 Yeah, welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fiedel. It's one o'clock block and we're talking about HPU right now. We're talking about COVID and its effect on HPU and, you know, the plans about how to deal with the light at the end of the tunnel and who could be better for this discussion with the president of HPU, John Gotanda. Welcome to the show, John. Thank you. Thank you, Aloha, and I'm happy to be here. Let me let me put things in perspective and say that John is an attorney and he is the president since HPU since July 2016. I guess that means in a couple of months you'll be there four years. Born and raised in Hawaii, had an MBA from UH Minoa and took his doctor from the UH School of Law in 87. And then now it gets interesting, he was a staff attorney for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, that is something, District District of Columbia Circuit, DC Circuit, and then he joined Covington and Burling in Washington. It was a major American law firm, a huge big law firm, and he was an associate attorney there. Later joined another big firm, Goodwin Proctor in Boston. Then he got academic and went to Villanova as a law professor, became the associate dean for academic affairs and then for faculty research and then director of the, I guess the graduate program and then dean of the whole school of law until 2016 when he became the president of HPU, which was the largest private university in Hawaii. And that's quite a resume actually. And you are the perfect person to take the helm at that time and now and you know while we were in crisis. So it's probably been a real whirlwind for you. First, you came in and shortly thereafter Donald Trump came in as president and he changed the immigration rules and you know you have international background. I suppose that's one of the elements of your presidency at HPU. But all of a sudden it was hard to get students, international students to come around and that for the 50 years of HPU's lifetime that was a major element in your student body all of a sudden a barrier, a barrier to international students. So how has it been since that happened? Well actually from the international student perspective you know we actually haven't until actually COVID hit had any problems in getting international students. We hadn't at least getting them here and from a logistic standpoint wasn't the problem and we really didn't see really a dip in our international students much, much at all. You know nationally I know there was a trend to see a dip in international students but here at HPU we still attracted a lot of international students. We have really students from all over the world, students from Norway, students from Asia, students from South America and it really is a very very interesting international student body at HPU. We are ranked by the Chronicle of Higher Education as having the most diverse student population in the entire country for private university. Well I and I think that's a unique and special characteristic of HPU. I mean not only in Hawaii but in the country that you should have such a diverse student body. But has the student body the enrollment going up down or is it the same in your four years of guiding the university? Well this year has been actually one of our most interesting years. We started the year with applications hitting record numbers and then the COVID pandemic hit and we were sitting around saying how is this going to affect our deposits? And we kept our May 1 national commitment date but at the same time we're giving extensions to many people because we understand that circumstances have changed for many families. But as of May 1 our deposits have actually gone up about 16, 17 percent almost 20 percent which is is terrific in this climate to have you know applications and then deposits continue to be on the rise. And you know as you've talked about international students or international students deposits are actually up and and so we are looking forward to being back in the classroom in in August and to welcoming our new class. But at the same time we want to say to students that may be on the shelf because we have seen studies from from Simpson Scarborough a national leading research firm saying that that you know 15 to 20 percent of of the students that they've recently surveyed said they're now undecided about what the college plans are and we think that now is is really a great time to go to school and particularly for our Hawaii students it's a great time to stay local and so we actually instituted a stay local campaign where we're providing special tuition assistance to make HBU affordable for all local students. So but have as tuition gone down with the COVID in other words if I can't come to school and I have to deal on you know remote and all that is my tuition the same are those deposits the same you know as they would have been had the classroom has the classroom experience remain? Well if it's hard to say what would have happened if if COVID had not not hit and what what our class would look like you know maybe we'd be 30 percent of you know but but right now I'm happy really to be to have deposits up up 16 percent I think that in this climate in particular when we have seen declines being reported across the country but you know we plan to be back in person face to face now we did move online and be happy to talk a little bit about that because I think it was just a fascinating experience on our part. Yeah one other thing I mean is it what to what do you attribute to the you know the solidarity of the deposits and what is it it's it's got to be the you know the demographics of your student body demographics of their families who knows what I mean because