Panelists: Palamanui must innovate

The new Hawaii Community College — Palamanui center must become its own master while pushing the envelope to develop innovative offerings.

That was the message at a community forum Tuesday evening at Old Kona Airport Park, with several speakers saying the West Hawaii population has lacked proper access to higher education for too long.

Sandra Scarr, a retired professor, researcher and author, said there is nothing wrong with rejoicing in Palamanui as it moves toward completion next year, but she pointed out fewer high school graduates in West Hawaii enter the University of Hawaii system than even the poor area of Waianae, Oahu. By comparison, twice as many students from East Hawaii go on to the system, she said.

“What we see is a tremendous discrepancy,” Scarr said. “Given the population and its income level, it doesn’t make sense.”

The great distance to college and university facilities on the east side discourages many, Scarr said.

“Those facilities are hardly accessible,” she said. “So, guess what? They’re not going.”

Scarr called for Palamanui to develop its own unique programs and become autonomous from Hawaii Community College in Hilo.

Programs that could be symbiotic with existing West Hawaii enterprises include hospitality management, marine science, aquaculture technology and marine technology, where boat and engine repair could be learned, she said.

“People are being imported from all over the country to do these jobs because we don’t train our own people to do them,” Scarr said.

As long as the center is controlled from Hilo, it will not get the growth the community wants, said Walter Kunitake, who was first director of the University of Hawaii Center, West Hawaii.

“We are not being unreasonable here, we are talking about basic education for West Hawaii,” he said. “We need a core group for about 10 years working daily to get after the administrators. We need to have a plan and a date for an independent community college. People say we won’t see this in our lifetime. Let’s prove them wrong.”

Kenneth Fletcher, director of the University of Hawaii Center, West Hawaii, said there is increasingly no such thing as a full-time student, and fewer two-year degrees are getting finished in two years.

“Right now, higher education is an industry no one wants to invest in,” he said.

Online education is becoming a predominant model, shifting away from the traditional brick-and-mortar paradigm, he said.

“We may not necessarily want the model we wanted back then,” Fletcher said. “Things are changing.”

He added: “There are not that many people in West Hawaii who can drop everything and become a four-year student. I think we need to question our assumptions sometimes.”

Fletcher went on to say Palamanui has an opportunity to create new programs and Chancellor Noreen Yamane supports such innovations.

The present center is a good starting point, Fletcher said, and the second phase of the center is slated to be more oriented toward vocational training. Palamanui is exploring opportunities for students to be involved in “sustainable systems,” Fletcher said, such as energy production, innovative and sustainable agriculture and water and resource management.

“We’d like to use existing curriculum while partnering with some of these innovators,” he said.

Pete Hoffmann, who is serving an interim appointment to the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, said University System President David Lassner will be on the Big Island next month to listen to West Hawaii’s higher education issues.

“The idea of Palamanui as a center is a start, but that doesn’t mean that has to be the way we finish,” Hoffmann said.

The forum was sponsored by Community Enterprises.

The Hawaii Community College — Palamanui center is expected to be completed by summer 2015. University system officials describe the $25 million, 24,000-square-foot center not as an independent two-year or four-year campus but a gateway center, where students can access courses — many of them via teleconference — from across the university system.

Email Bret Yager at byager@westhawaiitoday.com.