The BYU-Hawaii President's Council met with interested faculty, staff and students at 7:00 a.m. on March 6 in the Little Theater to answer a range of questions from the floor and also pre-submitted by email. For example:
Q: What are the strengths of the faculty? What are we doing well and where is there room for improvement?
A: "I see their strengths as being dedicated and committed to the school, teaching and the students. Many of them are very accomplished researchers," responded President Steven C. Wheelwright. "I think they have great strengths in their preparation and their willingness to do what needs to be done to help the students to learn and grow."
"I also think we have the opportunity to design our teaching so that it encourages the students to come better prepared to class, and to engage with other students prior to class on the subject matter and materials — it turns out that's probably the most effective way to teach."
President Wheelwright explained a "traditional university style of instruction is a student comes to class having glimpsed the material, maybe. They listen, and hopefully they take notes. The professor lectures, but the students are not prepared to engage because they haven't really studied and engaged in the materials themselves. Then they cram for exams."
"The alternative is to try to get the students to engage before class to be prepared, then they retain the materials so much better. They're actually building mental models of the material as opposed to simply trying to memorize facts."
"We also have to continue to align our majors with the opportunities in the countries where our students come from, to make sure they're the desired employees," he added.
Q: Is there less support now for community activities on campus?
A: "In the past if they asked for it and we weren't busy, we paid for it and let them use it," President Wheelwright replied. "We've [now] made up a budget for community activities: It's very substantial — many tens of thousands of dollars — that we pay. We then went to the community organizations and said, here's the budget. There are incremental costs for janitorial, security, and some of those basic things. When you use the facilities, we will charge you, but we've also given you a budget. You decide how you want to use it." He added that any costs above budget would be charged at the incremental rate. He also noted Kahuku High chose not to use the budget allotment for their recent Songfest event.
Asked if this applies to activities on the front fields, President Wheelwright said no. "It's not true for any of our fields." However, Michael B. Bliss, Vice President of Administrative Services, added that the university does require organized sports teams who use the fields repeatedly to provide a liability release.
Q: Will the English language program for international students (EIL) be cut back?
A: "The on-campus portion of EIL, over time, we hope will be declined," President Wheelwright answered. "The concept is the following: If you ask in any of our target areas, besides a degree...what is the next most important thing we can do for our students? Fluent, professional English. In order to do that, we have to get them further, on average, than we might have been getting them in the past."
He explained the university hopes to shift some of those resources into distance learning initiatives before students arrive on campus, so they can start with regular university content courses when they come; and "use the rest of the resources so their English continues to improve while they're here."
Q: Why did BYU-Hawaii recently switch to a direct deposit payroll?
A: Bliss replied the reason is "pretty simple: Direct deposit allows us to not handle paper. Every check cut costs a fair amount of money to handle," he said. "You have to handle it, you have to print it, put it in an envelope and mail it. All of these costs are associated." He added that those who travel on university business can be reimbursed more easily.
"If people just have to have a check, they can have it," Bliss said. "We take care of all the direct deposits first."
:: To submit a question online :: For the compilation of previous questions and answers