The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is a public land-grant research university in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Hawaiʻi system and houses the main offices of the system. Most of the campus occupies the eastern half of the mouth of Mānoa Valley on Oahu, with the John A. Burns School of Medicine located adjacent to Kakaʻako Waterfront Park.
UH offers over 200 degree programs across 17 colleges and schools. It is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission and governed by the Hawaii State Legislature and a semi-autonomous board of regents. It is also a member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities.
Mānoa is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". It is a land-grant university that also participates in the sea-grant, space-grant, and sun-grant research consortia; it is one of only three such universities in the country to participate in all four consortia (Oregon State University and Pennsylvania State University are the others). UH and its subsidiary, the Applied Research Laboratory, is one of only fourteen University Affiliated Research Centers (UARC) of the United States Department of Defense and is one of five UARCs in the country for the United States Navy.
Notable UH alumni include Patsy Mink, Robert Ballard, Richard Parsons, and the parents of Barack Obama – Barack Obama Sr. and Stanley Ann Dunham. 44 percent of Hawaii's state senators and 51 percent of its state representatives are UH graduates.
History
Founding The University of Hawai'i at Manoa was founded in 1907 as a land-grant college of agriculture and mechanical arts establishing "the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Territory of Hawaiʻi and to Provide for the Government and Support Thereof". The bill, backed by Maui Senator William J. Huelani Coelho through the initiatives of Native Hawaiian legislators, a newspaper editor, petition of an Asian American bank cashier, and a president of Cornell University, was introduced into the Territorial Legislature March 1, 1907 as Act 24. It was signed into law March 25, 1907 by Governor George Carter, which officially established the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Territory of Hawaiʻi under a five-member Board of Regents on the corner of Beretania and Victoria streets (now the location of the Honolulu Museum of Art School).
The Board of Regents first selected J.E. Roadhouse of the University of California to head the new college in October 1907 but he had died before leaving Berkeley. With classes scheduled to start in February 1908, the regents persuaded Willis T. Pope, vice principal of the Territorial Normal School, to head the college for its first semester. In Spring 1908, the regents appointed John W. Gilmore, professor of agriculture at Cornell University, as the college's first president. The Cornell connection would strongly influence the shaping of the new college, even today. It officially became an institution of higher learning on September 14, 1908, when it enrolled 5 freshmen registered for a bachelor of science degree. Willis T. Pope went on to become the Superintendent of Public Instruction in the Territory of Hawai’i from 1910 until 1913 and later a professor of botany and horticulture at the university.
In September 1912 it moved to its present location in Mānoa Valley on 90 acres of land that had been cobbled together from leased and private lands and was renamed the College of Hawaii. William Kwai Fong Yap, a cashier at Bank of Hawaii, and a group of citizens petitioned the Hawaii Territorial Legislature six years later for university status which led to another renaming finally to the University of Hawaiʻi on April 30, 1919, with the addition of the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Applied Science.
In the years following, the university expanded to include more than 300 acres. In 1931 the Territorial Normal School was absorbed into the university, becoming Teacher's College, now the College of Education.
20th century The university continued its growth throughout the 1930s and 1940s increasing from 232 to 402 acres. The number of buildings grew from 4 to 17. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, classes were suspended for two months while the Corps of Engineers occupied much of the campus, including the Teacher's College, for various purposes. The university's ROTC program was put into active duty, which made the campus resemble a military school. When classes resumed on February 11, 1942, about half of the student and faculty body left to enter the war or military service. Students who returned to campus found classes cancelled due to lack of faculty and were required to carry gas masks to classes and bomb shelters were kept at a ready. Once the war was over, student enrollment grew faster than the university had faculty and space for.
In 1947, the university opened an extension center in Hilo on Hawaiʻi Island in the old Hilo Boarding School. In 1951, Hilo Center was designated the University of Hawaii Hilo Branch before its reorganization by an act of the Hawaiʻi State Legislature in 1970.
By the 1950s, enrollment increased to more than 5,000 students, and the university had expanded to include a Graduate Division, College of Education, College of Engineering, College of Business Administration, College of Tropical Agriculture, and College of Arts and Sciences.
When Hawaiʻi was granted statehood in 1959, the university became a constitutional agency rather than a legislative agency with the Board of Regents having oversight over the university. Enrollment continued to grow to 19,000 at the university through the 1960s and the campus became nationally recognized in research and graduate education.
In 1965, the state legislature created a system of community colleges and placed it within the university at the recommendations of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's report on higher education in Hawaii and UH President Thomas H. Hamilton. By the end of the 1960s, the University of Hawaiʻi was very different from what it had since its beginning. It had become larger and with the addition of the community colleges, a broad range of activities extending from vocational education to community college education, which were all advanced through research and postdoctoral training.
The university was renamed the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa to distinguish it from other campuses in the University of Hawaiʻi System in 1972.