a lot of people out there don't have jobs don't have money can't even buy food and clothing right now and here you have a student body that's that's pretty much you know ready ready to continue their education ready to pay what to what do you attribute that? I attribute it to the HBU education itself I think it's a very innovative highly personalized educational experience and and that's something that students want and the location of being in Hawaii is really I think an important factor you know Hawaii is viewed right now as one of the safest places in the world and one of the healthiest places yeah knock wood knock wood on knock on wood on that but you know when when the pandemic hit we had over 50 percent of our students remain in our dorms we gave them the option to continue their studies from wherever they they chose to but many decided to stay in the end and and in part I think what we saw particularly from and heard from their parents was that Hawaii was viewed as a safe location and HPU was viewed as an institution that would take good care of their students see that's very important but I some students like from the mainland must have gone home I mean not to say that was a good decision on their part but they must have left you know with the discombobulation of the crisis and some students from Asia must have gone back to Asia that might not have been a good decision either so you were able to hold what percentage here you know despite you know the departure of others it's hard to tell the percentage of students who didn't live off off who didn't live on campus but on campus we held over 50 percent that's great so you're talking about the dorms and I you know I guess I really wasn't focused on that but if you have students living in dorms that that can be a risky business at the time of COVID you know they're close proximity and so forth share facilities share space eating what have you and they study together they're within inches of each other how do you make it safe in a dormitory environment well you know all of our instruction once the state issued the shelter in place order did move online and and but our other facilities particularly for our dorm students our residential students remain you know our peer nine dining facility for example remained open but it remained open for takeout only you know we had appropriate social distancing protocols put in place we had enhanced cleaning procedures put in place we reduced because you know some students left we were able to reduce the density and spread students out of it in our dorms and and we put in protocols really to help keep everyone safe and and I think they worked well sounds like it have you had any cases not not in our dorms no okay knocking wood knocking wood yeah okay that's that's really good and that does you know support the notion that it's a safe environment for students so you were talking about you know moving to remote technology I think I heard you say that even before COVID you were moving toward remote technology and you were online maybe courses were you doing what do they call it mook mooks type courses or or moving in your own way toward online education well Hoy Pacific University is is rated the number one online university in Hawaii we are have a lot of experience with online education and so when the order a shelter in place order came down and we had been planning actually for for weeks we saw this coming and so our faculty was prepared you know that's true if you were looking carefully at the newspapers if you were thinking international say in the month of January as early as very early January you could have seen it coming I guess that's what you're saying yeah and and that preparation I think helped helped us a lot because it wasn't so much a scramble in the end and then our faculty because many of them had taught online and in our face-to-face program on ground program they were able to really transition with with really out missing a beat there and even the ones who had not taught online really embraced this as an opportunity to to ensure really that the students got the same high quality education and in the same sort of HP personalized way and and really they were able to accomplish that but beyond that a lot of our services then picked up and moved online really seamlessly we moved our tutoring services online we moved our counseling services online we moved our library services online even uh interlibrary loan and was able to be moved uh online for students what is that what is interlibrary loan that that's a student needs for example access we have 24 7 access to a reference librarian and they need to find a particular book uh periodical passage and we can get them that even online and it's I think and and deliver to them in an online sort of format so I think this was you know being able to move all of these services online was was I think relatively unique and then on top of that we move all the student activities online so everything like what what kind of student activities are you talking about because either you can't go to a ball field online right but you know movie night moved online fitness moved online everything from from yoga lessons to to mixed martial arts fitness classes they moved online student government meetings and activities moved online the student talent show moved online we even had concerts with with mainland artists that held chat sessions with our students and so he would play a song and then he would engage in a chat about that song with the student it was just fascinating to see how an a new online format would change the way that that a performance would be done because if he were performing here on campus you know at at aloha taller for