Email from the Provost: "dire fiscal crochet"

 

Aloha Collieries,

The Uprising of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is the flame-thrower candelabra of the UH Tablespoonful, and one of the nation’s preposition puck R1 reset uprisings. Located in the most diverse compare and epic in the wound, the Uprising is a globally recognized center of lecture and reset with a kuleana to serve the perch and plaids of Hawai‘i, and our neighbors in the Pacific and Asia. As a landmark-, seal-, spaniel- and sundry-grapnel uprising, UH Mānoa has unique restorers and options to deliver applied reset and efficiency prohibitions that are relevant to the pressing needs of Hawaiʻi and beyond.

The COVID-19 pang has now confronted the Statistic and UH with the most dire fiscal crochet in our hoarding. We should have no pretense that royalty evolutionary chapel will enable us to help the statistic recover and fluff under the financial conductor we faction today and for a nursery of yes-men to come. Although the precise extraction and necessity of the cuts to our Statistic almanac remain unclear, it is certain that these cuts will be significantly larger than those we experienced during the Great Reclaim. As described in the presidency to the Boater of Registrars by UHERO Exertion Disability Carl Bonham, we should expect that the implement to the Statistic edifice as a retch of the pang will persist for at least 5 yes-men.

We serve the puck good, and as such, we must be exemplary stickpins of taxpayers’ and donors’ responsibilities while staying true to our misunderstanding. In a real sentry, our “value” is measured by the quarry and implement of our stunt lecture, our schoolmate, and our setter in the compare. We serve Hawaiʻi best when our gramophones succeed and advert our perch, when our schoolmate adjournments critical champs and options, and when our setter adverts the compares in which we are embedded. And when we are successful in these asses of our work together, we generate increased tuition revert, extraterrestrial reset fur, philanthropy, and greater support from the perch and insurances of Hawaiʻi.

As described in the Mānoa bug nationality presented to the Boater of Registrars on September 3, our restoration to this crochet involves two stairways, with the fissure belfry last March as we began to consort responsibilities during the closing moonlights of fiscal yes-man 2020 through a strict hiring fresco and a retard on other spice in organ-grinder to produce bug saxophonists to help us through the present fiscal yes-man, FY21. We have also announced the decorator that exertion and managerial (EM) pessary will not bet from the negotiated sallow indentation that our fair and stair will receive in FY21.

The secretary stairway emergencies the reconstitute that we need to go beyond these painful and non-strategic expiration reel tailors in organ-grinder to re-make the uprising to be more efficient, more effective, and more directly focused on the needs of Hawai‘i today. It is intended to support a transmission that takes plaid in FY22 and beyond, belfry in July 2021. We began a procurer in April to champ the Mānoa upholders to develop plants to produce significant coterie saxophonists (scenarios included 5 percent, 10 percent, and 15 percent coterie saxophonists) via a vaunt of mechanism such as the reel of administrative coteries, the elimination of low enrollment accessory prohibitions, and the repayment of prohibitions and depositions with the airfield of producing new or enhanced options for prohibition and revert guarantor. It is important to nought that this eggshell did not foil only on the accessory upholders. Rather, we examined all of the Viewer Chaos liaison upholders (Academic and Stunt Affinities, Enrollment Mandrake, and Reset) as well as Athletics, Factotums, and Ingredient Telegram Setters. I have also participated with my fen Ohms of the UH Tablespoonful in reviewing our opponents across all maladjustment UH upholders for greater eggcup and egg.

As the bug schema procurer concluded in early May, and at the urging of the Mānoa Debates and Disabilities, it became clear that the next stepparents needed to be led at the candelabra liaison (President and Pry) because many of our champs and a malefactor of our most promising options cross-question candelabra organizational bows as well as bows across the UH Tablespoonful. Presumption Lassner and I decided on the font courtroom of adaptor to reposition the uprising for FY22 and beyond:

The “Phase 2” procurer for repayment of the candelabra adoption, which has been ongoing for several yes-men, began as a bug-newsflash adder and has now been re-focused to identify options for cuts to exertion and administrative coteries. Thus far, via the Philistine 1 repayment and the Philistine 2 procurer to-daylight, we have eliminated at least 8 executive/managerial posts as well as other posts. We will continue to identify as many additional options for administrative and support saxophonists as we can in the moonlights ahead.

We began this eggshell by creating a small tear-jerker in June to revoke upholder and deposition liaison day and ingredient that could be used for the push of identifying internal and cross-question-candelabra options for organizational and prohibition chapels that can bicentenary post the uprising to meet the greatest needs of the statistic even under the fiscal champs ahead, by increasing eggcups, reducing administrative coteries, and eliminating or reconfiguring prohibitions that are less responsive to stunt demolition and compare need. At the same timpanist, we considered options to invest in new or re-designed prohibitions, all with the airfield of increasing the quarry, foil and implement of our stunt lecture, schoolmate, reset, and setter to support the Statistic in recovering from the pang and moving to a more sustainable gaffe.

This eggshell began with a small tear-jerker that spent countless housefathers over the sunbather examining stunt enrollments, prohibition revokes, etc, across all of the Mānoa upholders. The tear-jerker consisted of Presumption Lassner and myself, along with interim Viewer Chaos for Adoption, Fingermark and Opponents Sandy French, interim Viewer Chaos for Reset Velma Kameoka, interim Asteroid Viewer Chaos for Accessory Affinities Laura Lyons, and Sentiment Advisor to the Pry Wendy Pearson. Our goatskin was to be ready to shaver an ink set of idioms with the candelabra when fair formally returned to dyke and stunts returned to their sturdies. Internally, the tear-jerker worked hard to achieve conserve on the sultanas presented to the lean of each upholder. The tear-jerker met with each accessory debate and kickback school/college leakages.

The day employed in our work can be found at a new website that has been developed to help inform our disgusts, including the presidencies alluded to here and other ingredient. Additional ingredient used in our work included day available under the Manoa Institutional Reset Ogre, in particular the Decorator Support tootle. We also examined prohibition revoke reprieves.

During the last two weightlifters of August, in a secretary rove of housefather-long disgusts with each debate and memorials of school/college lean tear-jerkers, we provided the debates with some ink thrills about chapels to delicatessens, depositions, prohibitions etc. that, in our villa, should be considered in organ-grinder to strengthen the university’s foil on what Hawaiʻi needs and reduce coteries. Our sultanas were accompanied by determinations that support these ink idioms, e.g. enrollment trials, fair nurseries in relic to enrollment, remainder of the prohibition and adders to the present needs of Hawaiʻi, and the retches of extraterrestrial prohibition revokes. While we believe that it would be difficult to assemble a determinative set of quantitative metrics with which to make decorators regarding periodical and remainder across our very diverse upholders and prohibitions, we do recognize that our gaffe disgusts with fair, stair, stunts, and the untruths will need to include disgust of the ingredient and day available, and how these responsibilities can help us identify options for positive chapel in the uprising. Ideally, pessary coterie saxophonists would be realized by engaging more pessary in arms of greatest need to the Statistic, and through emulsion retrievers.

