New University of Hawaii President Wendy Hensel, who’s going into her fourth week on the job, said she supports Gov. Josh Green’s plans to replace Aloha Stadium in a New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District and will look at the ramifications of taking UH athletics from a Division I to a Division II program after she was asked about it during her first appearance before a joint hearing of two Senate committees.

The issues and questions raised during a UH budget briefing Jan. 17 before the Senate Ways and Means and Higher Education committees face universities across the country, Hensel said.

They include what to do with university properties such as College Hill, which was originally to be used for the UH president but remains unoccupied and has fallen into disrepair.

State Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, who chairs the Senate Higher Education Committee, asked many of the more difficult questions on topics including UH’s backlog of repairs and maintenance at a time when UH continues to expand its online learning opportunities and whether UH athletics should move to Division II status because of its struggling athletic financial situation that relies on state funding.

“These are not simple issues,” Hensel told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “If these were easy things to do, they would have been done.”

The question over UH’s status as a Division I athletics program, she said, represents just one part of the “constantly evolving question of collegiate athletics.”

Her responses received praise from Kim and Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

They had grown increasingly frustrated with former UH President David Lassner but said they appreciated that Hensel talked to them ahead of the budget briefing.

They also said they liked that Hensel repeatedly offered university perspectives from across the mainland and that she said she will return with UH recommendations about the topics they raised.

Hensel also impressed the UH community by frequently speaking up during the nearly four-hour hearing when senators were clearly growing frustrated at UH administrators who could not immediately provide answers to their questions, said political analyst Neal Milner, former chair of the political science department at UH-Manoa and UH’s ombudsman.

“She stepped in at a good time and it was a way to establish calmness,” Milner said. “She tried to give them (UH administrators) some cover and some time. If I was her, I’d say, ‘You owe me for that.’”

That the hearing began by focusing on UH athletics was intentional, Milner said.

The senators wanted to put Hensel “on the defense,” he said. “They wanted to start with a dominant position and where else to do it by starting with athletics and football? The athletic program is constantly in the red, which is true of 95% of the universities where football funds other sports.”

Hensel told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that UH has begun to organize a search committee and hire a search firm to find a new athletic director after Lassner fired Craig Angelos in November.

Hensel’s first Senate committee appearance had a far different, more respectful tone compared to the “nasty interrogation that those senators have done in the past,” Milner said. “This committee is always looking for some way to pick at you.”

But the five-month legislative session has not even reached the two-week point and Hensel’s honeymoon period may not last, he said.

Hensel comes in at a time for UH where fall enrollment for freshmen at the flagship Manoa campus set a new record, among other accomplishments under Lassner.

“She’s not taking over a broken university,” Mayor Rick Blangiardi — a UH alum, football captain and former defensive coordinator — told the Star-Advertiser.

“She’s really looking at unleashing the power of this university,” Blangiardi said. “With its status in the world of academia, she wants to take it to an entirely different level. And I cannot support that enough, not only as a proud alum but understanding full well what that means for the future of Hawaii. How do you go from great to greater, and that’s what this is about.”

Blangiardi met Hensel at a reception to welcome her hosted by Bank of Hawaii CEO Peter Ho at the bank’s Ka Nu‘u Ho‘oulu Conference Center.

“She’s confident, she’s articulate, she’s enthusiastic and more than anything she’s likable,” Blangiardi said. “That ability to relate to people goes a long way.

“In my experience in life, I look for authenticity. I look for real people and I look for passionate people. I told Wendy in private, you’ve got these qualities. … I thought she said all the right stuff. She has great energy. Her vision was bold. She’s somebody who talks like they’re going to play to win versus play not to lose. I was inspired by her.”

Green talked with Hensel by phone when she was a finalist and again after UH regents unanimously selected her to succeed Lassner.

Green then met Hensel in person when he invited her and her husband to join him and other leaders for dinner with first lady Jaime Green at their residence on the grounds of Washington Place.

He called Hensel “very impressive. I found her to be very warm and I like her positive vibe. I like the fact that she comes from a big university system (City University of New York) and has experience running the whole system.”

Hensel told the group about her family background that included the death of her first husband of a heart attack at age 40.

Before she was offered the job in Hawaii, Hensel and her second husband, Kenton Dudley, brought their only son and youngest of four children, Luke Hensel, 23, to a program for autistic adults in Denver.

“He’s got a great apartment and graduates in December with a computer science degree,” Hensel told the Star-Advertiser.

Hensel’s experience raising a child with special needs touched Green.

“I was extremely impressed by her life experience with her child and how she is supportive and believes they should thrive, but is also helping them to be independent,” Green said. “That’s a very telling story that will inform how she will likely help UH students be prepared for life. It recommends her even more to me.”

Green also was glad that Hensel spoke early to key legislators, especially in the Senate following years of acrimony between them and Lassner.

Green, who served in the Senate, said, “I’m going to be involved as a friendly sounding board, and I’ve encouraged her to have friendly relationships with the Senate and the House because that’s a healthy thing. … They’ve been reached out to and I think they appreciate it.”

Hensel and Dudley are avid sports fans and already have embraced UH athletics in a state with no professional sports franchise.

Hensel represents the first UH president to watch the UH sailing team compete, and every UH game or event that she has attended ended in a win — “men’s and women’s basketball, men’s volleyball and sailing and baseball next weekend,” she said.

She and Dudley are renting a house in East Honolulu but plan to “put down roots” after their lease runs out, Hensel said.

The first mug that Hensel bought in Hawaii has a message on it “that says, ‘Let the adventure begin’ and it certainly has,” she said.

For the Legislature and for the rest of Hawaii, Green said that Hensel’s role taking over the 10-campus UH system represents “a fresh start.”

“I’m only two years in (as governor) so she comes in as part of the new leadership,” Green said. “But time will tell whether she ends up being a good fit and Hawaii’s a good fit for her.”