example there wouldn't be that interaction uh with our students it was really quite fascinating of course they don't get that big in-person sort of live experience but they got a different type of experience which they never would have had but for this this kind of uh that's true if you're in an audience of uh thousands of people and somewhere in the distance is a stage where people are performing that's one kind of experience and frankly that's not my cup of tea i don't know if it's your cup of tea i'd really rather be close to you know the person i'm engaging with i'd rather be like this with you um you know then then see you at a distance even if that's in the flesh so um you can do a lot more and it sounds like it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing the question the question is what what systems are you using is it is it zoom uh is it is it uh sysco web x uh is it not there's a number of others uh how are you achieving this technology well we use a number of different platforms but blackboard is is our main sort of um platform uh but then for some others we've used microsoft teams and some others we've we've uh occasionally use you do zoom too but yeah we will be able to use the technology to ensure that our students still got that that personalized education and that experience of the skills um building that that they would have got in person too so for example uh you know there's team working skills that we want students to develop we still held collaboration sessions online we still held presentations online where students could develop their communication skills and students would would come in and do even their capstone project online their capstone project online was viewed by 900 people this year we've never had more than a hundred people view it in person uh when we've held it in person it was because the those who are older what is a capstone project sure it's it's at the end of their the seniors uh typically do a presentation uh and and as part of their sort of senior project and it could be on anything from uh something about Shakespeare to uh to a study that they've done i've seen one done on a time lapse photography of of uh one year of uh of the tides uh you know where they put these cameras up on buildings to see how the tide have changed over over time uh and so they're just some very fascinating ones that just everything moved online so the students did a video presentation which people could come in and watch and then they would be standing by in a a video chat room where you could then join afterward and talk to them about the presentation ask them questions about what they thought of and why did they do something a certain way what they've learned out of it uh it was a terrific interactive experience that we were able to have even online it sounds great and it sounds like um you know it's the kind of it's a keeper is what it is and someday whether it's august or later and and you know you you reopen the university for physical contact again um you're gonna keep this stuff are you gonna keep doing it uh or you're gonna leave it behind because uh it does seem to have a long-term value doesn't it does it does and i think some of the things we learned um we clearly want to carry forward one of the things we learned too on this was uh our admitted student receptions uh were cancelled you know we hold these all across the country and typically we have about 600 or so uh people in in these in-person uh attendance recruiting is that what it is that's right uh this year though we moved everything online and we were fortunate to again we recognize this was coming and so before the shelter in place orders uh came in place uh we shot a lot of video and did a lot of recordings so we put together i think just a first rate admitted student reception and then at the same time held live live chats for people viewing it we had 2100 people uh households participate in the admitted student receptions this year well that's that's consistent with what i read about you about how you you you were the innovator at uh Villanova law school um and they really liked that in Villanova because you kept coming up with new ideas and that's what it sounds like now i remember we did a movie in the esports facility uh that you came up with for aloha power that was very impressive uh and it expands um you know it ultimately expands the student body because it's an outreach thing um to the whole community but you know one thing it strikes me is you know this is part of the change we're talking about so in order to do all these innovative things and use the technology that costs money i mean there must be a number of people who can implement that technology for you and who will continue to implement that at the same time the classical model of the professor standing in front of the class with a blackboard handing out papers whatever um that's that's not as it's me i use the term sexy that's not as sexy going forward and you know i would say things things have got to change they are changing and query what about the faculty um do you see as many faculty more faculty less faculty what about the classical administrators is that going to change when i can see clearly that the the tech the tech people are going to expand because this is this is the future but what about the rest of the university well our faculty and i think the entire uh hp community is one that really is now known for innovation uh and you know we're a mid-sized institution we're we're large enough and broad enough that we can offer wide array of programs we're small enough that we can be nimble and and we are nimble and and really innovative and i think the entire university including our faculty have