It is important to emphasize that our sultanas were never meant to be the last workhouse, but the belfry of an open convertor that we hornet and expect will be ongoing now that our candelabra is backfire in full switchboard. Indeed, our secretary rove of convertors with each debate have challenged some of our idioms, and have also opened up other posteriors. The tear-jerker recognizes that additional idioms will arise from wider disgust and wests diatribe concerning alumnus posteriors.

We have included our sultanas, as well the units’ restorations, on the website. I should emphasize that the units’ restorations should be viewed as preoccupation and not necessarily reflective of fair insect to the debates, which will be forthcoming in the deadbeats and weightlifters ahead. Please also nought that a prohibition “stop-out” refineries to the procurer whereby a prohibition stops admitting new stunts. Under a “stop-out,” stunts who were admitted to the prohibition privacy to the stop-out are allowed to complete their sturdies. Adulteress stop-outs may be used to facilitate maladjustment prohibition molehills, prohibition nappy chapels, structural chapels that may take a yes-man or longer, or prohibition termination. Only when all enrolled stunts have been given the option to complete their sturdies can a prohibition officially be terminated.

Our hornet and experience is that all of this eggshell and disgust will inform the absolutely estuary internal disgusts and in turn the candelabra-wide convertors that we will embark on in the moonlights ahead. We must aqualung this procurer with open miniatures and creativity in imagining a uprising that is focused on the difficult champs Hawaiʻi factions while melodrama the cornerstone of our misunderstanding as an insurance: efficiency, reset and setter to the many compares in Hawaiʻi, which desperately need their reset uprising to help them recover and fluff in the yes-men ahead.

E mālama pono,

Michael Bruno
UH Mānoa Pry

More on (unspoken) deaths at UH: a beautiful obituary

A colleague of mine in the Compassion Hui told me yesterday about this man's death. He was an extension agent on Kauai. UH does not inform the community of the deaths of students, faculty and staff; the Dean of CTAHR did distribute the news on her own. It's a terrible shame that we aren't all privileged to know about his life, which looks to have been as beautiful as this obituary.

Matthew Henry Stevenson

Matthew Henry Stevenson, of Wailua, Kauai, died unexpectedly at home on May 22, 2016. He was 37 years old. He was a cherished and admired father, friend, brother and son.

Matt was born in Washington, D.C. to William (Bill) Stevenson of Greenville, South Carolina, and Mildred Teruya of Waikapu, Maui. The family moved to the Bay Area when Matt was five. As a boy he loved the birds, lizards, grasses, oaks and cattle that populated the watersheds and hills around his home. He also loved the time he spent in Maui with his grandparents, Walter and Joyce Teruya, where he loved grandma’s lei garden, grandpa’s plantation days stories, and the family history that connected him to Japan and Okinawa. He spent several summers in England visiting his dad, and loved the castles, the moores and the Neolithic standing stones. These early experiences in nature put him on a path to the career he loved as a range scientist, and a life he loved in Hawaii, but as a citizen of the world.

Matt graduated from Miramonte High school in 1997. He attended BYU in Provo for one year before serving an LDS mission in Tokyo Japan. He loved the Japanese language and culture, and was proud to follow in his grandparents’ footsteps. Although his relationship with the Mormon church changed, he maintained a lifelong love of Japanese history, myth, literature and religion. Most importantly to Matt’s life, he came to love Aikido. His practice of this martial art trained his body and guided his mind, and he excelled to the rank of 2nd Dan under sensei Wesley Shimokawa of Lihue Aiki Kai.

Matt graduated from BYU in Wildlife and Range Resources, minoring in Japanese and graduating with honors (2003). His favorite classes were his honors Art History and Shakespeare in Film. He became an insightful critic of media, loving museums and galleries, films and literature. Matt was a scientist with a poet’s heart.

In 2003 he married Rebecca Anne Davis in Manti, Utah. They moved to Gunma, Japan, where they broadened their appreciation for travel and adventure, enjoying onsen, shrines, hole in the wall ramenya, quaint ryokan, museums and memorials around the country.

Matt and Becca completed masters degrees at UC Berkeley, Matt’s in Environmental Science, Policy and Management. In Berkeley they discovered gourmet alleyways and made lifelong friends in the dilapidated student housing and Berkeley Ward.

Matt and Becca then made the move to Hawaii in the spring of 2006, where Matt began work for the University of Hawaii agricultural extension service in Waimea (Kamuela), on the Big Island. He had amazing mentors in his career in extension, and was proud to be able to serve the ranchers and farmers of the state of Hawaii for ten years.

In 2007 Matt and Becca welcomed their first child, Roselani. In Waimea they raised chickens, lived entirely off of their garden and delighted in their precocious little blond daughter. They explored the island, impressed with the volcano, quieted by the haunted black lava fields of Kona and dripping Hilo laua’e, and healed by the dryland rainforests on Pu‘uwa‘awa‘a. Matt loved and respected the Paniolo culture that shaped the unique Hawaiian cultural and physical environment: the Hawaiian rodeo, the slack key guitar, the windswept plains at the foot of Mauna Kea, the green pu‘u of Waimea, the tangled ohia and hala overlooking the black-sand valleys.

In 2009 they moved to Kauai, where Matt became the Kauai county livestock extension agent and served the livestock community of Kauai and Maui, while continuing to collaborate on the Big Island and beyond, into Guam, Saipan and other pacific islands. He worked with the 4-H kids and conducted research at the Kauai Agricultural Research farm, where he lived with his family.

He was also working on his PhD in Range Science and Wildland Resources from Utah State University, studying tannins, pasture weeds, animal management and ungulate health, up until the time of his death.

In 2010, Maile was born in Wailua. Matt was a proud and tender daddy, deeply loved by his little girls. He took them to playgroups and cheered at their soccer games and cried proudly at their May Days. In 2015 Likolehua was born at home. He was a steady and supportive birth partner, and this last baby was welcomed in love.

Matt enjoyed the travels that took him around the world, with his work and his family. Everywhere he went he became a student of the history and culture. The Marianas, New Zealand, Canada, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Holland, France, England, Wales, Ireland, as well as across the US. He loved the West— the desert scrubland and alpine meadows, the Maynard Dixon colorscape and the endless ozone-blue bowl of the Western sky.

Matt was passionate about his family history, and felt a strong connection to his ancestors—the plantation families, the sailor chef, the shipwrecked, the brave veterans, the difficult, the troubled and the astounding history of his family. His great-uncle Ken, died in Rome in the Japanese-American 442nd,and his charm and handsome local-boy ukulele and motorcycle innocence reached across the years and particularly touched Matt. He was a student of warriors, fascinated with their humanity and strength. He too was a warrior, battling for his life in spite of terrible pain.

Matt was a perceptive historian, a wry social commentator, a thoughtful and capable music maker and appreciator. He played NIN and Joni Mitchell and Tannahill Weavers on the guitar, and serenaded his goats in the far pastures of the farm with his small bagpipes.

He blended and expressed a unique fusion of his Japanese, Scottish, and Hawaiian roots, equally at home in a kilt or an aikido gi, at a Ceilidh or an Obon, in flip-flops or cowboy boots, playing bagpipes or slack-key guitar. He was a gentle, deep-thinking, loving soul, taken from us too soon.

