BYU-Hawaii faculty and staff filled the McKay Auditorium on June 12 to hear the President's Council and Organizational Design Team outline the details of realigning all University functions and activities under President Steven C. Wheelwright [pictured at left], the Assistant to the President, and three vice presidents between now and the beginning of Fall Semester.
In addition to the first two positions, the current President's Council consists of four vice presidents and a Chief Information Office
Several months earlier the Design Team announced the broad concepts of the reorganization, and in the interim the current President's Council have agreed on the initial distribution of responsibilities and selected two of the new vice presidents. Dr. Max Checketts had already been named Vice President for Academics in January.
At the meeting President Wheelwright announced that Dr. Debbie Hippolite Wright — a BYUH alumna originally from New Zealand, a former social work professor and department chairperson who presently works for LDS Family Services in West Valley, Utah — would become the new Vice President for Student Development and Services, effective July 7.
Michael B. Bliss and William G. Neal will continue as Vice President for Administrative Services and Assistant to the President, respectively. Jim Nilson, current Chief Information Officer, will continue in that role with a new title, but will report to Checketts. Isileli Kongaika, current Vice President of Student Affairs, indicated at the outset he would step down after serving in the position for 12 years, but would remain at BYU-Hawaii; and V. Napua Baker, Vice President of University Advancement, had already planned to retire at the end of June.
President Wheelwright thanked the design team — consisting of William Neal, Arapata Meha, Susan Barton, Bret Ellis, Steve Tueller and David Lucero — and stressed that most of the new organization still focuses "mainly on functions and activities, not individuals, but there will be positions that are changing and some consolidation" going forward. "We will work with individuals on those," he said.
In keeping with the Board of Trustee's imperatives to raise the quality of BYU-Hawaii education while lowering the costs, President Wheelwright added that prior to the meeting university officials met with faculty and staff members aged 62-and-older to offer them a one-time early retirement incentive. "It's an optional program, strictly voluntary," he emphasized, with details to be worked out with the interested individuals.
Before the President's Council members listed the changes to their respective areas, Tueller explained the guiding principles and methodology the Design Team used to arrive at the reorganization. "A lot of how successful we are in terms of improving the quality of education depends on the operation," he said, adding that newly formed councils will replace most existing committees and provide correlation among the divisions.
Tueller also noted the Design Team formulated the reorganization focusing on functions, independent of the existing personalities, and based on four student-centered core processes extending from preparation to attend BYU-Hawaii through post-graduation: discipleship, academics, work and career preparation, and development. The team also outlined the leadership roles and guidelines for supervisors, who report to managers, who report to directors, who report directly to one of the President's Council members.
The members of the President's Council then listed their respective primary areas of responsibility.
For more complete details of the reorganization
Then President Wheelwright summarized the announcements by stressing, "This is a work in progress in terms of getting it all implemented. Our hope is to have as much of the new organization in place and aligned by the start of the Fall Semester. We think it will be prudent to ease things for the students if, in fact, we get as much of it in place as we possibly can. With regard to the transition, just as Isi's [Kongaika] position is transitioning, there are others of you who will have some transitions, and we'll be looking at individual situations one-by-one."
"One of the tasks of each of the vice presidents, as they implement this new organization, is to determine the appropriate sizing and grouping below the director level. There's still more work to be done there," he said, adding that the Design Team "has done a wonderful job in giving us a set of principles that we'll be following, but there is more work to be done as we go into activities and figure out what's the best next step."
Each faculty and staff member was given a handout of the new organization; and following the general meeting, faculty and staff held break-out meetings with their respective President's Council members.
— Photo by Monique Saenz