Campus
Organization and administration The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa operates within the University of Hawaiʻi System, which is governed by an 11-member board of regents who are nominated by the Regents Candidate Advisory Council, appointed by the governor, and confirmed by the State of Hawaiʻi legislature. The board also appoints the president of the University of Hawaiʻi System, who provides leadership for all 10 campuses, including as the chief executive of UH Mānoa. Day-to-day academic and operational management of UH Mānoa is the responsibility of the Provost.
University of Hawaiʻi president (pre-1965) When UH began as the College of Hawaiʻi, Willis T. Pope was acting dean from 1907 to 1908, despite declining the title of "acting president." Since that initial period, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has always been led by a president, chancellor, or provost, including interim or acting roles.
From 1908 to 1965, the president of the University of Hawaiʻi, before the creation of the University of Hawaii System (UH System), was chief executive of the university. Technical and community colleges and Hilo College operated separately from what would later become the UH System.
+No. Image President Term of office Notes - - Willis T. Pope 1907–1908 Was "acting dean" until the Board of Regents could hire a permanent president. 1 John W. Gilmore 1908–1913 A graduate of Cornell University and an agriculture professor who established schools in China and the Philippines. Forced to resign. - - John Donaghho (acting) 1913–1914 - 2 - Arthur L. Dean 1914–1927 A graduate of Harvard, he oversaw the transformation of the College of Hawaiʻi into the University of Hawaiʻi and growth of the university from 21 students to 874. 3 - David L. Crawford 1927–1941 - - Arthur R. Keller (acting) 1941–1942 4 - Gregg M. Sinclair 1942–1955 - 5 - Paul S. Bachman 1955–1957 Died in office just 14 months after taking office. - - Willard Wilson (acting) 1957–1958 Was acting president after the death of Paul S. Bachman. 6 - Laurence H. Snyder 1958–1963 - 7 - Thomas H. Hamilton 1963–1968 Was president of the university until 1965 and both as president and chancellor from 1965 to 1968. Resigned amid protests related to the Vietnam War and controversial faculty tenure cases.
Creation of the University of Hawaiʻi System In 1965, the Hawaii State Legislature created the University of Hawaiʻi System, which incorporated the technical and community colleges into the university. The President's role was expanded to include oversight of the new university system. +No Image President Term of office Notes 7 - Thomas H. Hamilton 1963–1968 Was president of the university until 1965 and both as president and chancellor from 1965 to 1968. Resigned amid protests related to the Vietnam War and controversial faculty tenure cases. - - Robert W. Hiatt (acting) 1968–1969 - - - Richard S. Takasaki (acting) 1969 -8 Harlan Cleveland 1969–1974 A graduate of Princeton University. Created UH Hilo and appointed the first chancellor for the university. Resigned in the fall of 1973.
Introduction of the chancellor role In 1974, the role of chancellor was established to handle campus-specific leadership, allowing the UH President to focus on system-wide governance.
Presidents No Image President Term of office Notes 9 - Fujio Matsuda 1974–1984 Retired from the university. Chancellors 1974–1984: multiple chancellors
Return to combined leadership (1984–2001) In 1984, the role of the chancellor was dissolved and the president resumed direct oversight of UH Mānoa. +No Image President Term of office Notes10 - Albert J. Simone 1984–1992 Resigned in late 1991 to become president of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). - - Paul C. Yuen (acting) 1992–1993 -11 - Kenneth P. Mortimer 1993–2001 -
Reintroduction of the chancellor (2001–2017) In 2001, the position of chancellor was re-established by UH System president Evan Dobelle over conflict of interest concerns.
Presidents No Image President Term of office Notes 12 - Evan S. Dobelle 2001–2004 13 -David McClain2004–200914 -M.R.C. Greenwood2009–2013Retired at the end of 2013. +ChancellorsNo Image President Term of office Notes - - Deane Neubauer (interim) 2001–2002 - 1 - Peter Englert 2002–2005 - - - Denise Konan 2005–2007 - 2 Virginia Hinshaw 2007–2012 - 3 - Tom Apple 2012–2014 - - - Robert Bley-Vroman (interim) 2014–2017 -
President and provost (2017–present) The Provost role was established to handle the academic and operational affairs of UH Mānoa, while the President served as the chief executive of the university and retained overall UH System leadership. This reorganization was made to create a governance structure similar to other major research universities, such as the University of Washington and Indiana University. +PresidentsNo Image President Term of office Notes15 David Lassner 2017–2024 Appointed as president of the University of Hawaii System in 2014 and provided directed oversight of the university in 2017 when the Board of Regents removed the role of the chancellor.16 - Wendy Hensel 2025–present - +ProvostsNo Image President Term of office Notes1 - Michael S. Bruno 2019–2025 Bruno announced he would be stepping down as Provost effective July 1, 2025, returning as an Ocean Engineering Professor in the university's School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. - -Vassilis Syrmos