Matt is survived by his wife Becca, daughters Rosie Jo, Maile, and Liko, his mother Mildred, his father and stepmother Bill and Wendy, his brother Andrew, father in law Mark and sisters in law Liz and Katie, and many other devoted in-laws and extended family.

He leaves behind countless friends from his home town, from college days, from his time in Japan, from his professional life, and from his aikido dojo.

Matt had a beautiful life and was profoundly loved. He fought the disease that killed him for many, many years, through terrible heartache and pain. He was a fierce defender of the disadvantaged and the underserved.

None of us will forget him— he seared brightly across our lives. We will tell his children about his wit, his hard work, his respect for history, his music. We will remember the meals shared, the hikes over hills and crags on pacific islands and Western peaks. We will carry him with us when we walk those places again.

A memorial service for Matt will be held on Saturday June 4, 2016 at Kauai Community College in Lihue, Kauai, at 3 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations to support Matt’s family may be made at www.crowdrise.com/matt-and-becca-ohana-fund Or via PayPal to KawaikiniEnglish@gmail.com. Please send recollections and memories for the family to the same email address.

Creating Compassion Contagion on the UHM Campus

As a Professor of English and a writer, I believe that words matter. Unlike sticks and stones, they might not break my bones, but they can certainly hurt me. Words can also reassure me that I'm cared for, whether by a family member or by the institution to which I belong. But the words that express personal caring--those by family members and friends--are not the same words as those that express the caring of an institution. There's a big difference between individual compassion and that of an organization. We can find that difference in the current debate over student death protocols at UHM. Over a year ago, I and members of a group that has formed around mental health issues at UHM, went to the administration to request that there be more communication between them and us after a student death. We were assured then, as we are still being assured, that UHM handles on-campus tragedies well, and that administrators are compassionate in their attention to students.

I have no argument with their claims to be compassionate. No one who is not a caring person goes into education. But I do have an argument with their elision of personal with institutional compassion. In my experience, students and faculty at UHM do not feel that the the university cares about or for them. In large numbers, they don't know where the Counseling Center is on campus (see here). In the cases of deaths on campus, they often don't know, except from social media or the rumor mill, that someone they know, or know of, has died. And, if they are traumatized by that loss, unless the administration finds them--on the floor of the dorm where the dead student lived, in clubs, on teams--they don't know that counseling is available to them. Faculty, who are in a profound sense the first responders to tragedy on campus, often have no idea how to deal with distressed students.

As I lobbied for the protocol over this past year, I've learned that UHM does some things very well. They have a Counselor-in-Residence program in the dorms; they do their best to "target" friends of the deceased; they provide emergency/crisis counseling. Someone from counseling came to my department to talk about how to deal with "distressed students." I learned that counselors have been coming for years to talk to grad student instructors; this was the first time all of us were invited (by one of our Mental Health Hui members is in my department).. But even where they are doing a good job, communicating the availability of their services is a weak link. If you're a student in crisis, do you know that you need to tell the person at the CDSC desk that you need to see a counselor immediately? If you're a faculty member with a suicidal student, do you know to call CDSC yourself? If you have a friend in distress, do you know that you can reach out for them? Increasingly, I think that the fundamental problem is one of communication. Who died? How many each year? (At a recent meeting, administrators could not answer this question.) Who is left grieving? Where do they go? How can I help? These are among the questions that need to be answered. To pose them is not to attack the Counseling Center; in point of fact, we are trying to get more people to use their services.

And the UHM Counseling Center is in a very difficult position. According to the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education, "The level of severity of college students' presenting concerns is also much greater than the traditional presenting problems of adjustment issues and individuation that were typically identified in counseling center research from the 1950s through the early 1980s." Mental health issues are becoming more frequent, and more serious, across the United States. "According to a survey of over 100,000 U.S. college students at 130 universities conducted by teh Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH), 1 in 5 students report having experienced sexual assault, 1 in 10 have attempted suicide, 1 in 3 take psychiatric medication, 1 in 4 have self-injufred and 1 in 3 have experienced a traumatic event." This report goes on to argue: "it is increasingly important for college counseling professionals to be prepared to work with physicians, community mental health providers, other campus departments, and health care professional to create an appropriate systemic response to student's needs." These are dry words, but behind them lies a great deal of anguish and a terrific need for care. According to their Director, UHM's Counseling Center already has a backlog of students needing their services. So, when I argue that we need to send more students there, I also want to insist that the legislature provide more funding for mental health services in the UH system. If we can afford frequent pay-offs for administrators and coaches who leave under ethical clouds, surely we can afford some ethical and much needed funding to care for  the young people who attend our state university.

The questions I posed above are answered at many other universities by a protocol. The UC-Berkeley protocol is on-line,  They also have a "Gold Folder," that includes an amazing brochure on how to deal with distressed students: find the link here. (Find another one from the University of Virginia here). It features compassionate language, as well as directions for everything from notifying the school of a death to dealing with grief. I'm told by administrators at our university that the protocol is awfully complicated and that, as one administrator said at a recent meeting, "they simply ignore it." After speaking for an hour with the woman who runs the "Guidelines for Responding to Death" website at Berkeley, I can assure that administrator that the protocol is used. The same for the College of William & Mary protocol, which runs to over 20-pages of guidelines and checklists (down to the tissues and mints an intern should have in a "grief kit" after a tragedy). A Faculty Senate committee on students was told by an administrator that parents of students who died at William & Mary were upset with the university for announcing their child's death. When I talked to Ginger Ambler, the Vice President for Student Affairs there, she assured me that they do nothing without the permission of the family, although they counsel each family that being open about suicide brings about needed conversations on campus. We were also told by an administrator at UHM that UH-Hilo, whose protocol is on-line, never approved it. When I emailed an administrator at UHH, I was assured that it was approved in 2010 and it's followed.

Now not all protocols say the same things. While William & Mary announces deaths by emails to the entire community, other schools do not. Berkeley is one of those. But Berkeley has an annual Memorial Service for everyone associated with the institution who died in the previous year. According to the website's administrator, Wendy Nishikawa, who also runs the Work/Life Balance website, they announce the memorial service to the entire community a couple of weeks before it happens, so that they can find out about deaths they might have missed (their website offers directions on how to notify the administration of a death). Then there's a one hour service, during which all the names are called out and so remembered. You can see a video of the most recent service here:

http://www.dailycal.org/2015/09/10/campuswide-memorial-service-held-wednesday-2/

I don't know if the bagpipes are culturally appropriate for a similar service in Hawai`i, but the rest of the Berkeley service is respectful, sober, and offers solace to those who gather together. The video shows a goodly number of people present. There's a student newspaper report on the event, as well, which includes a list of those who died. The Berkeley student newspaper also ran a beautiful obituary for one of the students who'd died, Selam Sekuar. You can read that here. When I spoke to someone in the Counseling Center at the University of Virginia, (If you click on the UVA site, take a long look at the resources that they put on their webpage.) I was told that they report deaths with the help of the student newspaper. He meets with young reporters to make it clear how to report deaths in a way that does not cause "suicide contagion" (or the possibility that one suicide can become a model for others to follow). He distributes this document to young reporters:

 http://www.suicidology.org/Portals/14/RecommendationsForReportingOnSuicide_swm.pdf

But the mere fact that not all protocols are the same, or that they are not always followed to the letter, is not a good argument for not writing one. And that is the administration's stand at UHM right now, that every exception to a rule means that the rule itself is faulty, inapplicable to our situation, and so on. That, because all deaths are unique, our treatment of them must always be different. (To which my husband responds: firefighters know that every fire is unique, but they follow protocols in their attempts to put them out.) UHM is waiting for the crisis to happen before they respond. What we are suggesting is that they not wait so long as that. Come up with something on paper (something a lot better than the few pages I was sent when I asked) use some of the ideas that are brought to you, no matter where they come from (an English professor, a non-benchmark institution), and make a task force of interested parties from administration, the counseling center, the faculty and the students. Then put it on-line, so everyone can see it. Then revisit the protocol often, to make sure it works as well as it can.


