A call to explore moving the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s College of Pharmacy to UH-Manoa failed to gain traction in the Legislature this year, but the resolution’s sponsor says it’s a question that is likely to come up again.
House Resolution 100, sponsored by state Rep. Richard Creagan, D-Naalehu, requested that the university system study the feasibility of swapping the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources with the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy.
Creagan argues that CTAHR is better suited for Hawaii Island’s robust agriculture industry, while the pharmacy school belongs near the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu.
The legislator, who is an emergency room physician at Kona Community Hospital, said Wednesday that his primary goal was to raise the question about relocating CTAHR to Hawaii Island.
“I put both ideas back on the table,” he said. “I mean, I’m not the first one to come up with either one of those things. In fact, many, many, many people here have opinions on both those issues. But, most people support the idea of CTAHR going to the Big Island. They think that makes great sense. … It would make sense that at least part of CTAHR should move to the Big Island. That issue, generally, there’s fairly strong support on.”
Moving the pharmacy college, however, was an idea that generated a lot of pushback, primarily from Hawaii Island delegates, Creagan said.
“The issue of pharmacy coming back (to Oahu), also has a lot of support, except for the Hilo people,” he said. “But the reality is, there doesn’t seem to be the political will to make that change. I think that will happen in the future, because the model of the pharmacy school of bringing in all these out-of-state people at very high tuitions won’t be sustainable because, one, our state is actually oversupplied with pharmacists at this point. We don’t need any new pharmacists in this state.”
Creagan pointed to a discussion at a June 2012 Hawaii Board of Pharmacy meeting in which board members remarked on a national trend that has quickly gone from a pharmacist shortage to an oversaturation of new pharmacists.
Maggie Morris, spokeswoman for the College of Pharmacy, said she thought Creagan’s opinion was based more on “a bias against the College of Pharmacy for some unknown reason.”
“It does seem incongruent that Rep. Creagan’s proposed move of the college to Oahu somehow addresses his new concern regarding a surplus,” she said. “What I can say is that we work on a national and global level, and our source is our national organization, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, whose leaders tell us our profession is strong.”
Creagan’s resolution failed to advance in the House of Representatives after its initial introduction on March 13. While the legislator says that he likely won’t raise the issue of moving the College of Pharmacy again, it is sure to come up in the future.
He added that UH-Hilo should focus on doing what it does best — serving undergraduate students.
“It’s a gem of public undergraduate education,” he said of the campus, adding that he attended classes there. “With reasonable tuition, small class size, faculty who are rewarded for teaching rather than research. And yet, they’re trying to put this graduate education on there, and I think it’s a major distraction from their real goal, which is, combined with Hawaii Community College, to provide entrance into and through a bachelor’s degree, and that’s what people need.”
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.