Sadly, the College of Education Faculty Senate recently voted to accept (with significant reservations) the University of Hawaii’s “invitation” to abandon its 93-year-old home — the 15.4-acre complex sitting on non-ceded land along University Avenue — and move into a to-be-constructed Snyder Hall replacement building on McCarthy Mall.

Historic Wist Hall and Castle Memorial Hall will be “repurposed”; the other four “permanent” structures and 14 portables likely will be razed or relocated so UH can engage a developer to create a residential/commercial venture tentatively called College Town, providing a revenue stream of future rent for the university.

(The Children’s Center has been promised space in a to-be-constructed building behind Burns Hall. The University Lab School could simply be evicted, as it is not formally a part of UH.)

The monetizing of the property is an example of UH prioritizing greed over its academic mission. Sad, indeed, for an institution of higher education.

David Sherrill

Kapahulu

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