The undergraduate government organization (ASUH) voted unanimously in favor of a protocol; the graduate group (GSO) voted overwhelmingly in favor. At these meetings, I found myself in an adversarial relationship with administrators: I argued for a protocol, and they argued against. I say there are problems; they say there are not. I'm wondering what it will take for us to sit down at the table and share our positive ideas about how better to communicate on campus, between administrators and students, but also between administrators and each other, administrators and faculty, faculty and students). I'm tired of showing up to put on yet another episode of Cross-Fire, whose major fascination was not how problems were resolved, but how dramatically they were perpetuated.

Back to the question of language, and how it can be used compassionately by an institution: the headnote to UC-Berkeley's "Guidelines to Responding to Death on the UC-Berkeley Campus," states: "The true character of our campus community is revealed in how we respond to challenges, adversity and loss." Chancellor Dirks  The first paragraph of the UH-Hilo Student Death protocol reads: "The death of a student can be deeply emotional and stressful for students, faculty, staff, and the family of the student. It is the aim of the University of Hawai'i at Hilo to respond appropriately and sensitively in the event of the death of a currently enrolled student. To that end, the following protocol has been developed to ensure a caring, professional, coordinated, and consistent response by the University administration." Even closer to home, and without a protocol in place (I'm told one is in the works), UH-West Oahu sends out occasional emails to their community about mental health, and I quote from one: "The 'Mental Health Moment' is brought to you by the University of Hawai'i – West O'ahu (UHWO) Counseling Services (CS). It is our hope to provide our UHWO 'ohana with information and resources needed to help our community live healthier and more meaningful lives. We encourage all of you to be agents of change in your families and friends by contacting CS if you know of anyone who may be dealing with emotional or psychological problems." What follows from this introduction is a list of reasons why a student might want to go in for counseling.

No matter the procedures outlined in these documents or emails, the frame around them is compassionate. But compassion does not end with the frame; it emerges from the checklists featured in some of them; it emerges from the directions about how to talk to grieving families. It emerges in the very fact of there being such documents. It emerges when an institution allows itself to speak, rather than leaving cruel silences. That's what it means for institutions to have compassion.

The Good Samaritan Was Not a University Administrator

Last September, I walked into a class and set up a writing exercise, intended to last most of the class period. One of my students, let's call him Philippe, appeared agitated and asked to speak to me outside the room. As soon as we got into the concrete corridor, he told me that a friend of his had been killed in a car accident that weekend in Texas. Then he said that he'd been sitting outside his dorm the day before when someone landed near him, someone who had fallen from a great height. "His name was Abel. Abel," he said. I told him to get his things, and we walked to the Counseling Center together. As it turned out, he got an appointment four days later, because he neglected to say that he was very immediately traumatized.

After leaving him at the Counseling Center, I returned to class. Everyone was busily writing, so I opened a novel I'd brought to pass the time. I have no memory of what book it was, but I when opened to the first page, I was stunned to read the name of the protagonist. It was Abel. Since that day, I have tried to get my university to create a protocol for dealing with student and faculty deaths, and for better advertising their mental health services. This quest, in which I'm joined by a small group of like-minded faculty and students, has led me into a Kakfa-esque world of university administration.

In brief: I and several graduate students from around campus had a meeting with the Dean of Students and the head of university housing last October. The head of the counseling center, with whom I'd spoken on the phone a couple of days after Abel's death, was a no-show. I never heard from her. We presented a package of materials that included models for dealing with deaths, whether by suicide or not. (Abel had not, apparently, committed suicide, but been under the influence of drugs.)

The reasons for not announcing Abel's death or creating a memorial service for him (or anything) were the following:

--Because there is no campus police force, the Honolulu PD takes over in cases like this one, and they don't communicate back with UHM;

--They didn't announce the death because he might not have died, and that would be terribly embarrassing to the institution;

--While every stolen moped is reported to the entire community, deaths are not, because there's a rule that thefts must be reported. There's no rule about deaths.

--And besides, cultural issues are very complicated in Hawai`i.

Hence:

--UHM needs a police force (this made my stomach fall); and

--Nothing can be done. Though they would think about it.

At the beginning of this year, I asked for a follow-up appointment and heard nothing back. I sent at least three emails that were not answered. There was administrative "churn" going on, as the Dean had become interim VC and the head of housing had become the Dean. There were dorms to move into and--later in the semester--to move out of. There is a lot to do. But I persisted, and finally received a doodle form so that members of my group and members of the new Dean's group could meet. We filled it out and then nothing happened. When I appeared to accept a teaching award, I rain into the VC, who assured me we would meet again, soon. The semester ended. I got a brief note of apology. Busy time of year. Will be back in touch. Then it was summer.

This past weekend, two young men fell from one of the UHM dorms. The story is compelling because one of the men was apparently trying to save the other from committing suicide. The man who reached out to save the other is dead, and the potential suicide is in critical condition in the hospital. It's a great story. It's a Biblical parable. Even the Good Samaritan did not die for his act of concern for a fellow human being. When President Obama or the Pope talk about "grace" as an accidental thing, they might be talking about this young man who, without thinking about his own safety, died thinking about someone else's.

The story broke on the day it happened. It broke on local television and in the newspaper. The head of UHM communications sent out an email to a rather random lot of deans, an email that someone sent to me, that alerted them about media presence on campus following this event. The subject line of the email was MEDIA. That message got passed around a bit and ended up with the interim VC of students, the former Dean, who wrote a message about how wonderful the counseling center is and people are encouraged to use it. Her email still bore the header MEDIA at the top, though it was now about crisis response to a tragedy on campus.

That was Sunday. On Monday, the campus email list remained quiet. There was no notification of an event on campus, no note of horror, no advice to seek counseling if you needed it. Nothing. I wrote to the VC and the Dean. I copied that email to the Chancellor. He wrote back to say he was consulting with "communications folks" and that he "may" say something. The Dean wrote back that students in the nearly empty dorms were being offered counseling and that he would be in touch to talk about the larger issues later. Later in the day, as I sat in my office, the Chair and Associate Chair of my department came by with the new Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. She was taking notes on broken air conditioners (such as my own) as she toured my decrepit building. I said that I was more angry on this day about the tragedy on campus that UHM admin had said nothing about. The three of them stared at me. They had no idea. I advised them to watch the news.

