  “There are long term things that we need to work on and we will continue to do that.”

Ombudsman office

Konan’s first priority is developing an Ombudsman office to help troubleshoot problems at UH.   Political science professor Neal Milner, who has experience in Ombudsman  offices, will begin developing the office this spring and launch it in fall.

“The office is a place where students can come and we will help them figure out a way to solve their problems,” Milner said.  “The office will be absolutely confidential. I will not report to anyone. “The benefit of an Ombudsman office is that we can learn from the office where trouble spots are,” Konan said.
           
Student housing survey & housing management audit

The second thing Konan addressed with her initiatives are problems with student housing.  This spring Vice Chancellor of Student Service Wayne Iwaoka plans on conducting a survey of students currently residing on campus as well as launching an audit of student housing management. 

 “(Student housing) is important because if we’re able to provide a solid, positive residential experience for more and more students it will improve the educational environment on the campus tremendously,” Konan said.

 Linguistics major Robin Abilley, who was a residential advisor at UH last year, said,  “There is a real lack of communication in the housing department.  One building doesn’t know what the other one is doing.”
           
A new 800-bed dormitory

The Year of the student survey’s also pointed out many complaints students have about housing on campus.   “One concern was with the quality of what we have and also the availability of what we have,” Konan said.  “For that, we are on track to build an 800-bed dormitory on the Frear Hall location and that should be up by fall 2008.”

Although students like the idea of the new dorm being built, freshman Rei Mooney said,  “My uncle stayed in these same dorms when he went to school here. Don’t you think they should have maybe built new dorms sooner? ”

           
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Manoa budget advisory group

Konan’s fourth initiative is to devise a way to distribute money from tuition increases.  Acting Vice Chancellor for Administration, Finance and Operations Kathy Cutshaw has established a Manoa budget advisory group to decide on the best way to disperse the funds. 

Cutshaw said they plan to “realign the base budget to allocate sources based on performance” so that the departments that do more for students would be given more money. 

“In the past, our budget has been allocated in a way that’s very focused on history,” Konan said. “We’re working on a shift in that and we are targeting tuition increases as the first phase in doing that.”

Increase research grant for undergraduates

Since UH is known as a research institution, Konan hopes to increase the number of undergraduate research projects by offering 30 grants of up to $3,000 each. 

Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education Gary Ostrander is heading the project.  Ostrander, who has done these types of programs for many years said, “The most exciting environments are when science is being created.  Students’ participation in research projects will augment and enhance what they’re learning in the classroom.” 

Although there are grants to fund 30 research projects, students must submit competitive, well thought-out proposals to be considered for the grants.  However, Ostrander said students who are not funded could come to him to find out why they did not receive the grant.

Online student course evaluation

Konan’s sixth initiative is to develop a system that would allow students to evaluate their professors and classes online, which would provide more confidentiality.  Survey results showed that students were concerned about teaching quality as well as the methods some professors used.  “Right now student evaluations are done in some classes and not all classes and it depends on department policy,” Konan said.  “We want to make student evaluations required in all classes.”

 The evaluation forms would be made available through the MyUH portal said Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Neal Smatresk, who is developing the project.  “The online evaluations would cost less,” Smatresk said. “It wouldn’t require people to administer it and would lend and increase secrecy.”  Smatresk said the only thing they are concerned with is that response rates may drop with an online system.
           
Automated degree audit system

Another project Konan said she hopes will improve students’ educational experiences at UH is an online degree audit system that should be available by the end of the spring semester.  Konan said students have said that figuring out whether their courses fulfill graduation requirements is confusing and that this project was developed to solve that problem.

 “It would let students check online, themselves, how their coursework is meeting their degree objectives,” Konan said.  “It will also let them do some scenario planning.” 

Smatresk said, “A lot of what advisors do when they see students is mechanical.  This would allow advisors to focus on the students and allow advising time to be used more gainfully.” 
           
Communications major Dawn Barnes said she thought the system would be very helpful especially for first-time students.  Although Barnes likes the idea she said the system needs to be simple to use. “If the system is too complicated, it’s just going to be one more difficult thing to have to do.” 

Although the project has the potential to make UH students’ lives easier, Smatresk realizes it will not be perfect the first time around.  “We suspect when we launch there will be some glitches,” Smatresk said.  “We will fix them as we they happen.”
           
External review of international programs

Because UH has such a wide variety of international students and international programs, “people have been calling for us to provide a more coherent picture of what’s happening in terms of international education,” Konan said.   An external review of all of the international programs at UH conducted by Steven Dunnett PhD., vice provost of international education at SUNY, and JoAnn McCarthy PhD., assistant provost for international affairs at the University of Pennsylvania, will take place in February.

“We have asked (Dunnett and McCarthy) to meet with everyone who’s involved in international programs and provide us with recommendations for how we can best highlight our international opportunities for students,” Konan said Konan said she hopes to make information about international programs at UH easier to find as well as to streamline the entire process for students who wish to take advantage of the programs.

Festival of Research and Creative Expression (FORCE)

A university wide festival celebrating undergraduate research at UH will begin April 8.  “In the past we have had different colleges have their own research fairs,” Konan said. “What we did is try to partner them all together.” 

The First Annual Manoa FORCE: Festival of Research and Creative Expression is the first of its kind on campus.  “As a campus we are very interested in seeing undergraduates dong practitioner experience,” Smatresk said.  “FORCE is a way of drawing attention to (undergraduates) and getting them more involved.  It’s also a way of celebrating some really remarkable things our undergraduates have done.”

Revamp QLC

The final initiative Konan has planned to improve the educational environment at UH is the reorganization of the Queen Liliuokalani Center for Student Services.  “Students were concerned that it was hard to find the services they needed,” Konan said.   She added, “We are going to redesign the office space in (QLC) to better serve the needs of students. I think it will provide more of an integrated one-stop-shop kind of center for students.”  The revamp of QLC will take place summer 2006.