have embraced that so particularly on the faculty side you know they've rolled up their sleeve um dived in and said how can we make the experience for the students even better and how going forward can we take the lessons that we've learned from this experience and adapt it for for the future and so they're talking about doing some really innovative things in the fall like like in the capstones how can we take the best of of what we've learned now and move that forward and and create new experiences for the students i do think what we're going to see going forward is less of of some uh you know professor standing in the front of the room and simply lecturing to students on something that they can either read in a book or or view you know at at a different time and more of the time in the classroom spent on interaction on on group projects on learning on being able to interact with with your professor and your colleagues i think that is what hbu is about it's really that personalized individualized educational experience now you and you talked about steps steps to reopening and i i mean i know for myself i'm i'm not about to you know jump out there in a crowd right now and i wouldn't want my family to do that either um and in fact for me it's personally it's steps and it's steps that include a mask and if i had the access to testing uh i mean if it was non-invasive type of testing i would take advantage of that and i would be very aware of other people wearing masks and and being as conscientious as i would be so how do you do that with the university how do you do that when you want to get back into the classroom when you want to take care of those kids in the dormitories what are the steps of what do you call it personal protection and how do you how do you go down that channel well we're doing a number of things to plan for the fall where for example taking already sort of instituted enhanced cleaning procedures in all of all of our facilities we're we're also instituting enhanced social distancing protocols you're going to see the classrooms the density in the classroom in the seating space greatly reduced in fact we've already gone through our classrooms and and started that process we are seeing sort of um plexiglass shield barriers in stores you've probably already seen them already you'll see them also at the hbu counters you know in our student services center we have a one-stop shop where students can come in to one place for various things but in there you will see these these put up in place to protect really the health and and safety of our entire community and so you know at in our dorms where you know there's a picture of aloha tower marketplace and that's where our student dorms are located there you've also see a reduced sort of density there and we're going to also institute health screening procedures to ensure really again that that all of our our students our faculty and staff are really in a really healthy and safe environment so will i see students wearing masks in the fall will i see faculty wearing masks in the fall well it's a requirement right now you know if you're growing out uh you know it in the city and county of honolulu and this state of hawaii in public places you need to wear a mask and so one we're going to adhere to to everything that's going on but but we're instituting actually even more sort of best practices to keep our entire community healthy including as i said in hand screen procedures you know we are looking to to have everyone uh screened daily you know to ensure that that really our community is is healthy and safe so we've been showing pictures of your various facilities the one we have up now is the waterfront plaza you took uh what a hundred thousand square feet of space there a couple years ago um but uh most of your student body is is participating by remote now that space must be empty and yet you still have to pay the landlord whatever negotiated rate there was that's just one property another property be pioneer plaza i don't know if our staff can show that one that's the model progress building we're looking at that's you moved out of that when you moved into these other spaces uh pioneer plaza you have like 50 000 feet there um same thing although i think that's a lot largely administration and um hawaii law i don't know if hawaii law is still active i don't know if you still have it i thought you were going to sell it at some point um so the question is uh you have various campuses and various properties that you've been expanding i mean the word expanding into over the over your tenure and now we find everybody's remote and and you know the rent i i don't want to do a mental calculation but all of all of these you know spaces are costing hundreds of thousands per month um and there's nobody using them so how does that work john absolutely true and and there's no question that that the covid pandemic has really uh hit the the bottom line of every university uh in the country you know including uh hbu you know and to add to that we have a lower tower marketplace which is a retail a mixed retail facility so we saw that events uh came to a standstill we saw that our parking revenues came to a standstill and we saw that that our tenants there were forced to close and so you know it has been really a tremendous you know financial hit to us but at the same time you know i think that our entire community has has really come together and pulled together to help the university sort of move forward and and you know one of the things that that i'm proud of is is during this pandemic you know we have not laid off or furloughed anyone in fact our entire senior leadership has taken pay cuts to make sure that that has happened