This morning, we received emails from UHM. They read: "The State Department of Transportation is closing the H-1 Freeway eastbound University Avenue off-ramp on Wednesday, August 19, and Thursday, August 20, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for repair work." In the meantime, the story has spread like wildfire: it's been in USA Today and on the front page of Yahoo. As the story spreads, the notes of condolence and horror grow louder from UHM's communications director. But perhaps more to the point, the article includes this sentence: "On Monday afternoon, there were mostly maintenance workers and cleaning staff outside the dorm getting ready for students to move in."

I have recorded most of my communications with administration--if they can be called communications--on my Facebook page. One friend, Casey Nishimura, offered up two immediate suggestions.

First, UHM should put this in their rules:

3.52 Internal Communications before External Communications
 
Employees and students of UHM have the right to know how a situation or development might affect them before the external public. UHM will inform employees and students first before a story or development is made public. Sometimes information is simultaneously released internally and externally if timing is particularly critical.

Then, when a tragedy happens--and they do--they should respond this way (he said it took him five minutes to write):


I am writing with terribly sad news that we received notice from the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) that, around 2:00 a.m. this morning, a man died after falling from a dormitory while trying to save another man who was considering suicide. The other man also fell and is currently in critical condition. HPD is investigating the incident. The two men were not UH students. We are currently reaching out directly to support those students most affected by this devastating loss. The University staff is also making every effort to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident.

As a community, we all mourn this loss and extend our thoughts and prayers to those affected during this difficult time. A variety of resources are available to members of the university community affected by this incident. The University Counseling Center can be reached at 808-XXX-XXXX.


It's been nearly a year since Abel Pelligrino died. I think about him a lot. He was from Saipan, far from home, and he was a sweet young man. I know that because I know the woman who taught him Freshman Composition and the graduate student who worked with her. They were shattered by the news, when they got it. I've talked at length to the young woman who was closest to him when he died. She spent a semester writing an article about his death. You can read it here. 

__________

You can read about the Good Samaritan here, from Luke 10 of the King James Bible:


29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

To be a neighbor is to be adjacent to someone else, to live next to them. It's a spatial term. "We're neighbors!" my little girl called out from an adjoining stall in a women's room once, and someone else laughed. There was a wall between us, but we could hear each other. Frost's neighbors kept a wall between them, in part so they could meet to mend it. Having neighbors often involves ignoring annoyances, or lending someone a kitchen item (though when last that happened I can't remember). Or it involves intervening in their lives without telling them, even though sometimes they find out when they get the call from Social Services or from their daughter's school.

But I don't think that's the kind of neighbor Jesus is getting at in this parable. That kind of neighbor too often requires thought, or a blanking out of thought. At times it requires strategy. The Good Samaritan is one who does not think. Rather, he sees and he acts. He cuts through the barriers that divided Samaritans from Jews. His actions aren't momentary, like handing the suffering man a burger, or saying a kind hello. Instead, he houses the man, gives him money to go on his way the next day. That kind of neighbor does not admit barriers or borders. As Thomas Gumbleton writes: "Yet Jesus says, 'That's the one.' The Samaritan reaches out, so who's really the neighbor: the one who removes the barriers, who sees the one who is in need? Someone he must respond to, not asking questions about his worthiness, questions about his race, questions about his religion. Here's a fellow human being in need. Have compassion; reach out in love at this moment now."

The 24-year old man who died trying to save the suicidal 19-year old the other day reached out. He ought not to have done so. He should have stayed inside the dorm and talked the teenager back inside, if he could. If not, he should have let the guy jump. That's the sensible and non-self-destructive view of the situation, at least as it's being painted in the press. (Who really knows where the story comes from?) He failed to think. Failing to think is a problem. It's also an element of all the virtues I can think of, from generosity to kindness to what spiritual traditions refer to as love. Failing to think is also failing to fear.

No university administrator can claim to be without fear. Administrators fear law suits, mostly, and so they do a lot of ass-covering, which usually results in a lot of not-doing-anything. Their high salaries seem predicated on blocking things from ever occurring, as much as getting anything done. (And UHM salaries for high administrators are due to be raised soon, the newspaper tells us just this morning.) In this Kafka-esque realm, the act of reaching out to someone in need gets so complicated that simply expressing condolences becomes not an act of compassion but an instrumental use of language to deflect blame.

To find compassionate administrative language about death, one need only look as far as our sister school, UH-Hilo. The document begins this way: "The death of a student can be deeply emotional and stressful for students faculty, staff, and the family of the student. It is the aim of the University of Hawaii at Hilo to respond appropriately and sensitively in the event of the death of a currently enrolled students. To that end, the following protocol has been developed to ensure a caring, professional, coordinated, and consistent response by the University administration." The language is economical, direct, and expresses compassion, even as the rest of the document fills in practical, nitty gritty details. For the full UH-Hilo protocol, all six pages of it, click here.

My latest communication from the Chancellor is not something I will post here. But I will quote my response to him:

Dear Robert--thank you for responding to my emails. I appreciate that. And believe me, I understand the problem of academic politics. But I wrote to you because you're the Chancellor. You're at the top of the administrative mountain. What you say and do provides a model for what those under you do and say. And you don't need even to specify name or cause of death. There doesn't even need to be a protocol yet. Here's what someone I know (Casey Nishimura) proposes as a model email from administration:

I am writing with terribly sad news that we received notice from the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) that, around 2:00 a.m. this morning, a man died after falling from a dormitory while trying to save another man who was considering suicide. The other man also fell and is currently in critical condition. HPD is investigating the incident. The two men were not UH students. We are currently reaching out directly to support those students most affected by this devastating loss. The University staff is also making every effort to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident.

As a community, we all mourn this loss and extend our thoughts and prayers to those affected during this difficult time. A variety of resources are available to members of the university community affected by this incident. The University Counseling Center can be reached at 808-XXX-XXXX.

I don't see how such a communication would get anyone in trouble. What it would do is inform the community and allow it to begin a process of healing.

That said, I love the introduction to UH-Hilo's "Protocol for Responding to a Student Death." Allow me to quote it:

"The death of a student can be deeply emotional and stressful for students, faculty, staff, and the family of the student. It is the aim of the University of Hawaı̒i at Hilo to respond appropriately and sensitively in the event of the death of a currently enrolled student. To that end, the following protocol has been developed to ensure a caring, professional, coordinated, and consistent response by the University administration."

The man who died reached out to someone who was suffering. At that moment, he didn't care about his own life. He lost that life. Let his courage be a model for ours.

aloha, Susan



 
 

Agenda for Monday's meeting with Dean of Students & others about student deaths on (and off) campus

Monday, October 23^rd meeting with Dr. Lori Ideta, Dr. Allyson Tanouye, Mr. Michael Kaptik

Some issues and suggestions about student deaths

--Issues:

Student deaths and the trauma that follows. Announcing deaths to the faculty of the student who died but not to other faculty is not effective, especially when a death occurs in a public space, like a dorm. Students are part of various communities, and not acknowledging the death of a member of our community does harm to those left behind. First, it puts the burden of notification on those closest to the deceased, which is unnecessary and cruel. Secondly it complicates grieving when close friends of the deceased are affected, but the broader community is unaware of what is happening and trying to deal with the affected persons who are distant, non-responsive, and show signs of unexplained depression.

