<Begin Segment 38>

MM: As you look back on your career, what, do you have favorite anecdotes, life in academia, or life in academic administration?

RK: Funny, I can't think of any offhand. Of course, we professors are a funny breed. We're human, only more so. So the foibles are interesting. When we were converting the technical schools to the community colleges, I met with the technical school faculty and many of them were nervous and not sure they wanted this change. They were very proud of their technical schools, as they should be. And I still remember this one person who was quite adamant about not making the change but he knew it was inevitable. Later on that week I went to my dry cleaners and the lady says to me, "You know So and so?" "Yeah," I said. "You know, he's so happy he's gonna be university professor, he's at a technical school now." [Laughs] He's the same person. So I get, I get him publicly in this stance and then privately he's saying to his dry cleaner...

MM: That he's happy.

RK: Yeah. And people were afraid that so much of life is a status, of being status conscious. And they look upon the community colleges as being inferior to the university. And I said to myself, we should accept the community colleges. They serve a real purpose just as honorable as any other institution. And I said to myself, once I stop reading the social columns and I said, "Miss So-and-so, Mary got married, Mary is a graduate of Maui community college." I said, "Once we make it on those social pages, I think we're in." And lo and behold, that happened.

But one of the wonderful things is, speaking of opening educational opportunity, Maui High School got an early start and we attracted many students, older students who were waiting for this chance to get a liberal arts education. And several of them later on went on to get baccalaureate degrees at the university. So we have this picture of Tom Hamilton, the president of the university, awarding degrees to these proud graduates of Maui Community College who got the baccalaureate degrees and some of them went on to graduate degrees. But that's one aspect of community college success. But of course, the other one is some of my friends in this wealthy neighborhood where we built, we re-located Kapiolani Community College. They didn't want... we took over an old army establishment, Fort Ruger, converted that. I went over to talk to their commanding general at Schofield Barracks and saying, "I understand that Fort Ruger's gonna be declared surplus property and we're gonna apply to turn it over to the University of Hawaii. We're gonna move Kapiolani Community College which is in a small piece of land behind McKinley High School, we're gonna bring it to Fort Ruger." The general says, "Oh, yeah, you can have it, all except the Cannon Club." The Cannon Club was the officer's club beside, on the slopes of Diamond Head which overlooks the whole Waikiki skyline. And I've been there because I was a reserve officer, too. We had nice parties and it was a great place for dinners. And he says, "All except that." So we got, Kapiolani Community College is located there. And by the way, most recently the army has given up Cannon Club and Kapiolani is gonna take that over as the culinary institute. I mean, we have to, probably destroy the old building.

MM: That's right

RK: But anyway, coming back to the original when we were gonna move the community college there, it's a pretty good upper-middle class neighborhood, and some of them objected to the traffic, and usually that's the... but they don't think much of the community college. But now I find many of my friends, they are very happy that community, Kapiolani Community College is there and taking full advantage, going to the library, seeing the art shows, but also taking classes. Because continuing... I think the community colleges do an excellent job of continuing education. So it's really helped the whole neighborhood.

MM: The other thing about community colleges is that they have the capacity to really become a part of the community, embed themselves in the community.

RK: Exactly. Yeah.

MM: As you've mentioned.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 2004 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.