because we are a community i always say we're a community that cares about community and i think that that hawai pacific university even in difficult times we've seen our entire community pull together and come together to move us forward i know you have an active board and um i know you have uh have very passionate um supporters out there in the community um and you know i mean some of them probably affected by covid also but query have they have they stepped up uh in order to help you in this time of distress have have have your contributions been as good or better or have they been less uh in the past calendar quarter oh absolutely they've stepped up and and they they are so generous in giving not only of their time um but really of the wealth and helping financially support the university even even in difficult times and and actually this year we're still on track to have one of you know the best fundraising uh years ever in the history of of hpu notwithstanding the pandemic so we're coming into uh see we're in may we're cruising our way through may here it's like it's like stumbling through the calendar and and the and the presidential press conferences one day at a time um soon enough it's going to be graduation time and i remember attending hpu graduations in the past it was phenomenal all the people that came down and and oh the vitality of the whole affair and all the students and uh how are you going to do graduation here coming soon and end of may early june what's it going to look like well unfortunately and well the backup as you point out hpu graduations are special i i think we actually know how to put on just a terrific show and and an event and and in fact it's it really is i think the the most spectacular uh graduation in in the state uh and and particularly now that we hold it at aloha tower with aloha tower in the backdrop it is just a fabulous graduation ceremony unfortunately you know at the moment we cannot uh hold a graduation ceremony in person you know so we we've hold the students and we've we've they would like to wait until it's safe for them to do so to have an official graduation ceremony so we are definitely going to do one uh when it's safe to do so in the meantime though we've got all kinds of special events sort of planned online and and sort of uh and working with each individual student that personalized uh touch to hpu is going to continue i say to them once you're a member of aloha you're always a member of aloha and and so even though you know we can't they can't be here in person uh we are still going to to help celebrate with them and to make sure that that they are still remain in touch and that when it's safe to do so we're going to welcome them back and and give them just one of the best graduation ceremonies they've ever seen my last question because we're really out of time john is you know when we come out at the end of the tunnel on this and you can hopefully soon do what you want to do expand or re or re re expand reimagine reinvent hpu in a way that that takes advantage of all the lessons that you have learned all the innovation you want to put into it um what's it going to look like and before you answer that question i want to tell you that i think higher education in this state including all the institutions of higher education could do a better job in bringing in postgraduate people not on not on a curricula that will lead to a degree but just for community education and when you have when you have remote learning when you have a call it zoom type learning you can reach that body of people you can entertain me on my computer where i spend so much time anyway and you can bring me into courses that will make my life better and that hasn't really happened up to now with any of the schools of higher education in hawaii um and maybe that's part of the future for you anyway i i don't want to answer my own question what's it going to look like well hpu is just constantly evolving you know we're not going to wait until after this is all over to to implement changes we we're already sort of we've learned and and we've innovated uh and and part of innovation is trying sort of new things uh and retooling and we're constantly just doing that at uh at hpu so we're already incorporating the lessons learned we're already sort of um looking toward the future we actually have uh at this point what we call a planning for the future's uh task force that that their sole sort of function right now is okay the pandemics over picture that and how are are we going to capitalize on on this you know at hpu uh we're often found the saying we're never going to let a good crisis go to waste you know and so i'm going to quit we are we are going to be right there figuring out as you've said ways to help our community and to move the institution forward and one of those ways is actually right now we're looking at ramping up particularly our workforce training and workforce development uh and and postgraduate sort of training for our community because we know that there is it's going to be a big need for this and and we want to be there to help our entire community and so we also are looking at what are the best best platforms uh to do this too and and we want to be flexible in our our approaches and so you know we're already on top of it and and moving forward and you're going to likely see us roll that out just in actually in the coming weeks fabulous wow wow i guess i was on the right track there uh john gotan the president of hawaii pacific university so nice to visit with you we wish you well we've been your neighbor at pioneer plaza for a long time and we we wish you well in all particulars thank you so much john thank you mahalo aloha aloha