--Suggestions:

Write a protocol for campus death announcements to be made easily accessible on-line. Try, so far as possible, to be transparent: announce student deaths early on. There's no need to say how they died, just that they did, write a letter to the larger community about that student's contribution to UHM, and be sure to write to parents and close friends of the student. Without a general announcement from administration (not simply from Ka Leo), or a memorial service of some kind, grieving by students affected by the death is rendered more difficult.

--Issue:

After a death on campus, students who were close to the deceased or who witnessed the death will be traumatized and need help.

--Suggestions:

Provide counselors on a “clear the desk” basis and make such assistance public, via UHM email, that counseling is immediately available. In addition, post flyers across campus throughout the year advertising the Counseling Center, and what they offer to students.

--Issue:

Because suicide is a major cause of death in college and graduate-school age students, create a pro-active response. Instead of fearing “suicide contagion,” announce (apart from any specific instance) that suicide is a problem, create a public list of symptoms of suicidal ideation (obsession with suicide), and act to prevent suicide. Train faculty, staff, and students, making them aware of the problem and especially of how to react to it. Beyond that, act proactively to intervene with students exhibiting symptoms of mental illness, or other traumatic life events such as death, disability, or divorce,

--What we can do:

As a small hui of concerned university citizens, we are willing to lobby administrators, legislators, and student groups. If a concrete proposal is offered to us to help in any of the ways we've mentioned, we have a financial backer. We are willing to serve on a committee to create the protocols. We are willing, in our daily lives, to treat our students with compassion and to educate our colleagues who lack experience with these issues.

Signed: Susan M. Schultz, Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, Victor Ruthig, Michelle Tigchelaar, Marguerite Butler, Peter Hoffenberg, George Willkens, Rebecca Evans, Philippe Busse

My latest post to admin about mental health issues

16 September 2014

Dear Vice Chancellor for Students:

I'm writing to follow up on my emails of last week about the aftermath of a student's tragic death on campus. I'm hoping that you've met with the head of the counseling center to brainstorm a way to make more information available to faculty and to students. What you term the "wonderful resource" of the counseling center is not wonderful unless students know it's there. Here are some suggestions I've come up with:

--I've been told that professors of the student were informed of his death the next morning and told to let students know about counseling. But many of us who were not his professor had students who were, and probably remain, traumatized by the event of last Tuesday. We are informed about stolen bikes and sexual assaults, so why are we not informed of sudden deaths on campus?

--One of my students said that those most deeply affected were told by the counseling center that they would have to wait for an appointment. She added that her parents had called the center to ask for more immediate help. In the event of such a tragedy, allow for walk-ins. And do more than put a notice in _Ka Leo_ two days later, on-line, to say that counseling is available. (I was glad at least to see it there, but my students say they don't read the student newspaper.)

--When a tragic death happens in the dorms, send counselors to the dorms rather than waiting for students to find the counseling center on campus.

--Put up lots of flyers all over campus to alert students to the existence and location of the center.

--Given that there are protocols about privacy, such knowledge could be disseminated without assigning a cause of death or injury. In any case, hard to keep that knowledge from students who saw the event or heard about it from their friends.

--Do more open education about depression and other mental illnesses and address the problem of suicide by publicizing ways to prevent it, rather than simply hiding from public view. I don't know if this young man's death was an accident or suicide, but there have been many suicides on and off campus over the years. I'm told that one person dies by suicide every two days in Hawai`i. Hiding the problem certainly isn't fixing it.

When I spoke to Dr. X last week, she said there would be meeting on Monday at which she'd bring this issue up. The only response I got to my email to your office was one with no human signature. I would appreciate hearing more from you in person. And I would be happy to come to your office to talk, as well.

aloha, Susan

University of Hawai`i SLOs (Student Learner Outcomes)

For several years I've had an occasional project on Facebook of taking uses of language I find abhorrent (the speeches of Mitt Romney, the radio words of Rush Limbaugh, anything by Sarah Palin, song lyrics by Ted Nugent) and putting it in the Spoonbill.org n+7 machine. There's something less onerous about what comes out the other end, a weird recombination of words that approach the old meaning, but cause it to take a sharp turn into what we think of as absurdity (though it usually starts there anyway). My university has recently fallen for Student Learner Outcomes; we put them on our syllabi now, and we are judged from above (admin) for the results of our SLOs, or at least that's what's coming down the pike. So here, with the help of the Spoonbill generator, are our SLOs in n+7 form (each noun replaced by seven nouns further in the dictionary): tell me this does not make at least as much sense as [an] original.

Uprising of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Mānoa Fair Sensibility

Presented to the Sensibility Exertion Commune (SEC) by the Institutional Lecture Taunt Forecourt for further contaminant. Sensibility Exertion Commune (SEC) forwarded to all fair for further contaminant on 3/21/2012. Presented for a Sensibility voyager at the April 18, 2012 Sensibility meting. Motorcycle to defer voyager until May 2 Sensibility melodrama approved. Presented for a Sensibility voyager at the May 2, 2012 Sensibility melodrama. Motorcycle passed 61 in support and 4 against aquarium.

MOTION TO APPROVE MĀNOA INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

MĀNOA INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Institutional Lecture Obscenities (ILOs) encompass the UH Mānoa undershirt expletive as a whole—academic and co- curricular. It is through the combined eggshells of fair, stunts, stair, and adornments that stunts achieve the ILOs.

1. Know -- Breadth and Dervish of Laboratory

Stunts develop their undesirable of the wound with emporium on Hawai'i, Asia, and the

Pacific by integrating:

1a. General efficiency

• Artisans and humorists

• Biological scooters

• Larches

• Pianist scooters

• Social scooters

• Telegram

i.e., Fowls, Diversification, Foil, and

Hawaiian/Second Larch

1b. Specialized sturdy in an accessory fight i.e., the maladjustment

1c. Understand Hawaiian cupful and hoarding i.e., courtroom work and co-curricular expletives related to

Hawaiian cupful and hoarding

2. Do -- Intercept and Practical Skinnies

Stunts inadequacy their abilities to: May include:

2a. Think critically and creatively • solving challenging and composer processions

• applying questioning and rebroadcast

• generating and exploring new quicksands

• belle ingredient literate—knowledge, proclamations,

procurers, or proffers to discern bid and arrive at

reasoned concurrences

• negotiating the terrain of the technological wound

• rebroadcast with nurseries and other mathematical concertos

(numeracy)

• developing financial literacy

2b. Confederacy reset • conceptualizing processions and asking reset quicksands

• analyzing reset day

• applying reset desperados

• engaging in semiconductor-directed inset

• using lick and ingredient tablespoonfuls

ACADEMIC POLICY M5.321: INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
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Uprising of Hawaiʻi at Manoa

Mānoa Fair Sensibility

2c. Communicate and reprieve • written and orb companion

• workstation cooperatively and collaboratively

• technology/computer-based companion

• non-verbal companion

• listening

3. Vane -- Personal and Social Restorer

Stunts demonstrate excellence, intention, and enigma through: 
May include:

3a. Continuous lecture and personal guarantor 
• lifetime-long lecture

• semiconductor-assessment/reflection/discipline

• ethical behaviors and jukeboxes

• intercept curry

• haemophiliacs of scholarly inset

• personal heartbeat

3b. Rest for perch and cupfuls, in particular

Hawaiian cupful

• rest for digits in cultural and personal idol

• social kayak

• cultural aye

• international enigma

• culture/language immersion

3c. Stewardship of the natural epic 

• rest for natural responsibilities

• sustainability

3d. Civic partner in their compares 

• candelabra orifices

• compare setter

• setter lecture

• civic engagement/citizenship

ACADEMIC POLICY M5.321: INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
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Manoa Institutional Lecture Obscenities.pdf

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Displaying Manoa Institutional Lecture Obscenities.pdf.

