Maui Four Year College?
Someday...

Maui Four Year College

Maui probably will have a four-year State college someday-but there's no telling when that will be.

This seemed to be the message last week of University of Hawaii President Harlan Cleveland during a visit to Maui.

Speaking before the Maui Kiwanis Club, Cleveland said "there is room in our educational vision for a four-year public arts and science college on the island of Maui....

"When such a Maui four year college should come into being," he said, "how much it should cost, how closely it should be associated with Maui Community College-these are all questions that will be the product of much consultation, much debate, and eventually decisions by the State's political authorities."

Cleveland said that "personally" he feels that "the push for higher education by the citizens of this state will require us to develop colleges both in Oahu and in Maui and Hawaii Counties."

But he made it clear the decision was not in his hands, and that it might be a long time coming.

In his talk, Cleveland spoke very favorably of the concept of small four-year liberal arts colleges located outside of highly urban areas. It is a "brand of education", he said, that the State must provide "sooner or later".

In a press conference at Maui Community College, Cleveland said many people assume Maui can have a four-year college simply by building on to the existing two-year program at MCC.

However, he pointed out, the existing vocational program at MCC "has some feeling of being surrounded and enveloped by the liberal arts". This feeling, and this conflict between vocational programs and the liberal arts, might only be worsened if MCC was converted to a four-year college, he indicated.

He said the community college should be located where it is-in the center of Maui's population. A four-year liberal arts college, however, might be situated in a more rural area.

A new school should be designed to provide education for Maui's young people, and also should attract students from Oahu who seek a "smaller, less frenetic, less urban campus".

"Increasing," he said, "there is a reaction among young people against urban life."

Cleveland said the state college system currently handles about 37,000 students. The number of students is expected to increase to about 50,000 by 1976 and to 65,000 or 70,000 by the mid-1980s.

At the present time, about 30 per cent of Hawaii's high school graduates go on to college, Cleveland said. This figure will grow toward 50 per cent, he said, "because almost every family in Hawaii has a 'thing' about education, and we have to match those aspirations with faculty and facilities as best we can ....

"And I think we can do it," he said, "because there is such a warm feeling in Hawaii toward education and the University.

"A Maui four-year college, yes. A Maui four-year college...someday.

"It seems that in Hawaii, it is politically impossible to be against education, unlike other states where you can make speeches against the University and colleges, and get yourself elected to offices such as governor."