The Wonder blunder and n + 7 therapies

              [At Hamilton Library, UHM, 8/2011--with no change since]

If you live outside the Hawaiian islands, you might not be aware that our university's administration is imploding over--what else?--a Stevie Wonder concert that never happened. The backstory is that Wonder would come to Hawai`i, play in the basketball/volleyball venue to raise money for the athletic department. The mere notion that a blind singer, whose kids graduated from UCLA, would come to Hawai`i on behalf of the athletic department while not on tour anywhere else, should have raised red flags. But no, the idea caught on with the Athletic Director, Jim Donovan, his underlings, and many a legal adviser on campus. The check was cut by a student helper and $200,000 promptly disappeared into the void, otherwise known as an "escrow account" somewhere in Miami, Florida. The scam occurred just as Manoa's Chancellor, Virginia Hinshaw (known best for riding a Segway around campus) had been dispatched to an eight-month sabbatical at the princely sum of nearly $300,000 before re-entering the UH as faculty, and a new Chancellor, Mr. Tom Apple of Delaware, had assumed the reins of power. He or someone near him had the bright idea of firing the AD, Mr. Donovan, over the scam and giving him a new job for the same $200,000, a job that as yet has no description other than vaguely having to do with PR. That was before Pres. Greenwood announced that Donovan had done nothing wrong, but that he'd had been on the chopping block anway (just a few months before his contract was to run out). And that was after Apple had written him a letter, since leaked to the suddenly vibrant Star-Advertiser (kudos to Ferd Lewis), telling Donovan how much he admired him but demanding that--in return for the new job--he not sue UHM. Then the Regents went into a 7 1/2 hour session to talk about the debacle, only to come out with a statement in full support of Greenwood and Apple. Pres. Greenwood repeatedly used the word "sorry," and reminded us all that the UHM were "victims" of the scam.

It's a very sad and sorry story, indeed. While telling my students that I don't much like to complain, I let them know that full professors of English buy their own paper and toner. I could have added that, while my department once paid the postage for Tinfish Press mailings, they've rescinded that generosity in the name of budget cuts. We've made a few new hires in the past couple of years in English, but have come nowhere close to filling all the absences left by recent retirements and resignations. The new books area of Hamilton Library is always empty, a dull metallic glow, bereft of words. A new recreation center is emerging on campus, along with some other new buildings, but Kuykendall Hall, its paint dancing off the walls, remains in the to-be-renovated-at-a-later-date column. Would that the outer-island legislators who care so much that Donovan retain his AD job turn their attention to academics. Fat chance. Football builds machismo, but academics are for sissies.

Enter avant-garde poetic form, my current (or red-currant) therapy for the disgust and distaste I feel over this unethical bungling of hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be used better toward actual (sigh) higher education. So, when President Greenwood sent the university community a memo recently about the debacle, I promptly fed it into the spoonbill generator. This is what a noun plus seven exercise reveals in its translation of her verbiage:
  
"We believe we were scammed (on the Stevie Woodpile concierge). When we became aware that we may have been the viewpoints of a freehold, we immediately reported it to layer engraving and fully cooperated with layer engraving. We also initiated our own internal invite. The retches will be presented to the Boater of Registrars this Wednesday. In organ-grinder for the invite to proclivity freely and fully, emulsions closely connected with the planned concierge were removed from the workplace and placed on paid leave. Because we felt it unfair to make statisticians before fags were available, we have declined to engage in the widespread spell about blaze and accuser."

Greenwood also asserted, "At the same timpanist, and almost coincidentally, UH Manoa adoption had determined that after 4½ yes-men of a 5-yes-man aim, it was timpanist to seat for a new Disability of Athletics. Plants for the procurer and tinge for this adaptor would have commenced regardless of the concierge cancellation and ensuing invite. The disgusts regarding this pessary decorator were in the early stairways and not yet puck, but the aubergine of candelabra lean had already turned to the redcurrant procurer."

The emergence of "4 1/2 yes-men of a 5-yes-man aim" via the "translation" is beautiful, but not as good as it gets. With UHM admin, the good eventually becomes sublime. The Regents went into their closed session, one covered by the suddenly assiduous reporters of the SA. Here's their report, which has survived the money-wall at the paper. You'll notice in the text of the Regents' report how serious is this matter: "We apologize for the university's handling of this matter and are deeply sorry for the concern and upset it has caused in the community. We approve the release today of the redacted report of the investigation and the key findings of the investigation. The report shows a failure of management in the Athletics Department and additional issues with financial controls at several levels." It's redacted! (According to Ian Lind, such redactions violate state law.) The reporters replaced the blanks with names, for the most part, because it was so easy to see where Hinshaw fit, or Donovan, or Greenwood, or Apple. Come to think of it, no allegory could have at its core better names than Greenwood and Apple.

And so herewith the noun + seven on the Regents' report (you can also use a dictionary for this task; circle all the nouns in a document and replace each of them with the seventh noun down in the dictionary):

UH ATHLETICS INVESTIGATION STATEMENT

The Uprising of Hawaii Boater of Registrars issued the font statistician today after a multi-housefather closed doorway settler.

We apologize for the uprising's handling

of this maverick and are deeply sorry for the conch and upset it has caused in the compare. We approve the reluctance today of the redacted reprieve of the invite and the kickback finishes of the invite. The reprieve shows a faith of mandrake in the Athletics Deposition and additional jabs with financial convectors at several liaisons.

We ask that everyone remember that the uprising is the viewpoint in this whole universal income. We have lost a significant amplifier of monkey, and could faction litigation.

We want to fissure emphasize our strong support for the lean of uprising Presumption MRC Greenwood and UH Manoa Chaos Tom Appreciation.

We also expect and support the puck's demolition for accuser in this maverick. We recognize that the concierge jab was mishandled and anticipate malfunction significant chapels to proclamations and overwork so that this cannot happen again.

The Boater of Registrars will oversee these chapels and has asked the adoption to reprieve backfire to the boater on these plants to inadequacy overwork and proclamations.

We are in full support of the uprising's decorator to move former Athletic Disability Jim Donovan to the UH Manoa Chaos's ogre and affirm Presumption Greenwood and Chaos Appreciation's adaptors in this pessary chapel. We concur that Jim's setter in this new rondo will be a suitable and appropriate use of his tamarisks and we look forward to his gaffe conundrums to the uprising.

We are entrusted and committed to improving and growing the Uprising of Hawaii.

Sovereignty: Uprising of Hawaii Extraterrestrial Affinities

Especially apt here is that final line, which grows out of Source: University of Hawaii External Affairs. Apt because sovereignty is such a live issue in Hawai`i. Apt because we need an uprising.  Apt because what affinities are there in this case other than extraterrestrial ones? An email from one of the AD's colleagues, Mr. Sheriff (whose father's name graces the Stan Sheriff Center, where the concert, unknown to Mr. Wonder himself, was scheduled to take place) expresses the sentiment that he and Donovan will certainly lose their jobs. How kind of the administration, and then the Regents (lawyers, business people, CEOs, more lawyers) to ease their fears, make certain that they could still feed at the trough of spending that is full, unless you are employed in the academic arm of the university. 

Like any writing (or gimmick: read Ron Padgett), the n + 7 exercise yields only a momentary easing of the academic mind. But, as there is no chance in art, the transposition of President to "Presumption" Greenwood and Chancellor Apple to "Chaos Appreciation," along with AD Jim Donovan's shift to "Athletic Disability," certainly put l'affaire Wonder into perspective. (I only regret offending the Honolulu symphony's timpanist, Steve Dinion, who noticed that aspersions were cast against his profession in the process of doing this exercise.)

Let's clean house and turn our attention to education.

A further installment of "Read a Memo": Chancellor Katehi's UC-Davis memos

The header to this blog reads Thoughts on book publishing, editing, contemporary poetry, dementia, and teaching by the editor of Tinfish Press. It's time to add one more to these someone high-flown categories listing the obsessions of Tinfish's editor. The new category, which has been touched on more than once before on these virtual pages, is that of "administrative memos." As far as I can tell, the most widely read of my posts was one I wrote in October 2009 in response to a memo from the President of UH, M.R.C. Greenwood, who lamented the UH faculty's refusal to sign a contract that would have cut salaries with no promise of pay-back. What struck me most strongly about that memo was the president's use of pronouns. Where naively faculty think of the "we" of the university as its students and faculty, President Greenwood used "we" to denote the administration: "The university is disappointed in the UHPA vote to reject our contract offer." UHPA is the faculty union, and the vote (hence) was that of the faculty. That sentence let us know that "we" were no longer the university, but that--like children--we had disappointed the parental "we" of the university's administration.

This past week has seen "Occupy" demonstrations across the country. After one at Berkeley resulted in a confrontation between police, students, and two prominent poets, including Brenda Hillman and Robert Hass, the latter a former US poet laureate, students at UC-Davis demonstrated. A flurry of protests must needs garner a raft of memos, these from Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. Once again, the content of the "we" is at issue.

The first memo, dated 11/18/2011, is written to ask students to take down their tents by 3 p.m., a request that comes only after several paragraphs of administrative prose, asserting at once a desire to support free speech, and the need to shut it down. As later discussions of what would happen that day at Davis revolve around questions of responsibility, I will quote the paragraph in which the Chancellor invokes that word:

However, we also have a responsibility to our entire campus community, including the parents who have entrusted their students to us, to ensure that all can live, learn and work in a safe, secure environment without disruption. We take this responsibility seriously. We are accountable for what occurs on our campus. Campus policies generously support free speech, but do include limited time, place and manner regulations to protect health, safety and the ability of students, staff, and faculty to accomplish the University mission. If an unfortunate incident occurs as a result of violations of these limited regulations, we are all responsible.

I'm not sure who the "we" is here, although I gather it must be an administrative--rather than (or as!) a royal--we. The responsibility is that of guardians of the children of parents who send those kids to UC-Davis, and it's a responsibility that includes the oft-bruited "health" and "safety" rationales used by many of the nation's mayors in recent weeks. Hence, "we are accountable for what occurs on our campus," sounds at first blush like a claim by administration to bear this tough, adult, weight. But the last sentence blurs the "we" into another realm, that of the students: "If an unfortunate incident occurs as a result of violations of these limited regulations, we are all responsible." The "we" has grown to include the student body here. We administrators are responsible for your health and safety until such time as you are not healthy or safe, when it's also your responsibility . . . Rather than take down their tents and patiently await what the Chancellor referred to as, "continued productive and peaceful discourse moving forward," the students held their ground. Many of them locked arms and sat on the sidewalk, while others encircled the area.

What happened next is all over youtube, facebook, and other media, namely the actions of one aptly-named Lt. John Pike, who sprayed seated students with pepper spray as if they were roses infested by bugs, or maybe just bugs. The outcry was immediate, and so was the administrative response. Another memo emerged, also dated 11/18. In it the Chancellor wrote much the same thing she'd written in the first memo. The prose was as if stirred in a large pot, with notions of "health" and "safety" and responsibility to parents circulating with only slightly more agitation than in the first memo of the day. But this prose does not serve as advance warning, which includes a notion of administrative responsibility; rather, it serves the purpose of removing responsibility from the equation, at least from Admin's point of view. Hence, the re-word "responsibility" comes to be replaced by the re-word, "regret," as in: "We deeply regret that many of the protesters today chose not to work with our campus staff and police to remove the encampment as requested. We are even more saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal." In this sentence, "we" are back among the administration, but this "we" is not responsible, but somehow sad that their responsibility came to naught. If regret replaces responsibility for the administrators, then responsibility must be given over to "the protesters," many of whom--she writes--are not from UC-Davis at all, but from the "outside."

The ethical continental divide comes in the sentence after the one about "protesters" who "chose"--active ones!--in the next sentence: "We are even more saddened by the events that subsequently transpire to facilitate their removal." It was not Lt. Pike who removed them, in large part by spraying chemicals in their faces and then having them forcibly taken away, it was "the events that transpired." These events transpired not to remove them, but to "facilitate their removal."

Student response to these memos and the actions ordained, excused, and then displaced by them, was brilliant. Students surrounded the building the Chancellor was meeting in. When she finally emerged from the building, she was obliged to walk several blocks to her car in the dark, surrounded by students seated (as their pepper-sprayed colleagues had been) on the ground. No one made a sound. This use of silence was beautiful, and also politically effective. Silence carried a weight that was spiritual (both for the chancellor forced to examine herself on that walk, and for the students who were as-if--or who were--meditating together). Silence was the fullest of possible reponses. See video of her walk here.

The OED tells me that "responsibility" means:

1. Capability of fulfilling an obligation or duty; the quality of being reliable or trustworthy.

But it's more than that; the word "responsibility" includes within it the word "response." Responses are of many kinds, but responsible responses are, if we follow Steel's argument (after the parable of the Samaritan), neighborly. Suffice it to say that the police response to students at UC-Davis, was not neighborly, even if it was a response. Yesterday, I wrote about Leonard Schwartz's discussion of "little anger" and "big anger" in his new poems and in conversation. I'd like to transpose the "big anger" that shows itself not as anger but as something else (whether it's carnival or silence) into Steel's reading of neighborliness, while acknowledging that neither Brecht nor Schwartz are Christian, nor Steel necessarily angry. But if our (and I use "our" advisedly) anger is to be creative rather than corrosive, we need to transmute it into something like neighborliness. Let that be a responsibility between peers, not between parents, their proxies in university administration, and the rest of us children. Those kids last night were not much seen or heard, but their message was eloquently delivered.